Success is supposed to breed more success. Those extra lost pounds are supposed to inspire harder workouts; that first million is supposed to inspire more hard work and creativity; the first A is supposed to inspire harder work to keep up the grades. Until the summer session started, I can’t say that was the case for me. The beginning of the school year would always start with plenty of promise, and I’d do reasonably well in the first exams. However, while most of my friends improved or at least stayed consistent over the semester, I would invariably start to fall behind. By the end of the semester, I’d be hopelessly behind and my grades would reflect it. The spring semester would start off on a bad note and only get worse. I could never figure it out — why wasn’t I inspired to work, to keep up the grades and succeed in school?

The answer may lie in something I only accepted recently. Until the summer session, I never worked for any of my grades. My high school Magnet program was supposed to offer higher level courses, and it certainly did…but I got a decent GPA on minimal effort for all four years. The first few weeks of any course are always easy, and I always did well without studying very hard for any of them. The resulting grades were never much of an inspiration because I had invested so little of myself into them. As a result, there was no feedback mechanism telling me to work harder (or to work at all) for the next exam. My grades would suffer, but at that point I was unconcerned, and the ultimate grades in the end were always good enough. I’m not proud of my high school GPA at all, but it was good enough to get me into an excellent college.

So what happened at Cornell? Having never truly studied in my life, I attempted to pull off the same feat in the fall of 1995. Again, the first round of exams was reasonable, and again I had convinced myself that no real work was necessary to do well. Well, that barely worked in high school and it most definitely didn’t work in college. The fact that I did as well as I did (which was not very well), and that I graduated on time, is a testament to my creativity and problem-solving skills more than my work ethic. Looking back, I can’t believe I totally squandered the academic opportunities that were right under my nose. I can’t say that I spent all of that time doing something more productive, because I truly didn’t. I never had a passion for my school work; while some of that couldn’t be helped, I now realize that a lot of “passion” is really the dividend of good hard work.

While consulting was never truly for me, I think I repeated the pattern at Accenture. I very strongly believe that my talents were underutilized and that my first few roles really left me burnt out. In retrospect, however, I see some situations in which I could and should have acted differently. When faced with a seriously distasteful task, there were better ways to express my annoyance and better paths to finding a solution. In the end, I think I still would have left. But maybe the last five years of my professional life would have been a little happier, a little less bitter, and a lot more personally satisfying if I’d understood the value of true effort.

I hesitate to say that I’ve wasted a lot of time. I can think of important lessons I’ve learned every year, and I’ve certainly grown a lot since leaving college. But the fact is that I’ve sort of reset myself, put myself at the beginning of a long path, one that places me some seven years behind most of my academic peers. I can’t do anything about the lost time, and it’s tempting to ignore the years, but doing so would probably be dangerous. I have a lot to offer from my experiences, as well as a lot to remember for myself.

Most importantly, I have to remember that nothing in life is free. The biggest rewards have the highest prices; surprisingly, those prices have little to do with money. Indeed, the non-financial costs figure to be much higher and more dear than anything my checkbook could buy. And our greatest asset — time — can be our most powerful ally or our worst enemy. Making the most of my time, using it to invest in myself and work towards a goal, is really the only way for me to find satisfaction in any field. It’s not just about the passion.

Congratulations to Eric and Tina on their lovely wedding and reception last Saturday. I was honored to be a groomsman, and I’m very happy for them. I’m also quite jealous of their Hawaiian honeymoon.

On a more selfish note, it was not a very good weekend for them to get married. I had a bio midterm on Thursday, a physics midterm on Friday, and an organic midterm on Monday. So far, so good — I did very well on the first two. I’ll hopefully know how well I did in organic tomorrow. It was definitely my hardest exam so far, and I barely had one day to prepare for it; on top of that, I fell behind in the two weeks leading up to the test. While I answered everything, I’m not certain that I got it at all correct. I was planning to goof off until next Monday, since Thanksgiving is cutting the week short. The problem is that I would then be starting next week behind again. The result: I’m probably headed to school early tomorrow so that I don’t have an insurmountable pile of work on Monday. We’ll see how I feel about it in the morning.

I’m looking forward to the break. We’re all tired, and finals are only a couple of weeks away. On top of that, I’d like some time to introspect and evaluate. It’s easy to get caught up in the daily affairs of life, and the big picture sometimes gets a little cloudy. Expect some more musings in the near future. Possible topics: Career direction, academic stamina, the conflicts of ambition and personal commitment.

(Side note: My writing style tonight is terse and clippy, Hemingway-esque. Interesting.)

It’s odd…as time goes by, I tend to appreciate long stretches of empty time less and less. I love wasting time as much as anyone else, but day after day of nothing really just brings me down these days. I spent a good portion of my break working on our master bathroom, tearing out the old shower stall walls and installing new cement board and new tile. After that, I’ve fallen into a bit of a slump. There were still things to be done, but I ended up procrastinating and sitting around the house for the most part. It was a sort of build-up of intertia, but not the dynamic kind. Now that the school year is starting up again, I think things will get better.

Well, that was fast. I took my final yesterday, and grades should be posted within the next day or so. It was much more difficult for me to focus this week, but I’m feeling very confident about my performance anyway.

This was certainly one of the fastest summers in recent memory. I was nervous about the transition from employee to student, and it turned out to be about as difficult as I had feared. On the other hand, I definitely put forth my best effort and it appears that that will be more than enough. The fall semester should be less intense, but I’ll be taking three courses at once and there will be far less individual attention in class.

Enough school talk. Abbie and Jack are staying over tonight, and tomorrow we’re all heading to Ocean City. In typical Blair fashion, the weather forecast calls for rain, but we won’t be deterred; really, the beach is only a sort of side attraction to the main goal of our trip. It’s time for the fifth annual crab fest! Just as we did last year, we’ll be going to Hooper’s to take advantage of their all-you-can-eat feast. We’ll be happy and full even if the beach washes away overnight; sure, it would be a waste of an overpriced boardwalk hotel reservation, but I suppose that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Mmmmm…..crabby.

In other news, I need to update my project car page: I sold my M3 last week.

I placed an ad on Roadfly early last week, and within a couple of days I got a very eager phone call and email from a college student who was home for the summer. He came over to test drive it and fell pretty hard for the car, which is a common phenomenon with the E30 M3. Two days later I had a deposit check in my hands, and last Sunday the rest of the money arrived and the car left its parking space without me in it.

The sale of that car symbolizes the material sacrifices that I’ve already made, and will continue to make, as I prepare for my new career. I know that Kim and I will always have a relatively comfortable lifestyle, but an extra car of that much value with that much required maintenance is obviously a luxury that doesn’t make sense. Despite my reluctance to let go of such a jewel, I also wanted to do it in some ways. There’s a part of my inner self that needed to realize some of the costs of my big decision. While material things are not ultimately important, they are certainly tangible and very real to anyone. My car obsession/hobby is as much a symbol of my prior spending power (or, perhaps, spending excess) as anything else, so letting go of the M3 is a strong reminder of where I’ve been and where I’m headed.

The spiritual challenges that Kim and I faced as a result of my decision are certainly more important in the holistic sense, but the world is invariably measured in material progress. So, to the outside world, this is perhaps the biggest change that many people will notice. And it’s a significant one to those who know me.

Of course, I haven’t really changed all that much. I’m still affected — or, perhaps, afflicted, depending on your point of view — with cars and other things with wheels. I’m developing a latent interest in motorcycles, and I still own a car that speaks to my enthusiast genes. But I won’t be able to play the way I’ve played for a while…and, actually, I’m fine with that. I miss my M3 dearly, but I’m more excited about my future now than I was a week ago. Maybe that’s partly a coping mechanism, but I’d like to think that it has to do with the closure I felt upon seeing, hearing, and feeling my car rumble away from me last Sunday.

What better way to celebrate the end of work and a future lack of cashflow than to go on vacation?

Kim and I spent last Sunday through Wednesday at the Atlantis resort in Nassau/Paradise Island. Most Caribbean islands have lovely beaches, and Nassau was no exception, but the resort itself was remarkable to say the least. The “lost city of Atlantis” theme has all the potential in the world of being tacky, but somehow the designers made it very tasteful. Central to the resort is a series of huge aquariums featuring a ridiculous variety and number of fish. There was enough space and enough fish to see schools darting around the entire resort. Some of the more interesting denizens included an ENORMOUS manta ray, several large sharks, and a collection of very creepy large eels. Unlike Freeport, Nassau was certainly large enough to have kept us busy for at least an entire week. We wish we had the time to visit Eleuthera or a couple of the other nearby islands. Perhaps another time.

So…tomorrow is the first day of school. I’m wavering between feeling slightly panicked and feeling at ease, almost bored, which I suspect is more a coping mechanism than real boredom. We had dinner with Jimmy last night, and he helped to get me in the right mindset for school, but I obviously won’t “feel it” until I’ve settled into the academic routine. While general chemistry is probably the best subject for me to ease base into things again, I expect to be challenged. But that’s good, right? That’s the whole point of this path, and a large part of my decision to pursue this career. So bring it on. Let’s see what I can do!

Cleaning out the contents of my laptop was symbolically instrumental in marking the end of my Accenture career. My little 12 GB hard drive was perpetually on the verge of running out of space; I had to offload photos and other files from it on a weekly basis just to keep enough space free for the swap file. In a surprisingly short amount of time, though, I had freed up something like half of my hard drive. It took just a couple of hours to undo three years of accumulated work, both business and personal.

The frosted company logo on the glass office doors looked the same as always, but I certainly felt very different as I walked through them for the last time.

I had to stop by the main office in Reston to drop off my laptop. I stepped out the front door for the last time, and once again I was struck with the simliarities between this situation and the day I left college. I stepped out and turned around to look at the building. I was there when it was dedicated some four years ago, when I was still in the beginning of my career and already feeling frustrated at myself. I half expected to be glad that I was leaving. It turned out that I was somewhere on the border, stuck between looking forward to the path I’ve chosen and wishing to stay within the comfortable routine I’d established some time ago.

But nothing lasts forever, right? I turned back around, crossed the street, and walked to my car.

OK, so maybe I predicted wrong. Ugh, I feel so weird.

Yeah, I’ve thought about this very thoroughly, and I’m definitely making the right decision. And I’ve known about today for quite a while now. But now that I’m literally within minutes of turning in my laptop and walking away for the last time, I’m feeling rather sad about the whole thing, and I find myself dragging my feet on the last couple of steps. It’s the sort of bittersweet feeling that you hate, but still want to prolong for some inexplicable reason.

Well, enough of this. I’m about to shut down this computer and head downstairs to drop it off on my way out. Time to close this chapter and start a new one. Time to move on.

…but even though I’ve never truly loved it, I’m going to miss this place.

I think my final day here (tomorrow) is going to be rather anticlimactic. Lately I’ve been acting and feeling rather numb, almost nonchalant, about the whole thing. I know that’s now how I really feel, but maybe I’ve got some kind of defense/coping mechanism going on. It’s hard to describe. I guess I expected to feel more weight towards the end of this week. Thoughts like “this is the LAST Thursday you will work here” just aren’t hitting me with the psychological thud that I was expecting. It is, however, strange to think that this is most likely the last time I will walk through the office doors to a cubicle.

Five days to go. This is my last Monday here. It’s like leaving college (or moving) again.

The difference is that my future, while clearly planned, is less certain than it has been in the past five years. I had a job before I left Cornell, and of course we had a new home when we moved out of the old one in April. Sure, I’m going to school in two weeks…but there’s little guarantee that I will succeed, and there is no way of knowing how my plans will work out in the end. The truth is that I have plenty of doubts and fears about what lies ahead. I’m sure that I’m doing the right thing by quitting and going to school, but the inherent risks and uncertainty get to me once in a while.

Regardless of the big picture, there are times when I wonder if it makes any sense to give up a good job to throw myself deep into debt. There are plenty of people who work for the money, then live their lives when they come home. Let’s not forget that I’ve been out of school (and, therefore, out of practice) for five years now. Even if the subject matter is not new to me, I’m worried that I won’t be able to compete with everyone else. On days when I’m feeling particularly nervous about the academics, I’m tempted just to take the safe road and stay where I am. There are many worse things I could do, such as rack up student loans and get absolutely nothing out of them. Furthermore, I’m not blind to the fact that this life change will effect much more than my own future. Kim and I don’t want to be first-time parents at 35. We will most likely start a family while I’m a student, and that will certainly make life interesting. Again, it would be much easier if I just stay the course.

Then again, there was never any guarantee that those plans would pan out. And while I’m taking a calculated risk, I’ve already decided that accepting failure is infinitely better than never taking the risk in the first place. The unpredictable nature of life should not deter anyone from breaking out of their boundaries and trying new directions if they aren’t happy where they are, and failure should be treated as an educational opportunity instead of a roadblock. I still worry about failure, and how we will work out the demands of an adult life as I go back to school…but I no longer want to avoid those problems.