My happiness in education derives from the continuous cultivation of my nature. From an early childhood, I have followed a guide to perfection created by the fear of making mistakes and the penalties of their occurrence. I was raised by parents who rewarded correctness and accomplishment, not mistakes nor failure. Growing up with this mentality was difficult. When family or guests arrived home, I would be banished from social interaction unless spoken to, claiming that these were manners I had to learn. I was to keep my childlike stories and imaginative mind to myself and hope that somebody demands my voice. Coming home from school became a challenge as I brought home lower than expected grades. I learned at a young age that we must do our best and strive for nothing less than perfection and meeting these high standards will get you far in life.
This phobia against error is something I have steadily grown into, making imagination and creativity difficult. From these childhood-adopted behaviors, I have grown against open mindedness and have secluded myself into an area void of margins for error. Both at school and at work, I am consistently the last person to finish a task. The reason for so is that I do things exactly as stated in documented paperwork, and excessively worry about the quality, or in my case; perfection of the work. Being a meticulous person as I am has proven difficult. I have also adopted a mentality to worship challenges. To become a more knowledgeable person and more apt to overcome adversity, I have purposely positioned myself in difficult situations. In my junior year at Aviation High School, I was in a sheet metal class where we fabricated a fuselage bulkhead cross-section of an airplane. The fabrication was composed of laminates of metal bent and joined together by aluminum rivets. One part of the fabrication was to simulate damage by puncturing the metal and then repairing it. In my worshiping of challenges, I requested that the teacher give me an abnormal 4 ½ inch length-wise puncture. I thought that this would perhaps increase the difficulty and my ability to perform sheet-metal repairs on aircraft. At the conclusion of this self induced challenge, I found great satisfaction in seeing that I had achieved what others were afraid of doing. From the challenges I’ve purposely brought upon myself, I have reached a greater sense of accomplishment and pride in myself.
Being this kind of narrow-minded individual has not been easy. In following a perfectionist guide to all the activities I am involved in, I have brought greater challenges to myself. Another of such challenges is that I have tendencies to judge the work of others and not accept it to my quality standards. This has made working in teams increasingly difficult. As I am assigned a group project, I will assume full responsibility of the project’s completion and do the entire work-load in my image of an ideal product. I have done this countless times throughout my educational career. The perfectionist mentality makes communication with others difficult as well, as my rationale is “always correct”. Furthermore, being that I have lived with this idealism, at times it becomes difficult to accept criticism for who I am, what I do etc. It becomes an uneasy situation to openly speak to someone who is making judgments of my “perfection”, as I can be easily blinded to the acceptance of my mistakes.
In finding happiness in education and life while simultaneously cultivating my nature, I have proposed to adopt multiple new behaviors. Preliminarily, after close observation to my youth-long behavior, I must change my constant urge to talk and be heard, and rather serve others in hearing their points of view. Doing this will bring me closer to accepting others for their ideas and cease the belief of my superiority in train of thought. Not only will this bring me to accept others, but this will improve my communication skills. Being that I have been a speaker for the history of my existence, shifting into a listener will enhance my ability to relate to others. I will become a person open to criticism and hence develop the courage to accept my faults. It will slowly draw me away from the rigidly inhumane view of perfection I have grown into.
In addition to listening to others, I have decided to give myself a space for error and worship my human ability to learn from my mistakes. Doing so will expand my horizons and eliminate the fear of being incorrect. I will flex my rigid mindset of perfection and strive for excellence with space for error. And instead of learning new ways of emulating perfection, I will seek new ways of correcting my mistakes. I will then destroy the fortress I’ve secluded myself into and escape into reality, a place where flaws are common and present in everyone and everything. Now, I will be more forgiving for what differences I may have with others and learn to accept these differences as degraded images of perfection which I too am susceptible to. No longer will I assume full and sole responsibility of a group assignment. By detaching myself of this unnecessary responsibility, I will learn to work together in groups and be a stronger team player. The aforementioned proposals for my happiness in education are a severe shift from what I explained as my nature, but only after making these changes will I find relaxation and pleasure in education.
The educational history I have endured has been one to portray Tal Ben-Shahar’s drowning model; one in which I have “suffered discomfort and pain and struggled to escape”. Further proving his theory, I have fit myself into his words when he describes “the situation (the drowning of the student in their disliked work) may be less dramatic for students who do not enjoy school, but the nature of their motivation – the need to avoid a negative consequence – is similar” For my past school experiences, I have created these rigid mindsets that have voided me from reaching the happiness a normal student should find in education. I will attempt the proposed guideline and by such, climax to a previously unknown state of happiness, as the love-making model suggests.
I have previously worshiped challenges. Following this mentally rigorous diet will be a challenge in itself, but it will ultimately enhance the happiness I achieve in education and life in their entirety. I’ve grown to seek perfection in every aspect of living while ignoring the beauty of our human nature in its ability of making mistakes and learning from them. By doing so, I’ve stripped my life from an inability to cope with error and have never given myself the ability for growth or happiness. In cultivating my nature to become a happier student, I have customized the definition of perfection and learned that settling for nothing less than perfection is unrealistic.
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