"Should I should the file you uploaded or the one you specified"
"I am not sure with our initial agreement of sending the message with an hour interval, will cause the next batch to consider as spamming."
"Engrish next time, pweez!"
| Race Length | Finishing Time | Overall Place | Gender Place (All Women) | Age Group Place (F20-30) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1k | 19:54 | 36/366 | 15/141 | 3/18 |
Today I stayed home from work in order to await the delivery of my bike. (The short story behind this is that I went on vacation last week to a rural area where there would be no traffic and no hills, so I shipped my bike there in order to get some riding in before my triathlon at the end of this month. What gets shipped out must get shipped back, and a $1300 bicycle isn't something I wanted sitting out on my front stoop all day long--so I had to stay home and wait.)
FedEx policy is to deliver between 10am and 6pm, so I knew the bike could arrive literally anytime during those hours. However, the previous pickups and drop-offs had all happened before 1pm, so I was hoping that the timing would be the sam this time.
Alas, it was not to be. The bike finally arrived around 3pm, at which point I dragged the thing up to my apartment and began reassembling it immediately.
Now, the bike was originally packed by someone much more knowledgable and experienced than myself, and although I was able to reassemble the contraption when I arrived at my vacation destination, I then had to repack it into its box after only having watched the disassembling process once. To my own credit (and that of the equally unexperienced people assisting me) we got the bicycle apart and into the box successfully. The question was: had we packed it securely enough to keep it from being damaged in transit?
From what I could tell as I took pieces out of the box, it had arrived in good shape. I encountered a few snafus as I put it back together (screwing the handlebars on backward, for instance), but nothing major . . . until I went to screw in the seat post. There was no screw to screw.
Again, to my own credit, I didn't panic. (Which is surprising for someone who stresses out frequently about minute details.) I collected my wallet and prepared to go out to the local bike shop and try to buy a replacement screw. However, I had an empty bike box taking up most of my living room, so I decided to take that down to the trash first. As I carried it down the steps, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be nice if the screw fell out right on my doorstep?"
When I got outside, I took a look around, but the screw was nowhere to be found. I stomped the box apart and began to head back into the apartment when I saw some clumps of pet hair littering the hallway. "T___ won't be happy with me if he comes by and sees this," I thought to myself, so I stopped and grabbed the dustpan. I began sweeping with the broom, and lo and behold, there was the screw!
Our parents told us we could be anything. And our teachers. And our coaches. They all promised us that if we tried a little harder, put in a little more work, we could be something special. They assured us that we were innately special, and all we needed was to develop that potential.
Yet, our specialness was not specific—it applied to whatever we might want to do. “Follow your dreams,” we were told. “Do what you love—the rest will follow.” They encouraged us to choose our electives based on interest, to choose our majors based on passion. They prodded us to go faster and farther not by debasing us and saying we weren’t good enough, but by promising that if we improved just a little more, we could maybe prove our specialness.
We were told over and over again that we were smart. Talented. We were told we had potential, were perhaps destined for greatness. And that is what we believed. We believed if we put in enough effort, we would get somewhere.
We thought that our successes would grow exponentially: our hard work to “be someone” in high school would transfer to “being someone” in college. Then, if we worked hard in college, we would be hired for the job we wanted. When we worked hard at that job, we would then be recognized, and we would continue to achieve because we had potential to be superior, to be important and known. If we just worked hard enough, we would make a difference. We would matter.
Reality?
The reality is that the further into adulthood we venture, the bigger the world gets. We might be someone in high school. We might be someone in college. We might even be someone at our companies. But what we didn’t realize until we made it out on your own, with no parents and teachers and coaches to reassure us that we are special, is that we are replaceable.
When we graduated high school, those niches we filled were filled by someone else. Maybe we were the smartest, or the prettiest, or the funniest. Maybe we were the most athletic or the best public speaker. But those superlatives are in every yearbook, with new faces under the title each year. Our faces are long gone.
When we graduated college, those papers we wrote were filed away with thousands of papers from thousands of students who came before us, and will be covered with thousands of papers from students who will come after us.
And now here we are: big, important Adults in the big grown-up workforce. Maybe we’re good at our jobs; maybe we’re excellent. Some of us might be promoted quickly, and our bosses might love us. We work hard, so why wouldn’t they love us?
Still, the undeniable truth is that we are one cog out of hundreds, thousands that comprise the huge, grinding gears of a company. We fit a certain mold. We are replaceable. The company doesn’t care about our “specialness.” Maybe, when we are gone, a few coworkers will miss us, but not for the outstanding, irreplaceable work we did. Not for the hundreds of hours we spent in front of a computer monitor, typing at a keyboard and clicking a mouse. No one will miss us for that.
We grow up thinking that we will do something lasting, something that matters. We grow up thinking we will do something that makes others proud. We think we will make ourselves proud. But then we are confronted with the harsh reality that is adulthood, with its health insurance and its mortgages, its rent checks and its credit card payments. We find out that the only people who are remembered are the Steve Jobs and Michael Phelps of the world, and even their legacies fade once someone comes along and invents something better or sets the new world record.
So we are left wondering, what was it that made us so special? Were we just surrounded by a bunch of inferior people up until now? Were our parents and teachers and coaches completely blind? Are we now failing to live up to our childhood potential, or are we finally recognizing that no such potential existed in the first place?
And of course, the ultimate question: if we don’t achieve anything special, can we still be happy?
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