Heh, my childhood was littered with, "Mary is so intelligent and bright and capable of so much! Now if she just tried harder..." Literally. It was amazing. Every school, every teacher. I still did very well for myself but I think at some point I got so sick of people criticising my level of effort that I just stopped making the effort altogether.

And that's how I turned out this way! *paws at the camera*

I managed to miss most of that "if [he] just tried harder". My 'rents weren't (aren't) too concerned with traditional ideas of "success" - which might go some way towards explaining how I managed to drop out of both high school and university with barely any guilt at all.