My life over the past few months has been turned upside down. Nothing life-changing – I can mentally and emotionally recover from this because it’s not that serious. But I’m talking about my school life in general; too much is expected of me, I’m constantly stressed, and to make matters worse, I think I lost my best friend. I am trying too hard yet I still fail, and at this point, I’m desperate to make things work out. Will this be my downfall, or will everything turn out well? I’ll tell you more.

I think the reason why I am falling behind is because I pushed myself too far. The reason why I pushed myself too far is because of my best friend who I admire and look up to (I will talk about him later). This has led me to take desperate measures such as doing whatever it takes to right my wrongs. However, I know that this can only lead to bad things, as I saw in Othello. Roderigo and Cassio will act as my examples, for their desperation permitted Iago to manipulate both of them to achieve what he desired. I fear that this aspect of mine may take control over myself and give leeway to my self-destruction. Being too desperate to do anything to succeed can blind me along my path and destroy my very purpose, and more importantly, my honesty. I’ll get into it more when I talk about my friend who I mentioned before.

Now let’s get to the topic of my best friend, where do I start? As I mentioned before, he is the reason why I strive to exceed my limits and expectations because I respect him for his achievements, accomplishments, and capabilities. But I’m past that now; I’m talking about our crumbling relationship and how that ties in with my desperate self. Because he is a cherished comrade of mine, I tried too hard to pull him closer and strengthen our friendship; however, this all changed in what felt like an instant. Because I was desperate to make things right between us, I took unnecessary measures to do so. My desperation is what led him to distance himself from me, and I still find myself doing whatever it takes to bring him back. It’s like the Dunning Krueger Effect from the article The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is, when Dunning said, “If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.” I was too stupid to realize that I was hurting our relationship, and the fact that I didn’t stop meant that I was too stupid to realize that I was incompetent to the point that everything worsened – I was blinded by stupidity.

Now that I think about it, this whole scenario is like the Mojave Phone Booth – I found something interesting, but then as that something gained popularity, it was taken away. Let me explain. My friend that I speak of is no ordinary person, he’s the total package; smart, athletic, capable, and easy to be around. I was aware of this before everything started crumbling, and I was happy for him. However, “by the time I realized [it posed a problem], it was too late.” He started drifting away as he gained more and more popularity and became surrounded by the people who adored him – his close friends. It was when I saw that he was distancing himself from me I tried to pull him back, as discussed in the above paragraph. Although, you already know that it didn’t go well for me. As Godfrey Daniels recalled in his podcast, “Everything has an equal and opposite reaction.” As he became more popular and happy, I stayed in his shadow accompanied by sadness. Even though this was a while ago, I will continue to hold on to it until the day I apologize and he forgives me.

As you can see, my school life has been changed for the worse and I hope to see a positive change shortly. Maybe I can academically improve and finally let go of all the stress, or maybe I can reconcile with my best friend and everything will be just right. Like I said before, these are problems that I can mentally and emotionally overcome, but that doesn’t mean that these problems haven’t majorly impacted me at all. Because of all of this schoolwork and stress that school has placed on my shoulders, I have lost sleep and fallen behind in my classes. And because of the separation between me and my best friend, I have spent hours contemplating and crying (you could say that I underwent four of the five stages of grief [excluding bargaining] because I accepted this fact in the end). Overall, things have been anything but normal in the past few months, and I am still having a hard time adjusting to these significant changes, for I can only rely on what destiny has in store for me.