I Am Adequate, But Sometimes I Don't Have The Tools
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I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling… inadequate. There is an anger that flairs up about it too. A lot of this stems from my ADHD and learning disabilities, and that growing up, I had many teachers give me the classic line:
“You’re so smart, if you only applied yourself a bit more, you’d be a straight A student.”
(Note: don’t ever say this to a kid with ADHD)
Sometimes though, I really am giving all that I have in that moment. I struggle a lot with writing (y’all know how consistent I am with writing) and doing things quickly.
I recently heard someone say something along the lines of “You cannot give 100% all the time.” and metaphorically, it’s a bit like driving a car. If you are driving a car with the accelerator floored at all times, you’re gonna have a bad time. It is both socially acceptable and expected that you can and will go a certain speed. you are not making your car run full throttle all the time. It is okay to be adequate.
Sometimes though, you get in a car and it’s not…. right. It’s not all there. Maybe you have a 2002 Toyota Camry with a bunch of problems. Maybe when you run it at full throttle, you can only get up to 30 miles per hour (48k/h for my metric folk). Sometimes, you don’t have the right tools.
Sometimes giving your all is adequate, and that’s okay because you don’t have the tools.