Never Give Up! Never Surrender!

 

Like me, you have probably devoted most of your adult life to pursuits for which you have a talent or aptitude. Life in general, and childhood schooling in particular, have a way of pointing us in that general direction.

Over the years, I am sure you have discovered a long list of things you are good at doing; whether it may be adding up columns of numbers, working with mechanical things or even a way with words.

Most of us also have an alternate list of shortcomings. These are the kind of things that you might want to skip mentioning in a job interview: "Yeah, I am not much of a morning person." or " I crack under pressure."

I became well aware of my limitations early on. The childhood rhyme used to teach young children to tie shoelaces which begins "Left over right and under..." was lost on me.

I was the last person in my primary school class to learn to tie their shoelaces.

I am dyslectic- left and right, b and d- are things easily confused in my feeble brain. In those early school days, I also lagged behind my classmates when it came to reading, verbal and language skills. (Ironically, I have always loved reading. A trip to the bookstore or library is right up there with a trip to the local nursery on my list of favourite things to do on a Sunday afternoon.)

Early on, I learned to compensate for being a slow reader by teaching myself to skim texts in search of the answers. Much of schoolwork is memorization, and I excelled at that. A series of drawings to illustrate my school reports was always good for a few extra marks. Despite my handicaps, I always managed to be an average to above average student.

In my working, life I have focused my energies on the things in which I excel: creative and artistic pursuits. 

But then... every once in a while, I crash head-first into something that reminds me of my limitations.

This fall, I decided to take a college accounting class. 

It's not that I have late-in-life ambition to be an accountant; I merely want to be able to be able to manage to books of a small business. (Most small business accounting software packages do not require accounting skills, but I thought an accounting class might give me an extra degree of confidence going forward.)

I knew going in that this was not going to be an easy class to take, but I had no idea just how truly hard it was going to be.

I suck at accounting! Big time!

Last Saturday, we had a mid-term exam and I worked really, really hard to get ready to for the two-and-a-half-hour-marathon-of-a-test. 

Depressingly enough, I am sure I either failed or came darn close to it.

Failing as an adult is just as hard as failing as a kid. I have been beating myself up for days over my dismal performance on that darn test.  

"Joe Smith works as a security guard in a hospital and earns a wage of $8.80 per hour. Smith's payroll deductions include withheld income tax of 10% of total earnings, pension of $180, unemployment insurance amounting to $300, and a monthly deduction of $45 for a charitable contribtution. Calculate Joe Smith's gross pay and net pay assuming he worked 172 hours during the month."

Huh?

I get lost right after "Joe Smith works as a security guard in a hospital..."

I bet Joe is one happy man knowing I don't work in his hospital's payroll offices, because I have no idea how much to pay him, gross or net.

At this point, it is pretty safe to say that my ship is sinking. 

It is too late in the term to drop the Accounting class. Even if I could drop out, I am not sure I would.

I am determined to persevere, even if I do end up with a big fat "F". I am just going to have to work hard, keep bailing water and hope for a miracle: a shining beacon of light at the end of a very dark accounting tunnel.

At the very least, I hope to salvage the basic understanding of accounting principals that I set out to learn in the first place. 

What about you? 

Have you ever had to struggle to learn or do something that you are just plain not good at?

Are you wondering why I have shown these particular plants in this post? 

The first plant is a Mallow or Malvia sylvestris that I photographed in mid-October. These Mallows continued to bloom right up to the end of October. It seems that this old fashioned cottage flower has amazing staying power, even when the temperatures start to dip in late fall. 

A short-lived biennial, and a cousin to hollyhocks, this pretty self-seeder has crossed the street to our yard from my neighbour's garden. 

The plucky pink chrysanthemums are growing all along a chain link fence in another neighbour's yard. 

We have even had two hard frosts. Here it is the 21st of November and they are still blooming their little hearts out.

Now that's persistence!

P. S. The post title "Never give up! Never surrender!" comes from the 1999 movie "Galaxy Quest" starting Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman. In the movie, the washed-up cast of an old Star Trek-like television show have a real life encounter with aliens from another planet. I am no Trekkie, but I have been married to one long enough to think that this movie is hilarious.