Let's Hear It For The Finishers

People who set goals and actually accomplish them make me sick. I call them “Finishers” and they are the most annoying people in the world. I hate the way they flaunt their broken records and their successful weight loss in the faces of the rest of us losers while they bask in everyone else’s admiration of their sticktoitness.

I’ve never been able to join the ranks of these elite overachievers. Rather, I belong to another group I like to call the “Deficients.” I set plenty of goals. I’ve got goals coming out of my ass. I generally intend to achieve them. I even buy beautiful notebooks to write them all down. However, the initial excitement tends to diminish somewhere on the path to completion. In my mind I’ve envisioned myself as a successful ballerina, tennis player, writer and even a DJ, but I’m ashamed to say that I have yet to make any of these things into more than a mere fantasy.

While it’s never really bothered me before, this problem has become more disconcerting than ever now that I’m a mother of an infant daughter. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to tell her to finish her vegetables, to finish cleaning her room or finish high school with a straight face if I can’t even finish East of Eden. I’ll lose all credibility. I can’t give up on being a mother the way I gave up on knitting my baby’s receiving blanket.

On the bright side, all of my wavering is helping me to collect the makings of what could become a pretty awesome garage sale. There have to be some cost-conscious “Finishers” looking to save money on gently used GMAT study books, athletic equipment and turntables.

I’d like to think that there is some kind of clinical explanation for why I’ve managed to give up on just about everything I’ve ever set my mind to. There must be reason why I changed my major four times in college. Could it be that I’m so afraid of success that I don’t even want to bother trying to work towards my goals? What’s the use in becoming famous when I’m too shy to handle the attention that comes along with it? I mean I’ve finished all the things that really matter – I managed to settle on a major and receive a Bachelor’s Degree from a major university, I moved 700 miles from home and made a life for myself in one of the toughest cities in the world and I survived hours of painful labor to give birth to a healthy little girl. That’s got to be worth more than a stupid blanket.

I may not ever be able to call myself a Finisher, but I am trying to be less of a Deficient every day. My first step will be to finish this post!