This is a really touching story! The article is really great too!

jpapers:

Last week I was talking with a friend about perfectionism in our society. It inspired me to write this; this is my take on perfectionism based on things that have happened in my life.

There are so many people in my generation suffering from a disease; a disease called perfectionism. It’s not our fault, it’s really not even our parents fault either, it just happened. Our parents (for most of us) were raised a generation or two after immigration occurred (and right after the great depression) and as a result, they watched their parents work their asses off to survive and put food on the family table. In turn, our parents were raised with a starch work ethic made to surpass everything their parents did. Today, we’re expected to do the same as our parents - surpass whatever they do. There is a reason everything is evolving exponentially in modern times. However, at a certain point you have to realize that you can only do so much and you have to be happy with what you’ve done or what you are doing.

My parents are very successful business people in Omaha. It’s not because they went to college (because they didn’t). It is not because they got lucky. And it sure as hell is not because they were handed what they have. My parents worked their asses off; often times my dad worked two jobs and really wasn’t even around. I was raised as the first child in an Roman Catholic Italian family, and that meant “more is expected of you because you’re the first son.” So be it.

Through high school, the pressure to get into college really got to me and I started drinking and doing drugs at age 17. I struggled through my last two years in high school continuously getting messed up, stealing, getting suspended from school, and having a general discontentment with what my parents wanted from me - perfectionism.

I graduated with a 3.7 GPA and a 31 on my ACT. To many parents that would be very good, but the way my parents saw it, I could have done better. They saw all the times they caught me coming home late night severely intoxicated. They saw all the times they caught me smoking pot on our back porch. They saw how I got caught stealing before I was 18.

Even though I was keeping good grades and working 20-30 hours a week along with playing sports and being in teen ambassador groups, I was threatened twice before I went to college to have to support myself. They told me I would even have to pay rent to stay at their house. I was 18 years old and accomplishing more than most teenagers, but I could never get a single, “I think you’re doing great,” I never was asked, “what makes you happy,” it was always, “you can do better.” I told them to do it. Not even 18 years old I was sitting on my bed yelling at my parents telling them to make me support myself. At least I wouldn’t have to listen to them anymore.

College comes around and I’m happy because I’m finally on my own, even though I’m only an hour away from home. It was just far enough that I knew they wouldn’t be visiting me, but I could go home if I really needed to. 

The first semester, in September, I had the Omaha Narcotics Squad called on me and was informed over the phone by my sobbing mom that they were at our door with guns and drug dogs looking for me. Of course I told her I wasn’t selling drugs, but the truth was that I had a large amount of pot on me at the time and was really freaking out because a police station was two blocks away. Probably one of the scariest nights of my life, at least at that point. 

After that I decided to shape up, because I wasn’t headed in a good direction. I got my GPA up to a 3.1 my first semester in college. Sure it wasn’t the greatest, but it was higher than the all-male GPA and standard deviations above the average freshman male. Plus I was playing on the lacrosse team and traveling with them on top of doing some social chair work for my fraternity. As a first semester freshman I didn’t think I was doing too bad, but my parents thought differently, “You need to reconsider what you’re doing with your life.” That wasn’t even in reference to the drugs, that was purely because of my GPA. And this coming from two people who hadn’t even graduated college - one that failed out of UNO.

Well, the next semester I decided to change my major from Pre-Optometry (my parents loved that I was going to be a doctor, they bragged about me to everyone) to Dietetics/Nutrition, Health, Exercise Science double major. They weren’t very happy about it. I had to convince them that I could still be a doctor even though at that point I didn’t even want to be doctor anymore. I wanted to be a personal trainer somewhere. That wasn’t what they wanted to hear though. 

All that did was drive me to be perfect in school to show them that even though I’m not going to be a doctor I can still accomplish something. All I wanted was my parents’ approval about what I wanted to do with my life. But it wasn’t coming.

I’d go on to get a 3.7 GPA second semester along with running Social, Philanthropy, and Head Rush chair in Theta Xi. I also got selected to go to the President/Rising Star (Future leaders) academy for Theta Xi that semester. Still nothing, “so what are you even going to do with that degree?” I quit lacrosse that semester to work on recruitment solutions for Theta Xi in hopes that I would be able to make my parents proud by changing my Fraternity, not because I wanted to quit lacrosse.

I spent the entire summer doing recruitment for Theta Xi. The house literally had no money to work with, no scholarships to offer, no social life, and really nothing to offer recruits except brotherhood. I spent my own money that summer paying to take kids out to dinner because I knew if I put in the work I’d be living for free all year and getting about $6000 in loans to work with as well. I went in debt over this house and recruited the biggest class the house had seen in over a decade - since they had gotten shut down as the top house on campus.

My class was 5 members. We had 26 members total. I recruited 21 new members that summer. I spent $600 of my own money doing it. I did it with less than $1600 all summer (including my own) when other houses were spending $5,000-10,000; when other houses were offering free iPods if you join early enough; when other houses were taking kids to Worlds of Fun. I beat the odds. All my parents could say, “Good job, but that house is still going nowhere. I don’t know why you’re wasting your time.”

I couldn’t believe how much they couldn’t just be happy for me and what I was doing. 

The following year I kept my grades up. I got a 3.5 the first semester and a 4.0 the second semester. I ran Philanthropy, Brotherhood, and Head Rush chair again that year until April. In April our President was impeached and I took over President as a sophomore in college - I was now President and Head Rush chair. On top of that I got accepted to Psi Chi, the Psychology honors society, I got taken on and accepted to UCARE and was being paid to do research, I got on the Dean’s list, I got a scholarship from Theta Xi that only one Theta Xi in the nation receives every year for all the hard work he does, I had Theta Xi’s national recruitment team coming to interview me to ask how I recruited so many members with nothing, and I got accepted to go out to UCLA for a Psychology research project I had been working on - one of less than one hundred of kids nationwide that got accepted to one of the most prestigious research conferences in the nation. Yet, at the end of the year all I heard was, “What are you going to do with a Psychology degree?” 

I couldn’t believe it. I had also basically been supporting myself financially since September 2009 (besides gas, car insurance, and some food) by working two jobs, on top of everything else, but I couldn’t make my parents happy. 

I went on that summer to recruit another large class of 19 for Theta Xi as both Head Rush and President, but much higher quality kids. Our house GPA went from a 2.68 the spring semester to a 3.09 that fall because of the class. We were projected at $40,000 in the positive; that coming from $16,000 in debt when I joined. That’s a $56,000 turn-around in two years. I dare you to tell me another Fraternity on campus that did that.

Then that September the stress started getting to me. All the work I was putting in and not getting anything back. I couldn’t take it any more. 

I broke up with my girlfriend of a year and a half that September. She wanted to marry me and I was 20. I was not ready for that, and I still wouldn’t be ready for that at 22 - I’m young, and I want to enjoy my life while I can. Now the only people I had to lean on were my Fraternity bros. Things went well for a little while. Theta Xi honestly was on track to be one of the top houses by the time I graduated, but then it all crashed down on me.

At the end of September false accusations of the house President hazing the freshmen led me to having to step down from Presidency. Nationals came in and investigated me for a week. I had meetings with the Dean, and Head of Greek life. It was probably one of the roughest months of my life. I had worked so hard for that position, and now was forced to either step down or get forced out, “You have to step down because of the image. We don’t believe you hazed them, but it’s an image thing and you either have to do this or Nationals will vote you out.” Honestly, that was one of the first times in a long while I broke down crying. All the work I had put in for two and a half years was taken from me for no reason at all. After that over half of the house that “supported” me before completely turned on me and treated me like I was non-existant; like I had done nothing to help the house get anywhere.

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I grew into an alcoholic fit from the end of September until about May of the next year. I hid it for a while, but as those of you that know me know, it all came crashing down. The alcohol, the drugs, the fighting, all the laws I had broke, they all came down at once. I almost committed suicide twice that second semester. I had a following of people on campus that hated me and stalked me. I almost went to jail for a long time. I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anybody in this world. The whole story is pretty complicated and there are more details to it that will be spared from this blog post. 

The whole point though, is that you can’t be perfect no matter how hard you try. Eventually you’re going to break. It’s not healthy to be perfect. It’s not real to be perfect. At a certain point you have to settle. You have to be happy with what you’re doing and who you are.

I still struggle with it to this day, but I’m slowly getting better. However, it took until all of this happened for my parents to finally realize what I wanted. I heard for the first time in my life this summer, “What do you want to do with your life? What would make you happy? Because we really just want to see you happy.” Hearing that has really helped me a lot. It was three simple sentences that I had been waiting for for years.

Since then, I’ve gotten a lot more lax on my school, but still coast between a 3.0-3.5 every semester. I don’t drink and smoke pot as much as I used to, and I’ve being doing my best to stay away from drugs for the past 7 months, although I’ve had my run-ins. I don’t take on as many tasks as I used to either - I’m currently in charge of recruitment for the lacrosse team, and Treasurer of UPO, but that’s it.

I’ve taken my work ethic that I created and put it into lacrosse. I have put in so many hours at the gym and on a goal that I have to be good. I mean, if I’m not eating, sleeping, or in class (I still skip to lax sometimes :/) I’m playing lacrosse or have a stick in my hands. It’s not me being cocky, it’s confidence.

Life is a lot better not stressing about being perfect. If you’re a student at UNL, you should come out and watch some lacrosse games. Come see what it’s like to watch someone doing what they love and having a great time doing it.