Seychelle+K's+Op-Ed+Article



When Your Best Isn’t Good Enough ~ Seychelle K.

media type="file" key="seychellek-muckrakers-2012.mp3"

I wanted to write a rant on how horrible today’s music is compared to the music of the 60’s 70’s and 80’s, but something else has been on my mind lately so I sadly changed my topic to one far less interesting and way more depressing. I have now reached that time in my life where everything I do does not seem to be good enough for anyone: my parents, colleges, my boss, my coaches, and even myself. I have 8 periods. Zero period Art, Trig Pre-Calc, Honors Physiology, AP History, AP English, BioScience Med Tech., Spanish 3, and Cross Country/Track and Field, and I am also recovering from surgery. Because I had hip surgery a little over 4 months ago I have to go to the Kimball pool everyday, after helping out with normal Track practice, to work-out on my own. I never see my coach he E-mails me my work-outs, I am not strong enough to race yet which makes me feel like I am unable to contribute to my team. I receive no emotion, no good job or bad job from my coach. All I get is a bunch of works on a screen. I know that he knows what is best for me, but is a little support too much to ask for? On top of that feel excluded from my team. Because I am physically unable to run with them, I am on the outside of every team joke, know none of the team gossip and I don’t feel any of the overall team atmosphere that I used to when I was running. My team mates try to make me feel included, but it’s obvious that I am on the outside looking in. I am on team roster, but I’m not on the team, and until I am good enough to run again I wont be apart of that team. On top of that, I have recently been hired at McConnell’s Ice Cream by the mall. I work every Sunday from 12:00 to 5:00 and I love it. The people that come into the shop are some of the loveliest people I have ever met. The problem is that I have only worked alone three times and I have never been officially trained. I have learned the ways of the shop by watching other employees, yet my boss gets mad at me for not knowing every single thing about the shop. He comes in a gets mad at me because I didn’t open the shop in the correct order. How am I supposed to know how to open the shop if you have never taught me how to! I don’t see how that is my fault, but I still get blamed for it. What ever I do to try to show him that I know what I am doing, he is always able to find something I did wrong with the way I did it. I am taking SAT and ACT to get high scores for my parents wait no I mean for colleges. The stresses put upon me by my parents to achieve a high score on my SAT and ACT so that colleges will want me to go there and want to give me a scholarship, are completely unintentional, but extremely hard to handle. They make me feel like nothing I do could make them proud of me unless I have a 4.0 and a near perfect score on the SAT/ACT. My grades are never high enough for my own expectations and definitely not for my parents. I am already scared about not making it into college as it is, but the added remarks from my parents about how there is no way I could get enough money to go to college, or how I don’t have the grades to get in or how I’m not fast enough to get scholarships to pay for college, doesn’t help. They make me feel like I am going to get stuck at Ventura College, and never go anywhere in life. I have big dreams and I know that they are going to be hard to achieve, but I don’t need the constant reality checks. Sometimes I want to just believe that my best is good enough. Is that too hard to ask for? Because of all of this I have absolutely no social life. I used to go over to a really good friends house every Friday night for a BBQ, but now my one social outlet, the one thing I had for myself has been taken away; swept right out from under me because I am not doing enough to make my parents happy. I need to stay home on my one free night to do homework and Drivers Ed. I haven’t sat down and watched television in weeks; my DVR is filled with Biggest Loser and Revenge because I have not had any time to sit down and relax for and hour or two. I must be constantly doing something to make everyone else in my life happy. There is not time for me anymore, and it is very frustrating. I apologize for not having the funniest or most interesting Op Ed essay, but this subject has been on my mind for a while now and this was the perfect way to vent. Don’t worry next time my “old soul” and I will team up and rant about how crappy your music is compared to the oldies of the 60’s 70’s and 80’s.