Hey you. I’m having a moment.
I slapped down a thousand dollars for an industry certification exam recently, and against my better judgment, scheduled it 3 weeks from now. I was sick of dreading it and procrastinating with other real-life emergencies.
After a marathon study session today, I did some research on exam difficulty, additional study resources, and am now having a full blown moment of white-knuckle panic. Any competent writer will tell you there is only one remedy for this temporary ego death; to compose. So here I am, forcing on you AI generative abandoned places in keeping with my mood.
I would like to say I am immune from shame. I’ve failed majorly only twice in my life, and my ego so transcendent between solid confidence and vapid insecurity, none of it has made much of an impression in terms of personal worth. I’m talking about the “I feel like I’ve failed because I’m divorced” kind of failure, or “I got an arrow through the knee and can no longer adventure” sort of failure … though I would argue divorce is not a personal failure and that the analogies are inappropriate anyway because none of those things have happened to me.
But I know what it feels like to believe you have failed. And so for the first time in a long time, I fear it, especially when it’s so literal.
The exam voucher I bought was called “peace of mind” because while it rushes you to schedule your test in less than a month, it also gives you a heavily discounted second attempt 30 days later. The only thing that I’ve been good at, is hedging my bets and frustrating myself with insurance that I will never claim. I became superstitious of one thing; if I don’t buy insurance I’ll for sure be in need of it. So of course because it’s called peace of mind it’s had the opposite effect. James Randi would be disappointed in my temporary belief of auspices. He once told me personally about the “certainty of empiricism.” I am by no means stupid, but I am never the smartest person in the room. Believing this has kept me an inch ahead my whole life, because on top of being slightly above mediocre, I’m also incredibly lazy.
This certification is held by about 150k persons internationally, has a rumored pass rate of 20%, and is a CAT exam; in short, it ramps up the difficulty as you take it, and somewhere between questions 125 and 175 it will tell you that its algorithms have determined you simply do or do not pass. Also, yes, there are questions with no correct answer and you were to choose the one closest to the correct answer.
I am certain of uncertainty, that while I may be okay failing the exam once, that failing it twice may be a problem.
So, I’m preparing success and failure at the same time. Your therapist is wrong. If you imagine only success you’re going to have a heck of a time later. Imagine instead, abandoned husks where glory once was. Where shining success was supposed to be, polished by hope, now dashed with dust. Look at it. Face it. That’s what will happen if you fail.
… You’re allowed to cringe but please don’t unsubscribe, it’s been like two posts and I only have like a dozen of you.
Today’s post brought to you by insomnia.
I have made no repairs and there has been no upscaling. I don’t even know what happened with the creepy statues in the abandoned garden at the end. I ask you to imagine the ravages of time, even though there’s no way age adds fingers.