To get started

"The secret of getting ahead is to get started" -Mark Twain

When I saw this quote, I was immediately reminded of advice from my freshman year math teacher. He believes taking the first right step remains the secret to success in solving difficult math problems. I've found the implications of this piece of advice to stretch far beyond the scope of math, applicable in writing and social problem-solving. This week has been difficult, primarily because the heft of assignments has augmented with the term coming to a close in a month. Let me live by this quote for this upcoming week as I tackle a test and two papers.

The doors to our inner and outer worlds

I lost my voice this weekend. It was the first time in my life that I’d completely lost my voice. Yes, I’ve experienced sore throats and croaky responses. Yet my voice this weekend presented so pallid a volume that virtually no sound came out of my mouth even when my throat contracted with the equivalent power used to produce a scream. When I woke up on Saturday morning, my throat felt different. It lacked lacked tension and felt more like an open tunnel. As I warmed into the morning, my voice returned ever so slightly…even to get me through Saturday. Yesterday (Sunday), I struggled to even whisper. Thankfully, I’m slowly recovering.

I didn’t realize how powerful my voice was until I lost it. I suppose one can make that argument for just about anything. However, it wasn’t until I lost my voice that I realized how often I use it. Having to cherry pick what to say and filter out things that weren’t importance proved a struggle. Dinner last night with my family was quiet. I couldn’t contribute much to the conversation, which helped me realize how much vacancy my voice fills in conversations with others. Perhaps in the presence of others, I also tend to occupy a large portion of conversation time, something I must strive to be more aware of. In losing my voice, I gained awareness of my talkativity.

Yesterday, when I attended a Mock Admissions activity, I had many ideas and questions that I wanted to share. When I raised my hand to speak, my voice croaked out a winded response, detracting from what I’d intended to convey. With my voice gone, replaced by whispers and short, tiresomely forced out responses, the things I said lost persuasiveness, confidence, and emotion. One’s voice can express so vast an array of emotions that only when one loses this power can they fully grasp its heft. 

I’ve known the importance of my voice in my past, but it wasn’t until this past weekend in my 16 years of life that I’d actually completely lost my voice. In the past, I’d protected my voice before I gave speeches or presentations. I would drink lots of water before going on stage, not eat anything salty, spicy, or too sweet before to protect my vocal chords, tricks my singer friend shared with me. I strive to do a more thorough job, as I almost cried in the shower last night thinking back to being unable to self-advocate for simple things such as what I wanted to eat for dinner. I realize how our voices are not just for self-advocacy though; they enable us to collaborate, advocate for others, and stand up when things aren’t right and our voices serve as links to the greater society.  When I lost my voice, I could no longer talk with a stressed friend in the dorm, I had to take a more convoluted path to answer someone’s question about where to find Italian restaurants in Boston, and phone calls were completely out of the question. 

A voice can mean different things for an individual. For some, it’s their life. Singers and artists are a great example. For others, they use it as a means to expedite what they do. Motivational speakers or teachers. It’s the direct platform that enables us to contribute to society while advocating for ourselves. Our voices represent the doors to both our inner and outer worlds.

Séduire and changing identities

My class has been reading a contemporary classic this term called Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of Coran. It’s a short story, merely 68 pages long, about a motherless boy named Momo who grows up with a drunk, career-wise unsuccessful father. At the age of 11, Momo steals money from his father’s piggy bank to pay prostitutes. While most of my peers initially felt this inappropriate, we delved into a conversation in class about the lack of a maternal figure in Momo’s life that fuels his desire for affection. This sparked the topic of our french essays: identities. How do our identities manifest? What fuels/pushes certain characteristics, while diminishing others?

In writing this essay, I was reminded of a post that I’d written over two years ago about personalities. I was reminded of the two sides of me: the side perceptible to everyone and the one that manifests internally or with a select group of people. I reread what I wrote in that post from two years ago. Next, I thought about who I am today, my identity, and how people perceive me. It’s very different. It’s not just Self 1 that has evolved; who I am on the inside, Self 2, no longer aligns with what I’d written two years ago. Here’s to an update on my identity.

Externally, I project reservation. I abandoned my outspokenness in exchange for a more demure persona. It’s inaccurate to say that I’ve lost my ability to speak my mind because I haven’t. I simply choose not to overtly disagree unless I feel an inexorable inability to suppress my opinions. As I wrote a few weeks ago, I’ve found power in agreeability, which I’ve decided to capitalize upon unless something tests my fundamental morale. Secondly, I never liked being known as a know-it-all, a name people sometimes doted me because I achieved reasonably high marks in my classes. High school, however, inherently changed my ability to know everything because there is geniunely always someone who is very familiar with every topic out there. While I may understand a bit about xyz, someone else in the room is bound to understand pqr better than me. I no longer speaker upon things I’m unfamiliar with. I like to avoid pretending to know something I don’t. Perhaps I’ve learned the hard way of pretending to understand something, only to be completely outsmarted by another person in the room who understands the nuances of the issue and 40% more knowledge to base their claims upon. When I get into these conversations, I simply say, “I’m not very familiar with this topic, but from what I know…”. 

Internally, I’ve lost some of the boisterousness and loudness I had years before. It’s been replaced with something I value more, sarcasism and humor. Time has become the most precious thing in high school and as a result, I’ve budgetted my time in ways that have minimized opportunites to be loud, party, or listen to music. Perhaps I’ve only temporarily lost my energy and maybe it will return again at another point in my life. 

I firmly believe that identities inevitably evolve overtime. Perhaps this explains why the line distinguishing who I am on the outside versus the inside is no longer as vivid. In french, the word séduire means to appeal to. My teacher asked the class quelle identité vous séduit? Which identity appeals to you? As of now, I don’t know. Will we ever know though, for if we could predict how our identities would eventually change, I can’t imagine what notion would justify the process of change. I believe the constant feeding of new possibilities in our identities, driven by media, TV characters, etc, fuel that change. 

In enjoying what we do

Some food for thought from my absentminded thinking over the weekend :) 

There’s an unequivocal power that arises when one enjoys what they do. It’s this surge of energy that ripples through the system, like a lightbulb turned on, when one enjoys what they're doing. 

It’s a no brainer that we do things better when we enjoy them. I’ve managed to find ways to enjoy things I usually dislike by focusing on small details that draw me to other activities. When I studied physics, I focused on that small victory of getting a question right, reminiscent of that small victory when I hit a deep corner shot on the tennis court. When I get a cramp during my run and when nothing but stopping feels right, I try to remember how amazing it always feel after. I concentrate on that feeling of accomplishment at the end, followed by the notion that I overcame another (mini) obstacle. When I have boring notes to take, I try to make them colorful, add little jokes, or tell a narrative to help me remember. It honestly makes note taking miles more enjoyable and effective. 

It’s these small adjustments in my mental game which I’ve discovered have helped me enjoy things I may otherwise dislike. I’m almost artificially targeting pleasure. Is that wrong? Is it narrow minded to only do things I like? Perhaps that’s a yes. But whether it’s wrong to single out aspects for enjoyment because I struggle to do things I dislike well...I’m not sure. Perhaps this is in itself being open minded. Maybe if I succeed in finding ways to make the unenjoyed enjoyable, the scope of areas in which I can excel will grow exponentially.