In a world where everyone is expected to be “something” when they grow up, there are those mavericks among us who’d rather not. Our society assumes that we are to always be definitively doing something, to be productive, to be involved— but only in ways that society considers acceptable and meaningful. Even in our leisure time we are often active and busy doing something distinctive, just to be doing something, because there is a subconscious impression that we should.
An implication to achieve permeates our environments, merely for the sake of achieving (which is to say, blindly), instead of because we will or wish it. Social respect and admiration are only attributed to people whose achievement results in status, recognition or approval. And those who at least strive to achieve are granted more value than those who don’t.
However, some errant individuals prefer to just be… left alone, unburdened by the dictates of social obligation. Resisting the societal compulsion to contribute, participate and succeed in order to fit in or appease, these aberrant few with a propensity for disobedience choose not to comply.
Achievement is revealed to them as a false god, and they refuse to be imposed upon by its capricious demands. Since their education exceeds their inclination to achieve (at least in conventional terms), they are commonly referred to as “over-educated under-achievers.”
Lacking ambition, over-educated under-achievers don’t much care about common conceptions of “success”, accomplishment or status. Their Nietzschean prerogative for irreverent prevarication towards responsibility is often perceived as apathy, immaturity and negligence. Yet when they apply themselves, they ideally choose to do so out of enlightened self-interest, not obligation or coercion. Whatever does not directly relate to or involve them frequently gets dismissed and neglected. Adopting a kind of non-interference policy, they typically remain uninvolved and uncommitted.
Through an attitude of discrimination, indifference and detachment, over-educated under-achievers create and cultivate in all things-- as much as possible-- a stress-free zone around themselves. Why work hard when hardly working will suffice? Why expend effort unnecessarily on anything they think is non-essential effort? Why arbitrarily expose themselves to such attrition? It is simply a matter of self-preservation, to be more selective and conserve energy for that which they think is worthwhile to them, for them.
Sometimes, over-educated under-achievers avoid responsibility due to fear of failure and/ or success, but these occurrences are the minority. If they fail, they might incite disappointment from others and themselves, and maybe ridicule. If they succeed, then they set a standard of achievement that others will expect them to sustain or exceed, and perhaps provoke envious contempt or resentment, and encourage people to use them. Most of them are not afraid of risk, they just don’t want to be bothered by unnecessary involvement.
Anyone discovered to be not conforming to the will of society is denounced and devalued as useless, a waste, offering nothing significant to the world.
People who don’t do what they are “supposed” to do are chastised.
Anyone who is acting in a capacity and degree less or other than what they have been proven capable of are said to be not fulfilling their potential.
If you don’t contribute to society in ways that are known or recognized by the majority rule as being valuable and appropriate, you are labeled as a failure, a slacker, a loser.
But such things are not important to over-educated under-achievers. They have no ambitions to be anything in particular… only to become, to do what they will, according to their own aspirations and estimations. If they do happen to satisfy conventional expectations of responsibility, it is volitional, coincidental and accidental… because it suits them and not because this is expected of them.
The reason over-educated under-achievers usually work low status, low pay and low expectation jobs is not necessarily that their experience or college degrees ultimately proved less useful than anticipated in the practical world, nor that there was nothing available to them. Not necessarily that they are afraid, lazy, or incapable. It is primarily because these individuals have no desire to pursue anything in particular, so they may be more flexible in committing their attention and time to many things, or no things.
Employment is just a way to acquire or maintain something else. For them, attaining and exercising power is nothing but a means to an end, never simply an end in itself.
Career and business do not interest over-educated under-achievers. Investing one’s self in any vocation or avocation is fully conditional and negotiable.
Although they aren’t ambitious in a strict sense, they are passionate and creative about uncertain things that attract their wandering attentions and affections. If they went to college they mostly did so for the experience, to study a subject because it interests them, not for fame and fortune, nor to have a job. If they got a job in a subject that interests them… bonus, but glamour wasn’t the main incentive.
Maybe they initially intended or hoped to find a job in a field of interest, but changed their mind because they lost interest or couldn’t find an available job.
Perhaps they did it because they didn’t really know or care what else to do. Ironically, over-educated under-achievers under achieve because they are over educated. Their formal (and informal) education tends to consist of impractical or unconventional subjects, which have limited utility & appreciation within mainstream society. In school and out, their focus and fascination are often in obscure areas like the humanities (i.e.- philosophy, history, literature, film, theater) or sciences (i.e.- archeology, paleontology, sociology). Therefore, they are generally more motivated by, and concerned with, making a life than making a living.
Essentially, whether as an unintentional side effect or deliberately or both, they are predominately incompatible with affectations of the ordinary world.
Like a duck with a broken wing approaching the inevitable edge of a waterfall abyss, the over-educated under-achiever struggles against an omnipresent force that perpetually threatens to disturb its calm, peaceful place.
In the wisdom of fools, they tempt and defy their own destruction within an unsympathetic society, by which they paradoxically achieve their ultimate salvation and victory. And while their narcissistic, nihilistic behavior largely dissociates them from the mainstream world to some degree, exceptions are occasionally made for those regarded as worth their time and effort.
The cheese does not always stand completely alone.
