Let me eat cake

One more week to the SAT. I got cold sweat yesterday just thinking about it - probably for the first time - and it occurred to me that I was experiencing what others commonly call anxiety or stress or whatever. I've tried, really I have, not to feel anything of the sort. It would seem I've failed. Yes, I've heard about how the test is oh-so-easy. This is like a terrified child about to receive an injection and hearing how quick it'll be over. The child listens but cannot believe, because all he can see is the shiny point of the needle waiting to do him mortal harm. Only a fool isn't afraid when he ought to be afraid, eh?

I took the practice test the other day and came out with an estimated score of 74% (assuming I wrote an average essay). I was delighted. Any score above 50%, I told myself, would be enough. The way I see it is that I've never been to school or taken an exam in my life. Consider that in your calculations and you might understand what an accomplishment it is for me to scale the peaks of mediocrity and reach 74%. This is just me of course. The powers-that-be feel otherwise: enough is ever good enough. If I can do better, they say, why not do better? Squandering opportunities, I say, is the privilege that belongs to the privileged.

Hence the inability to reach for the stars, as it were. I'm happy with the coconut trees and the grass and the good old dirt of the earth. I've been told that this is likely to be a defense mechanism triggered by a fear of failure or disappointment. This has a grain of truth to it. Even lies help us realize the truth, as Picasso once said. But such speculation can hardly be called a lie. It's just a little grain of truth. A bigger grain of truth, a regular nugget of gold to be honest, is that it's probably a ploy to fall on the stars when one misses the coconut trees. It's so easy to exceed expectations when they're ridiculously low.

I guess the problem is that I'm too easily satisfied. In which case, that could be the secret to a happy, care-free life. So why should that be a problem at all?