You will not be good at everything.
No, don’t smile that condescending, knowing smile. I hate it when we do that. Listen to me right now because I know you’ve forgotten because it’s what we do, what any human does, when things are going super well: Remember that you will not be good at everything.
I am telling you this because you dream dreams beyond your means and you think you can just breeze in through the door of life’s goodness and count on blessings offered to you on bronzed platters at the very least and that is not always true.
I’m telling you this because when the way is obstructed, when it’s hard to walk forward, when the hoops you need to jump through to get to the front porch of life’s goodness are tight and tiny and unending, when all this and more happens, you will blame yourself and tear yourself down and spend hours pondering which of your moral deficiencies it was that caused your problems and that is not the way forward.
I’m telling you this because you’ve forgotten your participation awards in favor of memories of your trophies and that won’t do either. You will not be good at everything.
The most instructive exercise you ever undertook in your adult life was not living in another country for a year, because once you’re past the bureaucracy and have figured out how to work around the time difference, it’s not so different from moving to a new city. You’d have the same culture shock and thinned support network if you moved to LA or Seattle. The main differences between Scotland and the US west coast are haggis and how expensive it is to come home. Nor was it enrolling in a masters program in a different field and education system from what you’re used to, though we’re going to circle around on that. Nah, the most instructive thing you’ve done (so far) is to train for a half marathon because you are bad at running and you can’t pretend to be otherwise.
You are patently aware of the myriad ways you can talk your way through most things you’re not great at. When you’ve bitten off more than you can chew in terms of academic commitments or social engagements, you know how to fuzz the borders on what’s expected so that you can get everything in at an acceptable level of quality. But running… with running there’s nothing for it but to run, to get out there day after day and get in the routine of pushing past the panic, to start every run with the knowledge that you will panic, somewhere around a mile or a mile and a half, and that you have to get through that in order to achieve anything else. You do this again and again until the gasping demand of your lungs for more oxygen and your adjustment to meet it becomes routine. There’s no amount of charm and grace that’ll help you breeze past the panic. Just breathing exercises and routine. Maybe more protein in your diet and better stretching.
From here on out, there are no unmitigated successes. There are no victories without asterisks. Every win you chalk up on the board will be made of compromises and stumbles and 3am edits, in addition to the skill and hard work and grit you will have contributed to it. Your dissertation was written on planes and trains and buses, in airports and coffeeshops, and during several long nights when you watched both the sunset and the sunrise on the other side of a thin hand-sewn curtain. No matter how many hours you set aside for the library and dedicated study spaces, no matter how many schedules you drew up to manage your time, the work got done in the in-between and it was not perfect. It’s debatable if it was even as close to perfect as it could be.
Now, I’m hoping you’ve come to an understanding about all of this. I’m hoping that you’ve settled into a cheerfully busy routine, keeping the wolves at bay with positive feedback and the meeting of achievable goals. You must have, otherwise the smile would have been regretful rather than smug. If there’s one thing we know how to do, it’s to process regret until it doesn’t have even a hint of sadness anymore, to sally forward and pretend that shows your strength of character rather than the momentary tenability of your circumstances. Don’t get me wrong— you’re skilled and driven and all those other resume words, but like everyone else, that skill is best utilized and that drive is most apparent when things are going your way. You do have a knack for stumbling into those circumstances, so that’s good, at least.
Listen, your world is going well now. Add to that. Be the person we want to be.
I want your goal to be to live honestly. I want you to be able to dispassionately assess the world’s contribution to your success alongside your own, to be neither proud nor pathetic, but honest. I think humility is best worn as honesty about your ability and effort. Be humble. You will not be good at everything.
But you can try at anything. I believe that, at least. At least, I believe that.
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