The Submit Button and Everything After
Haphazard Diary Entry
I’m a go-getter. I get shit done.
Last night I fell asleep, after spending all evening working on a proposal for an opportunity I desperately wanted. I convinced myself I needed one more set of eyes (aka my partner) to concur that I had written it to the best of my ability. Mind you, this week has been one of the busiest, I’m chipping away at producing my debut solo exhibition, making a new zine, managing stock, moving house, and starting a new job — all at the same time, which is usually how life goes.
The deadline for the application was 12pm 7th July.
I breeze through my morning, under the naive assumption that it is still 6th. I’m sitting in my 2pm meeting, acclimatising to my reinstated schedule of corporate articulation. As my coworker is explaining in fine detail, the intricacies of my new projects, I shudder.
The time reads 2pm 7th July.
Panicking, I scour the internet for the application portal, desperately fumbling over misspellings of the organisation’s name. Trial and tribulation gets me to their home page - ‘applications have now closed’.
Tears immediately well, I am no longer present nor listening to corporate antics. I am alone in a space where berations are duly welcomed. I wince. Immediately, the rational part of me is attempting conviction on how to grapple with this misstep.
It wasn’t meant for you. There’s something better waiting.
But I cannot deny the way my chest twists. Utter disappointment. Why didn’t I just click the submit button? The day before I was ranting to a friend about how all you need to do is just try. And I failed to uphold my own standard. All because I wanted to perfect it. I wonder how often this approach creeps into my desires. How often does it squash my freedom to express?
I have to bitterly accept that this opportunity was not for me this time round. All I am left with is the waning certitude that something better lies ahead. Currently, my heart wonders what could have been if I had just accepted perceived mediocrity, instead of labouring over perfection.
