If anyone had told me when I was a kid that I’d grow up to be standing here, I’d have jumped in the Ball Crawl.

Okay I’m just gonna say it:

When the stakes are removed – that is to say, you already have a good and stable job – it becomes infinitely harder to study with anything resembling motivation.

I’m staring down statistics, economy, climate change and other forms of miscellany, but I feel no sense of urgency in fulfilling the requirement to expand my cranium. Indeed, I have three cookbooks splayed out in front of my laptop as I alternate between glancing at my notes and figuring out what I want to make for supper.  And let’s not even talk about my newest 600 page behemoth that I am enjoying (Skippy Dies). Of course, the cookbooks and the Booker prize-winning novel are both in English. General Olmsted is looking down on me and shaking his head disapprovingly.

I can’t help it! I’m a product of the television era. If I don’t have at least seven tabs open on Firefox, or three emergent taskings burning in front of me then I feel underutilized. Maybe that’s why running around and spinning plates on a 509-foot hunk of water-cutting steel came as such an appealing workplace. Do I have a Type A personality? Did I like playing Whack-A-Mole at Chuck E. Cheese? You bet I did.

 If only I had this guy’s level of concentration…

But all of this self-inflicted urgency is not helping me to study for my exam. Of course I want to demonstrate comprehension (en français) in the area of climatology, but I am also aware of my boundaries.  After 33 years of observing exactly What I Will Do Next, I know that in the end I will always allow myself just enough room for slop so that I can land on my feet.

At least I think that is the case. Complacency is a dangerous thing, and I don’t want to become too self-assured.  I’ll get back to studying as soon as I run some errands out in town.  Besides, there are still six whole hours before the examination is to take place.