End of Semester Strife

I'm almost to the end of this degree and I can confidently tell you something: I hate college. Not the going to class or the assignments or the balancing act of schooling full time while working full time or the PITA Professor(s) or having tests on the same day in multiple classes. Nope, those are the least of my problems.

My problem with college?
I'm surrounded by people who are better at something than I am.
Which in and of itself is NOT the problem.

I am the problem.
Because I am vicious to myself.
I do not let myself off the hook easily.
But mostly because I compare myself to those who are better than me and then demean myself until I want to give up.

I cannot allow myself to NOT be the best.
Honestly? It's the fucking worst.

Because as often as I tell myself, "Megan, you need to stop. You need to see how far you've come. You need to realize that you literally cannot be good at everything you just started doing. You need to accept that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. You need to stop winding yourself up, just to need another self-talk to talk yourself down from the ledge."

Anddd, the spiral begins.  Not only regarding how horrible of a coder I am, but about how I'm a phony computer science major who doesn't know anything about the field.  I should be ashamed of myself for having to get help from others to get to this point when I should be able to show that I can do it all on my own.

When I was but a measly Communication major at NC State, we learned about something called cognitive complexity (which has various definitions depending on your subject matter).  Essentially, people who are cognitively complex can hold multiple viewpoints and it helps them be analyze things from various facets.  Generally, people with higher cognitive complexity observe more nuances than those who are less cognitively complex.

TL;DR: Cognitive complexity is thinking of things in a multidimensional way.

If you've ever been with me when I've judged someone, you've probably experienced this about me.  I'll be judging the shit out of someone and then my brain is like, but wait, did you think about this possibility before you judged them?  It's the reason I so often play the devil's advocate role when people are discussing the merits/disadvantages of an idea.  TBH, it's exhausting.  I wish I could turn it off... frequently.

I consider myself a more cognitively complex person and I believe this contributes to my spiral.  It leads to a frustration with myself for having these thoughts.  Kinda like when you cry because you're mad and then you're mad because you're crying (also 100% applies to me).

And in addition to the spiral?
I'm fucking exhausted.
I'm tired of running this race.  So, so, sooo tired.

And I know that the end is near.
But if you've ever ran a half marathon and heard someone at mile 11/12 try to be encouraging by saying something like, "You're almost there!  The finish is right around the corner!" you might be able to relate when I say, FUCK YOU, SIDELINER.

The end looks close to someone on the sidelines because they didn't run the 11/12 miles PRIOR to that point.  For someone who ran those miles, it looks like 1-2 more miles of enduring all the toe pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, blisters, chafing, breathing like you're a second away from death, more people encouraging you that you're almost there, and hopefully a water station because you're dehydrated...

And let me caveat that I say, "Fuck you, Sideliner," with love, because as a cognitively complex person, I understand that the reason for saying, "You're almost there" is to be motivating and encouraging.  But please understand.. I'm tired and grouchy and dehydrated and probably a little bit hungry.