Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Charlie
Gold stars, grades, marks out of 10, awards and medals, that's the stuff they use throughout our life to keep us stupid. If the medals came to you doing the things you wanna do and heading where you wanna go, that's wonderful by itself but, seriously, medals are nowt but an arbitary and meaningless confirmation of 'merit'.
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Oh, bugger off.
It was a nice surprise for two years' worth of hard work. It was unexpected, and I would've worked just as hard whether I knew there was an award at the end of my academic session or not.
I fail to see how the acknowledgement of my hard work is doing anything to make me stupid; it's an academic achievement award. It's a thumbs up, a notice from my institution that my hard work is acknowledged, and that's a nice little energy boost going into the university next year.
You seem to presume that my hard work was on behalf of this medal, or that my self esteem derives from it, or even that I think myself intrinsically more valuable than others as a result of receiving it; all of these ideas are far off-base. The simple fact of the matter is that I worked extremely hard, and I am proud of that hard work.
Hard work is something to be proud of, it's something to be valued, and it's something to feel good about, regardless of the domain you do it in.
Both items will be going to my mother, because she is likely to find them more meaningful than I do.
EDIT: And for the record, I do love what I'm doing. I love learning, I love thinking, and I love knowledge.