Disclaimer:Harry Potter is the property J.K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended.
Lack of Trying
Entering school, now, I've already been told several times by adults that I can do anything I set my mind to. What a ludicrous proposition. People only like to believe that sort of thing because they want life to be fair.
They want the amount of work you put into something to equate to what you get out of it, so that hard-workers can prosper and slackers cans suffer. Because that would be fair. But it isn't true. What's fair is generally either untrue, or trivial. Seeing as life is both real and significant, it simply isn't fair.
But not everyone can handle that, so they tell themselves those pleasant little lies. They think of neat little mantras to chant to themselves as they work endlessly towards goals they may never achieve. If at first you don't succeed... Quitters never win... Shoot for the moon...
But sometimes you're just awful at something, and every single time you try you're destined to fail. And sometimes you give up, and it's a good thing. And sometimes when you shoot for the moon, you fall flat on your face. Sometimes ends up being most of the time for some people, and it's not because they don't try, it's because life isn't a children's rhyme thought up to get you to work hard. Life's a gamble. Telling yourself other wise will only help you to lose.
Anyone who listens to adults deserves the lies they hear, though. Anyone alive can't tell you about life objectively, so unless you're able to separate facts from bias rambling, you shouldn't bother listening.
That's why I talk to ghosts. Talk to them constantly. And I write it all down.
The worst part is how shocked they always seem that I'm interested. It surprises them that someone wants to hear their stories, their opinions. Everyone should. Time is a circular story, and any paths taken before lead round the same way.
Professor Binns is my favorite. He's very cut and dry. Like a well-researched book, except all firsthand. They say he's so boring that he didn't even notice when he died, and that's why he's still around. He noticed. He has a passion for history, and wanted to be able to educate the world forever. Instead he puts them to sleep.
Of all the ghosts I've talked to, most of them want to either be alive, or dead. In-between means the worst of both, they say. None of the joy of life, none of the peace of death. A comfortable sort of torture for eternity.
There's one ghost I know who wants very badly to be dead. She tries every day to kill herself in new ways, but of course they never work. She was killed, originally at her own hand. She wants more than anything to be dead, but she isn't, and that's not for a lack of trying.