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Hey, all.
Before I continue, let me warn you that this mostly likely is going to be a semi-long cry entry. After writing all of this, I now realize that this is just a giant clusterfuck of misery and grief. Warned, you've been.
So today is July 11th for me (living in California at PST time), which happens to be my birthday. I figured I'd save my 250th post--and thus pimpin' zealot icon--for now, so as I'm one year wiser, I'm also a tier higher...unit-wise :/ Whoo...
At this point, you might be wondering to yourselves, "Why is he so serious?" and "Is it just me, or does he seem sort of depressed?"
Well I'm not going to explain, and no, it's not just you; I'm really fucking depressed.
I've recently learned the power of images in destroying walls of text
I've also recently realized that I haven't really been truly blogging at all; I've just posted random meaningless crap that (I suppose) has done nothing more than clutter up TL's great blogging.
So let me introduce myself:+ Show Spoiler +(Someone let me know if I really shouldn't be posting this info about myself--I've always had a super-strict policy of letting no one know anything about myself, but I think TL is [trust]worthy) I'm fifteen and a soon-to-be sophomore at a school in California, my interests are the piano, tennis, and Starcraft, and I'm an ABC. I can speak Mandarin perfectly fine. I'm also taking French--AP French in the coming year. I'm also into anime/manga. If you have anything else you want to know, feel free to ask if you give a shit. *Supposedly* like this, except I'm a lot taller, skinnier, and have a disproportionally buff right arm from tennis.
Continuing on, I used to be one of those extremely gifted Asian people who are incredibly smart. The past few years, however, I've been constantly sucking ass in just about everything. I was extremely good at playing the piano, academics, I was very well-read, the whole shebang.
As I write this, I feel that my life is just constantly getting worse in every possible way, and I don't have anyone to blame it on except myself. I feel like I've developed something like ADD (and occasionally ADHD), OCD, and depression rolled up into one giant furry ball of life raping proportions, I feel consistently unmotivated, and whenever I get a chance to stop and think, it becomes clear that I just suck horribly as a person.
I (...too many "I"s and "me"s) used to be a really good young/child pianist, I played with lots and lots (too much sometimes =.= of feeling, and the only problem was technique. Now, I feel like I've lost that musicality and love for music, and I can't express myself there anymore. Even back then, I thought that the piano was my only strong point; the only thing where I could say, without a doubt, I was among the best.
My pianist idol dude, who later went on to fuck up
Now, I can't get myself to practice, and when I do, I just get bored for no reason and want to stop, even though I know that possibly the most important event of my life (solo concert) will be coming up in December this year. I just don't know what to do anymore and feel utterly unmotivated and sluggish.
In academics, too, I'm sucking ass. When before I was top of the class (which, I'll admit, is very close to nothing, but there really were extremely smart people in my school) in just about everything, I'm now slacking off and sleeping in the middle of class.
To give you an idea, here's an example: I'm currently taking an SAT I math course over the summer, which is supposed to be brain-dead-easy, both the class and the test. Some might even question why I'd take it. However, in that class, I'm not getting some of the simplest fucking problems and obsessively making sure everything is perfectly correct before I move one, which makes me lose a lot of time and sometimes miss what the teacher is saying. Today, I fucked up so bad in doing the classwork problems I wanted to go die. No one saw or knew about my failure, so it's not like I got embarrassed in front of the class, but it's enough for me to know that I amount to shit. This is something that, for my standards, should have been a waste of time and really easy (no offense to those who are working ass off to try to increase their *bad* scores), but is causing me a great deal of grief because I'm just not performing up to my expectations for myself.
...by now, I don't feel angry (I'm still fucking pissed off at myself for being a shitty loser, though) and I'm not really ranting anymore. I'm just really sad.
Hey, look, it's my birthday.
Fuck my life.
  
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happy birthday 
lots of people have bad birthdays, like i didn't really do shit for my birthday
i suggest you stop caring about teamliquid and how pimp your forum icon is, and go outside and exercise some
also you didn't lose piano skills or anything, you're just a little depressed and are starting to think negatively about everything in your life and thats affecting your mindset, whereas you should just be brightening up a little
need to just chill, no need to make an emo thread
just get your schedule back in order and do something healthy shit instead of moping because that will make it worse and help put you into a longer depression
edit: its 7/11 go get a free slurpee
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I have a disproportionate hand from tennis too!
First off happy birthday.
Don't worry about this piano thing....or your academics. At this point, I'm in that very same boat. Granted, it does have a great impact on your future and your college life....I guess, but what's more important is that you develop a solid character.
If you get bored playing piano, then so be it. Playing the piano is not a matter of doing it, it's a matter of inspiration and getting motivated to do it. What really inspired me to start playing again was listening to all of Joe Hisaishi music, tracking down the sheet music and playing it for myself. If you really want to play piano, then you will. Don't let that keep you down.
If you're really pissed and angry at being a loser, I won't stop you, nor do I have the power to do so. All I'm going to say is if all you do is be pissed off for being a shitty loser and being sad, then that's all that's going to happen. For me, I was pretty pissed at being a shitty loser a month ago, but you have to find a way to turn that shit around. Shit happens, and there's nothing you can do about it. If all else fails, you can take the suggestion of one of TL's banned users: "u gotta skate"
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United States24698 Posts
Maybe talk to a therapist about how you feel and how everything has changed. They might be able to assist you in figuring out why things are so different.
Do you have a one or two handed backhand?
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you need to deal with how you feel about yourself and stop worrying about stupid shit
none of this stuff you make a big deal about matters so start worrying about what you are actually doing right now and learn to appreciate simple stuff
can you chop wood or take a walk and enjoy doing that? if not, it's a problem you need to deal with. and that's what ADD is about. for one reason or another you distract yourself from simply being in the present moment. whether it's depression or anxiety or desire to be doing something else - you have to address it.
and drop the ridiculous self image shit the past doesn't matter in any way other than to learn from it. if you dwell on the past in some way then that is the failure, not what happened.
and of course, happy birthday
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I can somewhat relate to this except for the asian and music part, but a lot of the other stuff you mentioned I recently went through over the last winter. What nearly everyone is saying is basically what i did and it worked for the most part, also happy birthday.
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Settle down and stop feeling like you need to be better than everyone at everything. Really a very unwholesome trait. Spend a little less time working superfuckinghard at everything, a little more time surrounding yourself with people you like, and you'll feel better. Super achievement based self-value just leads to disappointment.
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A lot of us have disproportionate arms, not necessarily through tennis though
![[image loading]](http://loyalkng.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/quagmire-learns-about-internet-porn-family-guy.png)
I myself am no beacon of light to point people away from depression but I will say this.
I think your expectations of yourself are far too high. Focus on just a few things at a time and you'll get better at those things. Perhaps as a kid you were a prodigy because your brain developed faster or you were exposed to more things, but I think most prodigies usually crash.
SAT math should be simple for someone who used to be top of his class. I made simple mistakes during my SAT class too, except when I took my class the teacher and my peers would tell me to go to the board to show the class how to solve the problem T_T With practice I aced it and didn't need to study for the SAT 2 math. As long as you practice a lot and score 700+ on your practice exams, you'll score 780+ on the real thing.
Lower your expectations on yourself. Don't focus on getting into the hardest school, they all lead to great jobs, some with less stress than others. You'll just hate yourself if you try to be a perfectionist.
Today's your birthday, perhaps you should think use it to think about what you truly want in the rest of your life.
edit: picture of quagmire on his small break a week after he discovered porn
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Roffles
Pitcairn19291 Posts
Hey, cheer up! We all go through periods of times when we feel down, but you just gotta get through it. You're only 15. Cheer up and enjoy your high school life. No need to get stressed over everything.
Just find out what you really enjoy and just do it. You don't have to be the best at everything. As long as you really love what you're doing, then life will be great.
Btw, is that 李雲迪? If it is, he's a real good Chopin player.
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I'm going to take a guess that you're an only child who doesn't have that great of a relationship with his parents. They don't really provide any emotional support and are generally inaccessible when you need someone to talk to. However, they actually care for you a lot and will provide anything necessary for you to have a successful future.
I think your lack of confidence may come from the fact that there's no one constantly over your shoulder providing emotional guidance and support What you need at the moment is self-motivation, a dream, and things to aim for. You have more freedom to pursue these things than you think you do. Take the rest of your years in high school to learn about yourself. What would you like to have more than anything in the world? How can you utilize the resources you have to accomplish what you want?
The first step to being happy is to change your attitude and the way you perceive events. There's no reason for you to be sad. I used to be a suicidal depressive when I was 13-14. Now I look back and realize I was my own worst enemy robbing myself of happiness because I didn't know how to appreciate what I had.
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Ehh~ everyone's so nice ^\\\^ ^///^
Anyhoo, I'll answer the few random questions right some of you guys had now, but (I hope) come back with a happy brag(-ish) entry later! :D
@micronesia: I hit with a one-handed backhand and a damn heavy racket so :|
@travis: now that I think of your advice, just going out and being active DOES do wonders; my way of getting rid of the pseudo-ADD is by playing a ton of tennis or something...why did I not notice this before... >u<
@roffles: that is, indeed, 李雲迪!! My favorite composer is also Chopin, so I spend some time listening to his CDs and the like to give me an idea of pieces sometimes :3
@KimTaeYeon: I actually a sibling and my parents are really nice generally ><" They aren't exactly the most understanding/supportive though, so I see your points there
...I feel guilty wasting your guys' time and having you reply to a no-good teenager, but I shall try my best to make sure it was worth your time and more helping me!!!! Still, the advice you've given me really is awesome. I'm going to write it down (on the computer, ofc ~.^) Thanks sooooooo much! You can't imagine how good it feels to have 9 [not-so-]strangers on the Internet giving encouragement and support just because I'm feeling really, really down.
V ^____________^ b
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Roffles
Pitcairn19291 Posts
Hay, no problemo. If I were any good at the piano, I'd play you a piece to cheer you up. But alas, my fingers are stiff and my piano is out of tune. =(
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Welcome to TL, stereotypical Asian #3172!
+ Show Spoiler +Fuck yeah, Yundi Li! (What are you playing?)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! Go out and have some fun. Like chill with your friends or something.
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You need to just relax. It isn't the end of the world if you don't do the absolute best in every single little moment of your life. Everyone has days where they screw up. Remember - the number 1 point in life is to enjoy it. Looking back in 80 years when you're on your death bed, do you want to remember yourself as wasting the majority of your life on studying constantly or doing things you don't enjoy so you can do better later, or do you want to remember enjoying your life as a whole?
This is especially true for both academics and music. As a musician myself, I can tell you right now that this is perfectly normal. You'll have these repeated stretches throughout your entire life where you feel frustrated, unmotivated, lost, uncreative, etc... This (for performers) will show up in the form of you not playing to your full potential - you'll fuck up the simplest things that you should get right. For composers, things just don't come to you. For academics, simple problems/facts seem to escape you.
It's just something you need to accept and deal with. Part of mental strength is being able to fight through these moments.
The self esteem and self image problems are just part of being a young teenager. There's really no advice I can give you to avoid these annoying moments because everyone needs to go through them. Just don't do something stupid and give up on yourself. Remember and always know that this is the time in your life when you start to find yourself - big changes come and shit happens in life. You just gotta roll with it and find out who you really are.
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You want disproportionate? When I was 4 I fell in a bath tub. My mom had two options: let me fall and crack my head on the tub, or grab my arm and risk injury. She chose the latter. This fractured the growth plate in my arm. As a result, my left arm is slightly shorter than my right.
Everything seems to be changing, huh? Let me be the first to officially welcome you to adolescence. You've hit the period of your life where you start to figure things out for yourself and do things for your own reasons. Let's take the piano, for instance. What lead to you starting the piano? Was it parents, or did you just have some undying urge to play? What made you want to be good? Was it a household "culture" to be the best, or are you putting this pressure on yourself? It's just a guess for me, but I think you picked it up early at the urging of your parents, practiced in an effort to excel and gain favor with them and yourself, and along the way found things you really enjoyed about it.
A lot of your problems seem stress-related, and from what you've described, it seems as though you're putting way too much pressure on yourself to be great at everything. Being good at something is a strange equilibrium. You want really good grades, so you spend a lot of time studying. You want to be great at piano, so you spend more time practicing. You want to be good at tennis, so you practice that a lot too. Just look at starcraft progamers - practicing is all they do! Before long, your day is packed so hard with training regimen after training regimen that you have no time for yourself. You have no time to sit around and relax and your body becomes a fine-tuned robot. This may work out in your head as the most efficient way to do things, and "on paper" it is, but you will break. Trust me, I've seen it happen A LOT!
Despite our individual pursuits, I think everyone should learn how to enjoy themselves. Nothing beats a stressful day than putting in a movie, playing some noncompetitive games of starcraft (bgh/fmp ftw!), or reading a book for sheer pleasure (the kinds you find in the bargain aisle at wal mart, not the literature section of barnes and noble!). Hang out with friends, go instant message someone on aim or facebook, just make sure you're having fun and relaxing.
Next, start evaluating what's really important to you. School, music, sports, gaming...all of these take considerable amounts of time. Are you so demotivated in school because you're in a slump? Perhaps. Are you demotivated because you have expectations of yourself that may not be possible? Could be that, too. Is playing the piano fun? If not, why was it so expressive before? Are you spending too much time worrying about perfection instead of expressing yourself? Are you choosing music that expresses yourself? Would it be better if it was just a recreational hobby instead of an endeavor where you need to do a stressful solo recital? Why were you so embarrassed at messing up the math problem in a study class. Isn't the purpose of the class to make mistakes, learn from them, and do great after?
What I feel is most important is becoming the person you want to become. If you find you're putting a ton of time into something you really don't care about, then cut back or cut it out entirely (you still need education, so no cutting that, but do you REALLY need to be taking a college-level language AND start studying for a test you don't have to take for another year and a half?). The compete answer to the question 'who am i and what do i want to be' is a long, on-going process that lasts a lifetime, but you can start picking things out now.
You do seem like a smart guy with a lot of potential in many different areas, but if you don't start taking it easy on yourself, cut yourself some slack, and continue doing what you're doing, then your demotivation, depression, and attention lapses are only going to get worse. There's no sense having a midlife crisis when you're only 15.
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Well, my solution for this exact problem was to do absolutely nothing for a whole year. That's probably not the best option you can take though...
Key however is to do the things you really like, when you want to, and have the friends you really like, and meet them when you want to. In my case it resulted in doing a lot less, and doing different things (I largely let go of my fencing career, and picked up pianoplaying).
Besides that I had to pay attention to my stress level. You can have too much stress, or too little. Everyone has to keep himself in the middle. I never learned to do that, meaning that I was completely stressed out for, I guess, four years in a row.
One of the main problems for fast thinkers is to figure out what they like to do, since they can't just decide on doing the things they can do, since that would be too much. I guess that's the problem you are struggling with right now... Don't do things because you can, but do them because you want to.
Listen to Servius btw, he knows what he's talking about.
And happy birthday!
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Dude. You basically told the story of my life for the past year (except for that piano part). Same age and sub-asian(that means Indian; curry ftw!) here. I used to be among the top academically and got into a good highschool. Then my life started to go to shit. I started to like a girl, got obsessed, rejected, denial, and then realization all in 2-3 months. My grades also started to go downhill as well. A's became B's with the occasional C. All I can tell you is that it's gonna get a hell of a lot worse before it gets better. I sucked it up and got through all the shit and I feel like a better person now. A Dark Knight quote to remember, "The night is always darkest before dawn." Don't give up and all that motivational crap.
Happy Birthday.
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Your self worth isn't measured by your talents. Your intelligence isn't measured by your scores. Many people feel the way you do. imo most of em are zombies that as adults feel their worth measured by the size of their paycheck. My opinion would be that those things are only measured by your passion for them, and furthermore life is your career. If your struggling with things it's likely because you've lost your drive for them. Apathy and complaceny are among the worlds greatest problems. imo
It's not the end of the world. Do what you have to. And find what you want to do.
And Servius speaks wisely imo
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Ah, sorry for the late response, but I wasn't sure exactly what to say (I also want to make sure I have the last word, so if I ask a question or something and I don't finish it off with a thanks or something then I feel sorta bad >\\\<). I also didn't want to bump my blog again and steal spots, but I suppose doing so a bit late is alright.[..?]
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
So without any further ado,
![[image loading]](http://www.homelifeweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/thank-you-cute-kitten1.png)
You guys really helped me realize that I should always stay happy, self-motivated, and just enjoy my life ^3^ It seems that a lot of you guys had shit happen in your life too, so I'll try to learn from your advice and experiences! I'll definitely be referring back to this entry whenever I feel down. ~.^
![[image loading]](http://abovethelaw.com/_old/funny-pictures-kitten-has-a-happy.jpg)
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EPT![[image loading]](http://mrbarlow.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/i-has-a-sad.jpg)
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