Some of the best advice I've ever received

This past fall, I came across a friend who recently graduated from Andover. We were spinning in the gym and we had a pretty awesome conversation. During this conversation, he gave me some of the best advice I've ever received. Though it was in the context of mindset towards college applications, I've found his advice to apply in contexts beyond just that. He told me:

"Get excited about every school on your list"

It turns out that personal excitement has been a really pivotal change. For me, this piece of advice has translated into a mentality shift. It's about seeing, and focusing, on the good in everything. It's about avoiding limitations to names and branding. It's about seeing everything as an opportunity to win, rather than deeming the entirety of an entity a total loss. In truth, almost nothing is a true total loss. I suppose it's a matter of perspective. There can be a commensurate negative outcome even in perceivably positive choices.

Perhaps most recently, the world has been suffering through the COVID-19 pandemic, a disease that has shredded through the very threads that hold together this country. In the midst of all the negativity in the world around the economic recession, the safety of first-line workers, and sky-high unemployment rates, a few articles have highlighted ways in which this sudden two-month lockdown has positively impacted our environment. Yes, COVID-19 is inevitably and irrefutably a global loss and tragedy. It's something no one should wish upon in the future and it's definitely not something to get excited about. Yet now that it's here and ripping around the globe, I think it was conscious for someone to put those articles out about the ways in which the fundamental changes driven by this pandemic have actually brought about some good. We can get excited about better air quality and less pollution.

"Get excited about everything I try"

That's probably how I would modify this piece of advice to fit the context of daily life. I've found the more excited I get myself about completing certain tasks/assignments, the better I perform and the most invested I become.

This past week, I turned in my History 310 paper. It's a notorious assignment, designed for the culmination of a year-long US history course. If I were taking classes at school, this paper would be 10+ pages, with ample other source requirements and depth of research. Though Andover has moved classes online, we were still required to submit a 310 paper. I got myself excited about the writing process in the beginning by choosing a topic of interest. That helped a lot. After, it was easy to do the research, gather sources, and write. And the key was that I learned so much. I broadened my perceptions about the dot-com bubble in ways I hadn't anticipated and it felt amazing to submit my paper on Canvas.

I would do it all again and I even have a second topic that I almost wish I had researched too. Just to fulfill my thirst to know why. To know why the world works the way it does. To learn why something happened one way and not the other.

Getting excited about everything is difficult, particularly when I enter the process with a prenotion. It's also difficult for me to abandon that prenotion and to inform myself that I may not have experienced the full picture of what a task entails. I never really enjoyed writing research papers until this year, starting with my winter term 7 page History paper. Something about personal investment and involvement makes the process a whole lot more intriguing.

Manifesting the desire to learn something new, which requires energy, is difficult. I think another thing I focused on is how learning something new will indirectly benefit me. Instead of making decisions on a whim, new knowledge in various areas would allow me to make calculated decisions backed by informed understanding. I guess this drives me to learn. Perhaps something else that drives me is the desire to have something to talk about. Knowing more about how the world works, and bringing that into a conversation where the other conversationalist brings his/her own knowledge too, makes for a better exchange.

Anyhow, it's been a long week. A regimented week, but nonetheless fast passing as time seems to behave in my world lately. Approaching novelty, I guess requires me to get excited…somehow :)