Plumber's Syndrome: a term coined by author William Deresiewicz. Otherwise known as Ivy retardation, or like The New York Times once put it: "when you can converse with people from other countries, in other languages, but can’t communicate with the plumber standing in your own house." It affects the many who attended elite universities in the States, but in the case of Peru, just the lucky few. Every year, Lima high schoolers are struck by this disease, one of the most recent victims being me.
As luck would have it, my phone got stolen over the weekend. Forgive my passive voice, but if I knew who took it, I wouldn't be writing this today. The tragedy took place on Saturday and thankfully my mom found a friend who could lend me her iPhone for a few weeks. On Sunday I had to go pick it up, and since both my parents and my brother are away, I had no one to take me. I usually don't take cabs. Whether it's my family or my driver, there is always somebody who can get me to where I need to be. Even if I ever do, I am always consumed by technology; completely oblivious to the presence of my surroundings, so this time it was a little different. Although it wasn't common for me, under the circumstances, I was forced to go on a taxi. The driver arrived at my house and gave me a call. He drove a red Toyota that must have been twice my age. I left my house and uneasily got into the cab only to become even more troubled after listening to the loud engine noises the car made at every turn. The man was in his mid-thirties, he wore a collared shirt and listened to Los Hermanos Yaipen. While usually I'd be immersed into the world of social media, with no phone, this was no longer a possibility. As the awful music and the unsettling motor sounds attempted to mask the awkward silence, I realized that we had nothing in common with this man. It was a long drive. Probably about thirty to forty minutes in the car and I had no source of entertainment. I tried to ask him a question but found myself failingly searching for words to say. I am a twelveth-grade student at one of Peru's best schools, and somehow, I could not speak to my taxi driver. I had never felt so disconnected in my life. I usually find ease in delving into a conversation, but for some reason, it seemed impossible to relate to this person. We must have spent about twenty minutes in the car before I asked him if he preferred cash or credit. It was a stupid question if anything, but it was a good start. After hearing his vague answer, I asked him his name and if he liked being a taxi driver and soon the conversation began. It wasn't easy getting over myself but after a while, I saw that this person -who now I know is named Luis- was actually kind of interesting. He was an aspiring entrepreneur who was planning to start his own taxi business with his brother. Roosevelt is a great school. It offers students many opportunities to shape their learning. Although I love my high school, it does a perfect job at trapping students in a bubble of eliteness. While I talked to Luis, I realized that we had more in common that I led myself to believe. He also had dreams and aspirations and a refreshing perspective on things. All of this made me think back to Corey's proposition for the Innovation Academy. Besides changing the way Roosevelt teaches, how about changing who they teach all together? By mixing people from different social statuses, students would be able to learn from people who might have different points of view. This merging of socio-economic classes would broaden students perspectives and do a hell of a better job at, as the Deresiewicz put it, shaping world citizens.
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As I sat in school this Friday afternoon ready to write my blog, I found myself stranded: I had nothing to write about. I thought and thought of possible reflection topics for about an hour, and no ideas came to mind. I was baffled by my situation. After all, I've written blog posts for over a year and a half and never have I encountered this problem before. Something was different this time, but I didn't know what.
While I closed my eyes and waited for thoughts to come, I remembered that creativity cannot be forced, so I shut my laptop, went home, and continued with my day. I proceeded with my routine for the rest of the weekend; it wasn't until Sunday noon when I discovered what the problem was: my routine itself. You might not know this, but lately, my days have been abnormally occupied. I wake up, go to school, have meetings which take up most of my lunches and then I go home, eat, and go to my ACT classes. After I get back from my ACT classes I have to go to kickboxing and math tutoring before going to sleep. There is no stop. My days are getting extremely busy, and they're only going to get worse in the next few months. I barely have time to breathe, and my free time is basically made up of meals and showers. I used to take one-hour breaks to do nothing and think, but right now that's just not a reality. My lack of reflection time is the main reason why I've been having such trouble thinking of topics for my blog. I used to believe that keeping myself busy was optimal for increasing productivity, but now I see that that is not entirely true. You don't know when inspiration will hit you, but for it to happen, you must give it time and space. As of now, my time may be limited, but after this experience I have realized that reflection is something I must include in my daily routine. While I may not be able to devote an hour of my days to reflection, ten mindful minutes are more than enough. Reflecting is about questioning your doings and searching for self-improvement. It lets you grow and develop to become a more efficient person. Living in an incredibly busy world, we might take these moments for granted, but one should never forget the value of doing nothing at all. Relax. This is not a blog where I'll explain to you the basics of economics, nor am I planning to give you a big lesson on supply/demand. For now, there's only one thing you need to know: in a nutshell, economics is the study of human choice. It's a social science that inquires circumstances and situations, and how different individuals react to them. Now, under that definition, pretty much anything can be considered economics. Deciding whether you should go out or stay in, choosing between catching the bus or simply driving, finishing your homework today or doing it tomorrow. Just about any decision you make in life, in a way, is related to economics, because there will always be a cost and a benefit, a risk and a reward. Full disclosure, I'm no expert in economics. In fact, I'm as clueless as one can be. But just this week I learned a few concepts that provided me with the insight I needed to deal with this incognito 'economic' dilemma that I've been having.
Over this summer break I only had one goal in mind: finalize my college application lists. It's a reasonable objective given that I'd have two full months to accomplish it. Yet, after eight weeks, one trip and thirteen universities, I was more confused than ever. To better understand my problem, you should know that settling on a university is not just that. There are a lot of factors that go into the decision and a lot of factors that the decision will affect. As you may already know, my dream is to study biology at an undergraduate level, go on to med school and hopefully someday be called Dr. Fischman. While this may sound good on paper, it's easier said than done. It has increasingly become harder for international students to be accepted into med school, and with the odds against me, I had to choose the university that would allow me to flourish as a learner and reach my fullest potential. For starters, you must realize that my biggest incentive here was my dream. And while good in nature, powerful incentives can shape the way you think. In order to be accepted into med school, I had to find a university rigorous enough to be considered, yet not as competitive in student body, one that would offer a good program but not a low acceptance rate. I could have gone on forever stating the specifications for my dream school, but I realized that I wasn't getting anywhere with that, and at that moment I thought back to economics. I was going into a career that offered high risk and high reward, due to this, I was under a lot of pressure. With so many thoughts in mind, I decided to build a pro and con list to help me figure it out, and thus I began the longest list I would ever write. As I scribbled and scribbled on my legal notepad, I began to notice a trend. I realized that many of my concerns were based on lack of knowledge, and I knew I had to take action. In the real world, you can't expect someone to make an important decision when they are not well informed. Smart choices are all about gathering varied perspectives and building a strong conclusion. While visiting universities had allowed me to receive a lot of knowledge, I had just grasped the surface of things, and I had to dig deeper. I began to seek professional advice, talk to counselors and look for online reviews. I must have spent hours on the web before I got to a place where I was on the edge of deciding. I contacted a college guru who agreed to help me by phone, over the next few weeks, and for once I finally felt relieved. I don't think I'd ever want to be an economist, but I do know that in any given profession I am going to have to make important decisions. As a future doctor, my choices will have the power to change the life of patients, so it is important to be aware of how to make informed decisions. Economics is all around us; Go to dinner or eat at home, watch Netflix or go to sleep, it's all about economics. Due to this, it is important to understand yourself, your situation and your options to choose from. And as for me, I sure know that next time I'm faced with an important choice to make, I'll stop and evaluate the situation, because every decision in life has a cost and a benefit, a risk and a reward. Throughout this semester, we were presented with the task of completing a marketing micro-documentary with the means of making it go viral. In order to accomplish this, we read the book Contagious by Jonah Berger who carefully explained the six steps to making a product catch on. We had to choose 2 of the total 6 key points, being Social currency, Triggers, Emotions, Public, Practical value and Stories, and once we read the book, it was pretty clear to us which ones we would go for. In the end, we decided to put an emphasis on the areas of stories and emotions. In my previous book review, I go in depth with the aspects covered through the chapters, but for the purpose of this post I will narrow it down to these two focus points that took my video to the next level.
Stories, to us, was an obvious pick. The company my group chose was La Folie, and ever since the day we went to interview the owner, Andrea Balta, we fell in love with its history. Starting off as a family business, where two sisters joined forces to open a crazy restaurant, La Folie is now turning 6 years old. In my video particularly, stories are shown through the means of voiceover, as the b-roll purposefully rolls in shots of La Folie's finest characteristics. Some images shown here are customers eating and enjoying the comfortability of the restaurant. Overall, we found that it showed to be quite a unique story for a café, nonetheless pretty inspiring and tender to the heart. Bringing us to our second key point: Emotions. Regarding emotions, our aim was to transmit a message that both customers and workers at La Folie feel at home. Through filmed interviews and footage that displayed clients relaxing, we managed to give a certain cuteness to our film. The waitress who kindly spoke about the family of workers added the pinch of tenderness to our micro-documentary that was meant to impact potential goers. If I had to evaluate the process of making this video, I would have to argue that it went about much like a roller-coaster. There were several ups and downs, but in the end they were all worth it. I feel as if several iterations were made before reaching our final stance, and those trials were what made the product be of high value. Regarding filming and editing techniques, I learned the value of using both a tripod and microphone when shooting, but my learnings surpassed just the typical hands-on skills. Organization and collaboration I must say, were the biggest lessons I learned across this project. Planification definitely worked, it took us once to forget the camera at school to learn that we needed a system. By our last visit we all knew that Ariloor was in charge of the camera, Chiara the tripod and I brought the microphone. I learned that I work best when we have a structured method to do things and that trial, error, and feedback can sure teach you a lot. If it weren't for the comments I received with my first draft video, I would have never accomplished the end film I have now. Even though it was never intended, our video for La Folie ended up portraying all 6 steps indirectly. And although there were some errors along the way, I can say with confidence that all group members grew from this experience and in my opinion, the final video showed some pretty good results. All of these learnings, yet, will not be forgotten; I will sure remember every lesson I learned in this unit for my documentary next semester. Click here to see the script translation. As I was sitting on my desk this average Sunday evening, I attempted to find reflection ideas for this week's blog. I thought and thought, only to find myself blank-minded, the few ideas I considered worth spreading seemed to be impossible to develop.
I was in an uncomfortable position; both mentally and physically. My elbow was pressed into the wooden board of my desk table, head melting in the palm on my hand, I was rotting in my dullness while my mind acted as a magnet for solely mediocre ideas. As my thoughts seemingly drifted away, I began to look back to the past weeks of this semester. I started to recall the differences between this week and the ones before; why was it so hard to find my train of thought? It wasn't that these weeks were uneventful, learning did happen in a variety of ways. I finished my marketing micro-documentary project, received great feedback on it from both my peers and target audience (the owner of La Folie herself), I read and I wrote, but there was something missing. I I have never had to give a blog topic that much thought before, for me it has always been something naturally-occurring. As soon as I typed the first word it was as if the next few wrote themselves, but this week that didn't occur. As I started to piece things together I came to a conclusion, I had the ideas, I had the time, but I was missing the inspiration. When people are inspired, they can accomplish pretty much anything; and with this thought, I couldn't help but look back at the Ted Talk we saw a couple of days ago. This speech was made by a boy called Logan LaPlante who took an unusual path towards education in order to increase his happiness and follow his passions. He decided to hack school by learning through real life experiences and homeschool-type courses. Logan LaPlante's talk caused great controversy in our class, there were diverse personal opinions and people who wanted to share their thoughts. We must have spent an hour in the least discussing LaPlante's program, and sure, if we wanted to, there were several areas where we could 'poke holes' in, but there was one aspect that we all failed to recognize. I agree, maybe he was fostering a rebellious mindset and he may not be the best-prepared student for college life, but what LaPlante's program did succeed in was helping boys find their own inspiration. Nowadays, school is known to kill creativity, to kill inspiration. We commonly see teachers making students write essay papers on topics that are clearly not of their interests. Students behave through extrinsic motivators like grades and reputations, not because of interest to learn. Earlier this week I got asked by a peer about my plans for the future and if I ever regretted getting into the Innovation Academy. I thought about it for a while, but then I proceeded to explain that while the thought of joining IB did float through my mind every so often, I never really lamented being part of the IA. While I may not be sure about acceptance rates and applications, I am sure that the Innovation Academy cares about students finding their own inspiration. It is way too common for school to kill creativity and to undermine student's passions, which is why by joining IA I am taking a stand towards what I believe is the future of education. And as my mind slowly returned from its prolonged drift, I sat motionless in my desk this Sunday evening and realized that without even noticing, I had found my inspiration. We grow up being told that the most important things in life are not 'things', but without noticing, little by little we become attached. We associate emotions with objects until one day those objects become much more than just 'things', and it is then that we place materialism in its best disguise. I must admit; I have recently fallen into this trap, a trap that is now placing me in an arduous position, where I am faced with the difficult task of letting go. The story begins sixteen years and five months ago when a new-born Frances Fischman was first brought to her home. I was born an 8-month old baby, I was of very small size and pretty fragile, but there was something about the house that nurtured me and kept me strong. After I arrived home, I began to grow, and soon I became a healthy, active toddler. But this isn't the story about how I survived being a premature baby, this is the story of how I grew up, and my house did so too, right next to me.
Over the years I have lived here, my house has gone through some drastic changes, and in correspondence, so have I. When I was 5, I decided to get a fringe. Meanwhile, my house expanded to a second floor. At the age of 9 I got braces, and my parents turned their old room into a gymnasium. By the time, I was 13 I got a second piercing, parallelly, a neighbor built her house on what used to be our front lawn. Throughout these 16 years, my house has morphed endlessly, and taken all sorts of shapes and appearances, but so have I. The process of growth is not a pretty one, but it is remarkable looking back and seeing how much has changed. In essence, my house is part of my identity, it is part of who I am; this is why the conversation I had with my parents the other day was of such high impact. As we were discussing college plans in one of our typical Sunday family gatherings, I said something that evoked a response from my parents that left me speechless. I was talking about visiting Lima on holidays and vacations when I mentioned finally being able to come home to my room. For a while, my parents nodded until my dad snapped out and reacted; "Oh, but remember when you move out, the house goes with you." At first, I failed to understand what he was saying, or maybe I just refused to understand it. It seemed crazy that my dad would want to get rid of the house that watched me take my first steps, but as the awkward silence dominated the dinner table, the words began to sink into my mind. "What?" I responded, and they proceeded to tell me a very thought-out plan of buying an apartment for just the two of them. I must say it did make a lot of sense, after all what would they do with so much free space? Still, this was all too much to process at once, so I told my parents I wanted to be excused. I knew I wasn't overreacting, this house has seen me at my best and worst moments, so when my parents told me they would sell it, I felt like they were taking a piece of me away. But the more I thought of it, the more I saw that I was being immature. It didn't happen immediately; it took me a while to see it, but I began to accept the fact that sooner or later, this house would not be mine. And when I did so, I was able to see things through another lens and notice that my house was only physical. I saw that any emotion I was inflicting on it was simply making me dependable, dependable on an object, dependable on a 'thing.' I was able to wrap this up in my head after Mr. Cotter asked the class to find the five things we would save from our house if it were on fire. Then and there I realized I was being placed in a puzzling situation; I wanted to save it all. The locket my mother gave me, the stuffed bunny gifted by my dad, but most importantly, my house, the physical structure. I began to picture it on fire, everything, every object to which I have ever been attached. At first it felt horrible, losing every article of interest I have ever cared about, but after a while it felt relieving. By breaking any bond you have with these objects, you are freeing yourself, and every object less, becoming freer. But yes, if my house would burn down I would be eternally devastated, but there is one thing that would always remain intact. When I was taking the pictures for our 'The things they carried' assignment, I failed to notice something. There is one thing that I will always carry with me, but, in this case, it is not a 'thing', and that is the memories that will live past any physical structure that makes up my home. I will always remember that tree, the one I used to climb until reaching the tallest branches. I will always remember my dad's office, filled with stacks of books it would take years for one to read. I will always remember my room, packed with countless reminiscences, both happy and sad. And even though the day will come when this house no longer belongs to me, scribbled on the walls and ceilings are those memories that I will keep forever, I will always carry my home in my heart. And while for now it may pain me to say, I do hope that the next family that moves in will appreciate this house and grow up with it just like I did. As I was watching a documentary yesterday on quantum theory, I saw that Albert Einstein was a pretty phenomenal physicist; he created theories that drastically challenged the way we see the world. And while he may have passed away attempting to disprove his own speculations wrongfully, he was right about one thing; time moves at different speeds. And I am not referring to the elaborate, intricate, science-filled quantum mechanics of time dilation, I am talking about the much lighter topic of time passing either instantly or gradually based on our perception.
For a moment now, picture this: I'm thirteen years old, sitting down at my desk, minding my own business. I was completing a task that now seems trivial, as I hear an alarming noise coming from the kitchen. It was my mom; she was crying. I stand up curious, wondering if I'd cause more trouble than help by going in when my dilemma is resolved by loud stomps headed in my direction. As my mother enters my room I would come to experience the longest twenty seconds of my life, "Your grandfather has cancer" she said, choking on her own words. What happened afterwards is irrelevant, today my Grandpa is alive and getting better every day. They performed an operation and it succeeded. But what is still shocking to me is the fact that those few seconds seemed to have gone by much slower than any other moment ever has. We have all lived it: How vacations seem to end way too quickly, how every day we write the date down and before we know it, the year has gone by. And after first-hand experiencing the shortest week of my life in Punta Cana, I won't settle down with the childish explanation that 'time flies when you are having fun.' As I was saying; Punta Cana, a week that condensed into seconds to my discernment. We arrived at the island on a Monday, and from then the days went away in a flash. I would wake up in the middle of the week not knowing what day it was, and not wanting to find out for that matter either. I was aware that time would fly, but I never expected it to go by that quickly. Addressing the elephant in the room, yes, the class of 2017 just came back from prom trip, and though it may have been a week-long journey I feel as if those days passed quicker than the twenty-second bad news update given to me a few years ago by my mother. Now that I have returned home, I experience the opposite. I spend minutes undividedly staring at the clock waiting for time to speed up, but nothing seems to happen. It's as if the act of recognition makes moments last even longer. For me, it's an issue of awareness. The more you seem to count the time the slower it seems to pass. At the end of the day, there are several theories that attempt to explain this baffling phenomenon, but none poses a direct answer. I guess we all just have to learn to live a life where every second counts because in the blink of an eye it may pass away. As cheesy as it may sound, appreciating every moment -be it good or bad- is the only way to make sure that it was of value; because no cherished second will ever be wasted. My grandfather's illness may have caused for some pretty sorrowful moments, but those experiences taught me strength and hope. And as for Punta Cana, as fast as it may have gone by, it created some of the most ever-lasting memories I will always treasure. Have you ever had a dream so big that the idea of even attempting to achieve it seems absurd? Have you ever given up on a vision solely for fear of failing? Well for me, the rigorous dream I was too afraid to follow was the one of becoming a surgeon in the US. I have never been able to settle on a profession before; I have gone from wanting to be a photographer to an entrepreneur. But over the iterations and ideas, the job that has never been entirely discarded was the one of becoming a doctor.
I have always been fond of the sciences; I remember being in elementary and counting the days to get to middle school just because we would be able to conduct remarkable experiments. In the seventh grade, I got third place in the science fair and in ninth grade I attended to my first operation room experience. These events all sparked a curiosity in me that propelled me into finding interest in the department of sciences, bringing me to the end goal of becoming a surgeon. While the idea seems achievable (after all every year numerous students earn their medical degree) as time went by, my brain did what it knew best to do: Overthink. I took this idea of becoming a surgeon and found every flaw of the plan. What if I failed? What if I wasn't accepted to med school? These were all real concerns that were important to keep in mind; after all, forewarned is forearmed, but all they did was suppress my dream until it vanished. What happened was that every time I let this negativity take control over my life, I resorted to a backup plan. Call it business, marketing, psychology or design, I found level 'b' plans that would ensure safety college-wise. As soon as I found medical school too much of a challenge I would shift to these careers that nested my deep insecurities. But don’t get me wrong; I find all of these vocations of high rigor, yet I was being driven by fear rather than passion. In a way, I was being a 'scaredy-cat', and it took me a while to figure it out. I had already been suspecting this realization for months. I had begun to enjoy my biology class a lot, and every time I heard the word 'doctor' my eyes popped open, but I had never uttered idea out loud. It wasn't until yesterday's dinner when I was talking to my parents that the words blurted out of my mouth. "Mom, Dad, I think I want to study medicine again." I was waiting for surprise in my parents response or sort of reaction in the least; instead my mom just said: "I knew it." My mom and dad are the type of parents that would support any decision I make regarding my future. As long as I'm happy, they're happy, which is why they have supported my unending career search. But it turns out that they always thought I would end up studying medicine. My mom explained that whenever she heard me talking about the subject she could feel the excitement in my voice, and in a way, it was true. As our food was being served, I explained all of my concerns and worries, and before I knew it, a long conversation began to take place. We spent hours on the dining table discussing university plans and basically my future. I voiced my troubles, and my parents addressed them; but as the conversation started to perish my mom said a combination of words that I doubt I'll ever forget. Forgive me for my faulty paraphrasing, but here goes the staggering lesson: "The worst mistakes are the ones you never make. Don't reject a career for fear of failure, because if you do, you will always wonder 'what if.'" As I began to process the words my mother was saying, I came to an understanding. I saw that fear will do nothing but restrain you, and I began to accept failure as it was: an impending challenge I would have to face every so often. Failure is a ubiquitous part of life, and every failure I face has and will forever determine who I am and will become. And while it may have taken me about a year and a 2-hour deep conversation with my parents, I was able to realize it. I finally saw that the biggest failure isn't trying and failing, but the irreversible mistake of failing to try. We arrived at school on a Monday morning, ready to kick-start ICC. Some of us were overly-active while others still sleepy from the weekend, the class was a mess. To get into the IA-mood, Mr Cotter proposed the idea to begin by watching a 4-minute Beautiful work. The inspirational video told the story of a man called Jedidiah Jenkins who challenged his routine by going on a bike ride through South America.
I watched the video obliviously, little did I know that it would have a lot to do with my life in the next few weeks. See, that same Saturday, my phone suffered a terrible fall, and after multiple (pointless) efforts of reviving it, I had to accept the inconvenient truth: It was gone. I hadn't realized it yet, but for years now, I had been addicted to my device, and the next two weeks would come to me as an I-phone detox. As you all know, the first step to getting clean is admitting that you have a problem, and to me, this step was particularly hard. I am someone who puts autonomy above all else. The way I was raised, I have cultivated a hunger for freedom, and to find out that I have been living a slave to my I-phone was something hard understand. But after spending one day away from it, it was obvious to me that I had a problem; bringing me to the next step in the process. Withdrawal. Yes, it sounds pretty ridiculous, but let me put it into context. At this point in my life, my phone is essential. So essential, in fact, that I have built up a routine where everything revolves around this one piece of fragile technology. My alarm, my clock, my relationships, my connections, they all rely on my I-phone, and with it being gone, I was left with the empty, heart-wrenching feeling of FOMO. At night, I would wake up, restless, and actually bust out my laptop just to check out a few Facebook updates. And the fact that I couldn't see my WhatsApp was driving me insane. The first few days were the worst, but after enduring such drastic change, I was ready to move on: Acceptance. I faced the idea of living without a phone and started to embrace it. I would go to sleep with nothing but a biological alarm clock and hoped to wake up the next morning (which thankfully I did). With no distractions, homework almost finished itself, and I found myself having all of this free time I never knew I could obtain! My days of worrying about crunched agendas were over, because, without a phone, everything is about the present. When I lost my phone that Saturday night, I felt lost. I thought I would never adapt to living without it, but I learned to make the most out of the situation. And sure, if I could, I would still get my phone back in a heartbeat and I will always feel nostalgic to the memories that went away with it, but everything has its pros and cons. So let me refer to the video I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. In the Vimeo description, the filmmaker encourages us to shake up our lives a little, take on our own challenges and make a few scary decisions. Even though I didn't choose to place myself in this situation directly, it did lead me to accomplish all of the things mentioned above. Now that my life has returned to its normalcy, I can put things into perspective, and while I still miss my old I-phone, I don't regret the incident it underwent. Because sure, there will be moments when the addiction may want to take over, but at least now I will be a little bit more aware. There are a lot of things you can learn by spending 168 hours without your device, but for me, it was feeling for the first time, that I was actually free. The brain is the most remarkable organ in the human body. It can build connections, produce commands, and in relation to this blog post it can adapt. On a daily basis, we are reminded of examples that prove adaptability is key. Take for example the fact that the key to survival in evolution is adjusting to change. This concept refers to being able to transform a situation to fit a new purpose, to modify, and in my opinion, it is one of the most fundamental qualities we possess. Of course, when it comes to genetics, adaptability relates to theories of natural selection, but targeted to this blog, mental flexibility lies in one essential factor: open-mindedness. Although I don't usually show it, being open-minded has always been a challenge. It is so easy for me to trap myself behind this metaphorical door that is my fixed mindset, and once in, I find it hard to escape. I consider myself a quite determined person, even though I find my career path still unknown, I am aware of the areas I dislike. Due to this, I found myself facing a dilemma during the past few weeks. Starting with t"The Nest", if you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have told you my exact role. I used to be in charge of the website coding and design, a job I was excited to do. Yet all of this changed when we decided to switch to Medium. Now don't get me wrong, I was all for this change, it looked neater and provided a user-friendly platform; nonetheless it put me at a crossroads. My mindset prohibited me from volunteering for tasks that involved English and video-production since I am not interested in pursuing these areas further in my life. Still, I had to find a replacement role, and fast. After hours of giving it some thought, I stumbled upon an idea that peaked my interest. I decided to apply the concept of Humans of New York to The Nest and propose a Humans of Lima section. Even though I do not want to study journalism nor photography, I was able to incorporate English, media and my passions by making the most out of a situation. In the end, the nest is still undergoing some major changes, and I might not even have to pursue my role whatsoever. But what is important is that I learned the value of keeping my mind open. Because we cultivate our mindsets based on our perceptions of the universe, so escaping them will always be a challenge. But if we fail at this task, then what separates us from the organisms that lost the race of evolution? Opening our mindsets, though hard to accomplish, is the foundation to adaptability, and adaptability not only leads to growth but also to living a satisfying life. |
INNOVATE“The earth has music for those who listen.” MY BLOGS:
March 2017
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