Woof Woof

I’m 21 in less than a week. This is unfortunate because I’ve not yet finished my novel. I’ve not poked a Tory in the eye, or eaten the odd looking white vegetable from the shop on the corner. I haven’t met Jon Bon Jovi, or taken acid. I haven’t even managed to go to 97% of the clubs in Leeds, but I reckon that’s a good thing.

Every day I am confronted with people who have achieved amazing things. The guy who is swimming the length of the Amazon, Jane Tomlinson cycling across America with terminal cancer…Even my sports teacher at school was one of the first women to row solo across the Atlantic. My chronic mediocrity is apparent whenever I leave the house. The adverts telling me I could have the most beautiful skin, the best hair colour, the best smelling farts…Whatever. I have decided to embrace my overwhelming average-ness. I can be the first person to be unfazed by my unimportance. By their scale of achievements, the best thing I have done is watch Point Break for the hundredth time last night, although that film is a masterful piece of cinema so I have no shame.

Part of our culture is set goals, targets to be realised within a certain time frame. Even University asks you to fill out bullshit forms about what you want to achieve from your module by the end of the term. Ummm…learned something? Passed it? Not spent every waking minute sitting in the lecture theatre wishing I was at home cutting my nails? Is this really necessary? I dread graduation and the inevitability of at least temporarily working some ridiculous job in which someone in a suit asks me to jump through hoops. Exhausted, saddled with debt, listening to a motivational speaker, probably hung-over I say ‘Woof!’

I write to-do lists. Things I can tick off during the week and add some order to my disorganised life. A to-do list works well for me - keeping things small and simple. I’m not sure underneath ‘Call my brother’ and ‘Do the shopping’ I could write ‘Alleviate world debt’. I don’t think it works quite like that. School, the media, University – all of them – have perpetuated a standardized version of success. I, like many people, had the maverick teacher who refused to teach the syllabus for my history A-level. I didn’t come out with the best grade in the country, but I still remember his inspirational classes and the important parts of history. The rest of my spoon-fed education sits cobwebbed and forgotten in the recesses of my mind. Consequently I have started categorizing things by my own standard of success. Not to take anything away from the Tomlinsons of this world, but my current achievements stand at writing an essay for a law module without any help from anyone. Law is like Mormonism – I don’t know what the hell they are on about. It might not be scaling Mount Everest and I’m sure law students could write it with the ten thousand page media law tome tied behind their backs, but it means something to me.

I’m tired of people setting standards by which to measure others. The little things we do, like picking someone’s books up when they drop them, managing to recycle 50% of your rubbish, quitting your job and choosing to work as a street cleaner so you can spend more time at home with your partner who has cancer. These things rank high on my list. They might not get the highest grades or the most recognition, but I’d rather go for a beer with them than Mr Universe himself, Hollywood star, namesake of the stadium in Graz, Austria, Governor of California and potential next President of the US… Hasta La Vista standardized targets.