Hi all--does this make sense? Tell me if its confusing
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Stupid prompt. I am staring vacantly at the screen, on the verge of sacrificing potential and caving into apathy. Suddenly words on the screen blur together, rearranging themselves into familiar phrases which form chastises, which form lectures...
The sun beat down my back as I performed yard work with my father. Our duty that weekend was to saw branches into storable pieces. Having an 8-year-old learn how to handle a 2-foot handsaw built character, which according to my father, I was sorely lacking. If I executed a task incorrectly, I was chastised for being a slow learner who could not follow directions. If I missed a spot, it was due to my lack of attention to detail. All of this was for my own benefit, of course. But to me, yard work just seemed like a pitfall leading to criticism, which is why I resented it with a deep-rooted enmity that the thistles in my socks and scrapes on my arms testified to.
Though I begrudgingly took up my saw, I was eager to prove my work ethic. I set to work on a branch. Dense and unyielding, I began crossly hacking at it-my saw futilely skid across the surface, impatiently scoring the bark over and over again. I tried smashing it apart in a last bash of frustration, only to find my own hands swollen red from the effort.
I bitterly muttered, "Stupid branch."
My father then took the saw from me. He set the saw down and lagged it back and forth slowly with the grace of a violin bow. He then decreed,
"There are no stupid things. Just stupid people."
I rolled my eyes at these harsh words, but they must have resounded within me: I finally understand the wisdom of those words. Suddenly the prompt isn't stupid. I was trying to attack it anxiously in child-like fervor; but at least it was justified when I was actually a child. I was better than that now: all those years of him telling me that performing yard work was for me- he had been right. I had bettered myself, conditioning my spirit through gardening, even though I had despised it. And with the power of my newly discovered patience, I grinned and waited for inspiration to take the wheel.
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Stupid prompt. I am staring vacantly at the screen, on the verge of sacrificing potential and caving into apathy. Suddenly words on the screen blur together, rearranging themselves into familiar phrases which form chastises, which form lectures...
The sun beat down my back as I performed yard work with my father. Our duty that weekend was to saw branches into storable pieces. Having an 8-year-old learn how to handle a 2-foot handsaw built character, which according to my father, I was sorely lacking. If I executed a task incorrectly, I was chastised for being a slow learner who could not follow directions. If I missed a spot, it was due to my lack of attention to detail. All of this was for my own benefit, of course. But to me, yard work just seemed like a pitfall leading to criticism, which is why I resented it with a deep-rooted enmity that the thistles in my socks and scrapes on my arms testified to.
Though I begrudgingly took up my saw, I was eager to prove my work ethic. I set to work on a branch. Dense and unyielding, I began crossly hacking at it-my saw futilely skid across the surface, impatiently scoring the bark over and over again. I tried smashing it apart in a last bash of frustration, only to find my own hands swollen red from the effort.
I bitterly muttered, "Stupid branch."
My father then took the saw from me. He set the saw down and lagged it back and forth slowly with the grace of a violin bow. He then decreed,
"There are no stupid things. Just stupid people."
I rolled my eyes at these harsh words, but they must have resounded within me: I finally understand the wisdom of those words. Suddenly the prompt isn't stupid. I was trying to attack it anxiously in child-like fervor; but at least it was justified when I was actually a child. I was better than that now: all those years of him telling me that performing yard work was for me- he had been right. I had bettered myself, conditioning my spirit through gardening, even though I had despised it. And with the power of my newly discovered patience, I grinned and waited for inspiration to take the wheel.
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