I Could Have Gone To Harvard

[Telesmith]

I’ve noticed in the last two weeks or so a steady trickle of posts expounding on the ways in which Christianity has robbed the author in one sense or the other. Most of them resonate well with me. I was just taking a shower and thinking about these posts when I fully, for the first time, embraced a thought that has occurred to me but which I have suppressed in fear that I would burst out into a rage. The thought is this, “I could have gone to Harvard.â€

 

I really could have. I have a close friend at Harvard whom I outscored on the SAT. I wrote all of her philosophy papers! She got a B. She regularly encourages me to come out to Boston for grad school. She blatantly tells me that I’m smarter than her average Harvard peer. I spent a week out there last spring with my wife and was amazed that the cream of the crop were so “in my leagueâ€. A couple of times during the trip I would disclose where I went to school to those I was speaking with and receive queer looks. One even said, “never heard of that place; doesn’t seem to fit youâ€. I have a number of friends that attend Notre Dame and I know I could have gotten in there.

 

I know I’m boasting but by god, I don’t care. I’m smart. I may be ADD as fuck and mildly dyslectic but damn it, I’m smart. Really smart. I lucked out. I got a pretty good brain and Christianity sucked the life right out of it and set me decades behind. I almost want to cry. I used to think it was cute that I could outclass many of my profs at my shit bag school but I’m beginning to think it’s just sad. Awfully, pitifully sad. I really do want to cry. Ok, I am crying.

 

When I was a kid I used to skip school to watch my favorite preachers on TV. I would attend the next day only to win souls for Christ. School wasn’t important. It couldn’t have been. When Jesus’ return was imminent and lives were stake how could something like school be seen as anything else but a fresh crop of harvest white for the reaping, prepared by God himself. Through high school I carried this mentality. None of the adults around me did anything to correct it. My parents thought my approach quite biblical. My youth pastor was just happy that I’d personally filled the pews with about 50 kids not to mention answer his every beckon call. I was not of this world. How could an education be anything but a hindrance?

 

I snuck into college through the back door. I didn’t even take the SAT until I’d been out of school for a year and I didn’t study for it. It was only at my girlfriend’s (now wife’s) demand that I enter university. At first a community college and later the Christian school I’m at now. Our most distinguished professor told me I’m well ahead of where he was at at his age. Another has told me that if I don’t get a PhD I’d be cheating myself.

 

I’M SO FUCKING MAD!!!!!!!!!

 

I wasted, wasted, wasted, wasted so much of my life and opportunity. I tremble to think of what I could have already accomplished had I applied myself to my schooling the way I did my phony religion. What’s worse is that this is all even more true of my wife. She is smarter than me by far. I’m not the sharpest but I could have at least got into a really good school. I almost wish I was ignorant to the fact. So angry. So sad.

 

I’m off to bed now to get up at 7:00am to finish out my mediocre education.

 

Thanks Christianity… I owe ya…

[mwc]

Don't feel so bad. I dicked around my education. I thought it wasn't going to matter for many of the same reasons (the Lutheran in me said "Well, maybe" but the Baptist's that were programming me at school said "Jesus is coming any second! Fuck all that other shit. Be a poor and ignorant tool...you'll just get some more when the Rapture comes! Oh glory!" And I ate that heaping bowl of shit with both hands).

 

I took the PSAT in my high school (after I transfered from the Baptist's) just to get out of class. I had no clue what it was but I borrowed the money to take it from some friends and opted into the test that very day. I got called into the counselor's office down the road so they could ask me a few questions about the whole thing. Turns I got some amazing score and they wanted to make sure I didn't cheat. I got asked to tons of college's all through the rest of my junior and senior years. Tossed all the invites and never returned the phone calls. Didn't need them. Didn't take the SAT since that was on a Saturday (would have taken it if I got out of class again though). Graduated in the bottom 10% of my class and said "Now what?" Oops. Jesus never showed the fuck up (in case anyone is wondering ).

 

Got a tech job and did alright. Went back to Junior College until I dropped out to start my own business. But I still regret the whole mindset that allowed me to screw myself of the free ride I would have had at some lesser colleges or the ready admittance I did have into some much better schools (all based on one stupid test...they didn't even care about my GPA). I think my parents thought I was a moron but they couldn't do anything about it and since they weren't educated beyond high school they really didn't understand the value of going anyhow (they do now and encourage my nieces and nephews which is really good for all involved).

 

I'm personally trying to work my brain back into shape (and some other issues too) so that I can get so more credits at the local junior college. It's not the same as what I might have had but it's better than having nothing. I'm older and have time on my side now so one or two classes each semester is more than enough I think (as opposed to forcing a full load on myself like I would have done). So, it's not Harvard, but big deal. I guess if it is a big deal though you could always try to find a way to make it happen?

 

mwc

[Max]

Don't beat yourself up too much - most of us threw something important away on the religion scam. At least you're young enough to recover, and wiser for it.

 

Myself, I went to a state school because my parents didn't have any money and my crappy high school didn't prepare me for a decent college education. I was second in my graduating class, and always scored above the 95th percetile on standardized tests, but no one in my family had ever gone to college before, so my parents thought I was just nuts. (Besides, gawd's special plan for your life meant you'd be spending your life rasing babies if you were a girl.)

 

Anyhow, my experience is that once you're out of school and in the work force for about two years, where you got your education doesn't really matter. You make your own way. You're smart, so dig in and show the show the guys with their hoity toity alma matters that they're not so special.

 

You'll do fine.

[Vigile]

Meh, you would have just gotten sucked into an establishment job and wouldn't necessarily have been any happier.

 

I'm taking it you are still fairly young. You have a brain. You are now free to do anything that brain of yours can conjure up. Xianity no longer limits you, so don't limit yourself. Figure out a way to live a spectacular life from this point forward. Smart guy + virtually no limits = a great and infinately interesting future.

 

I get your Ivy League regrets btw. When I was studying at the state U we had an adjunct professor from Yale. I excelled in his class as I did in others. He promised that he had given us the same material and course load he got at Yale. I still feel I would have been challenged more at a better school, but I can't complain. At least I got an education and truly enjoyed it.

[Ouroboros]

Telesmith, I cry with you. There's so many things I sacrificed for religion. And Madam, you're so right, you do lose something in Pascal's wager.

[GraphicsGuy]

Yup, I hear ya. I missed out on education and job opportunities because I was trying to "live for God" and "do what God wanted me to do" and "not going after the riches of the world"...blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

 

I like my life at this moment, but I've come to it at least 12 years later than I could have...

[bush country]

Thanks Christianity… I owe ya…

If there is one life lesson that has been pounded into me over my almost 50 years it is - worry about the things you can change, not about the things you can't.

 

I understand your rant. There are so many things that I could have made a better decision about if only I had realized I was making the decision, not "god". Now I'm having to learn a whole new way of thinking about things without "I wonder what god's will is...." screwing things up.

 

Sit down and make a plan. What are your short term goals? One year? Five year? Where do you want to be 10 years from now? Is that Ivy league education a worthwhile goal? What about graduate school there? And please do not get too hung up on age. Since deconversion I have decided to pursue a second bachelor's, maybe a master's after that, and then who knows? There are others on here doing similar things with their education (Ruby Sera as a for instance) even though we are well into middle age.

 

It does suck to look back and see all the years wasted because of xianity. It doesn't really matter how many years but just that it is so much wasted time and effort. But we should learn from that past and not waste any more of our lives.

[Llwellyn]

I was a National Merit Scholarship Winner in high school. Apparently Harvard U sends letters to all winners inviting them to apply, and thus I got one in the mail. I ended up going to a Christian college in the Midwest. I don't have any regrets because I got a pretty good education which brought me to a prestigious research university where I got an advanced degree. I had personal reasons for preferring to be in the city where I went to college.

[Skiergirl24]

Wow. I really feel for you. I was lucky in that my parents always appreciated education. Why not go BACK to school? Smart people have it tough...I firmly believe that. When you are intelligent you LOOK at the system and you actually REALIZE how badly you are getting fucked. Ignorance is bliss...or so they say. I chuckled at your quote "I may be ADD as fuck and mildly dyslectic.." I've long held firm my belief that along with intelligence comes mania, depression, mental illnesses etc. Ernest Hemingway was right when he said "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." I was the oddest child. I was carted off to Westwood Lodge Hospital at age 4 for a battery of tests where they told my parents I had OCD, ADHD and possibly terets. I'm weird...always have been...always will be. Weird in a good way

 

Are you interested in graduate school? Go for it! Put your grey matter to good use!

 

I agree with you all about Pascal's Wager - talk about self-serving "If I cannot believe because of miracles and faith, I will believe solely in order to save myself from eternal torture."

[Piprus]

Honestly, Telesmith, I think you've gotten some good advice here. You're vexing yourself over the "road not taken" issue. And although I think you've got every right to anger over the time and effort you wasted in Xianity, you've also got the responsibility to accept that it was for you the right choice to make at the time, and you can't undo it. You've definitely got an advantage, though, in that you didn't devote decades to its pursuit before you realized you'd made an error. You are better now. You're on a path of self determination, not one that puts you in the position of a marionette, being manipulated by a fantasy deity or a silly devotion. You'll come to know that it doesn't matter so much where you got your degrees, what matters is the track record that you will build on your own by your own knowledge, skill, and experience. That will be your key to success. You're rightfully angry now, but you will mellow out and focus on what is really important, in time. Enjoy the journey, amigo.

[Telesmith]

I couldn't agree more with what has been said above. The post was really just a rant to get those feelings out of my system. It was a line of thought that I had kept at bay for some time and finally needed deal with. I wasn't really looking for advice but I'll gladly take the admonishments. I was almost over it all by the time I typed the last line. Maybe it should have been a journal and not a thread on a forum but it's always nice to hear you're not the only one.

 

Looking back over my post it seems as though I was a tad disingenuous. Christianity alone is not to blame. I went to the third worst school system in Indiana and it goes without saying that Indiana has some of the poorest education ratings of any state in the union. Perhaps more important still, is that I was never taught much of a work ethic growing up and did not assume it onto myself to acquire one until I was out of my teens. Christianity facilitated and fostered an unhealthy mentality toward education but ultimately the responsibility resides with me.

 

I am young and grateful that I got out early. I couldn't imagine having giving away more precious years to religion.

 

I also have learned that it is good to reserve a little humility when deciding what is advantageous for my life. There is the possibility that had I taken my education seriously and got into a good secular school that inspiring notions of martyrdom would have reinforced my dissonance about God and kept me a Christian for life. My four years at a Christian school could have been very thing that set me on the path to deconverstion.

 

So, am I angry? Yes, but less so now. Am I bitter? No. Is it still a tragedy that I spent much of my present life valuing a lie and devaluing the things that really mattered? Yeah, yeah, it is. Ah well, as was said above, it cannot be undone. I'm not beating myself up about the matter but needed to be angry about it, for at least a little while.

 

Thanks for listening and responding.

 

You guys are better than any church!

[Telesmith]

Further, I would like to give a nod to the comment about where you get your decree not really mattering all that much.

 

Yes, I am applying to grad schools but I want to go somewhere outside of South Bend so I'll need to wait for my wife to finish her undergrad.

 

Thanks again for the encouragement.

[R. S. Martin]

These day you can take online courses and earn degrees that way. I'm not sure that it would work for me but I guess it works for some people, in case you're interested in that kind of thing.

[Jedah]

If it makes you feel any better, one of the biggest things I learned at college was that a college education has one thing similar to highschool: Ultimately the best teacher will always be you. It may be just that I went to a specially "artsy" college but I quickly learned that through all the studies and through all the hard work it was always the ones who wanted to do the work and wanted to learn who learned and got better. It doesn't matter were you go to college, you can easily get the same experience elsewhere if you are willing to persevere. I actually beet myself up for going to a big name, expensive college because now that its over I realize that I could have learned the same crap at a low-cost state uni !

 

The only thing you missed from Harvard is being able to say you went to Harvard. You lost bragging right's. And like Max said, once your into your career and have real proof that you know what your doing, you wouldn't even have that either.

 

When you are intelligent you LOOK at the system and you actually REALIZE how badly you are getting fucked.

pretty much.