My
lacks of confidence, determination and ability to express myself seem to be the
biggest obstacles at my current stage of life. I don’t have the courage to try
and do lots of things due to the lacks and indirectly I put a low ceiling on
what I might do for my life.
The
younger generation is a generation that is full of new ideas and know perfectly
well how to express themselves, thanks to the development in the teaching
approaches and educational system. Gradually, the younger generation will
occupy more percentage of job market and perhaps after 5-10 years, some of them
will be in management or decision making roles. As a middle-aged man who was
trained under “spoon-feeding” and less idea-oriented educational system, how I
am going to survive and continue fighting for what I want in the coming years?
This is a question that I really need to look into. It’s not too late to start
thinking about ways to deal with it now instead of thinking about it 10 years
later when I will be forty plus and any abrupt changes in life are more
difficult. At that time, the competitive and winner-take-out working
environment nowadays will surely become tougher for people like me, it will be hard
to survive without the ability to quickly climb the learning curve of any skill,
be it a technical skill or interpersonal skill.
I
think that I am not talented or perhaps I am just a borderline gifted person. Sometime
people tend to mythologize natural talent and tend to praise someone because of
his talents in performing something phenomenally well so that they can get themselves
off the hook and relax into the status quo without thinking of the possibility
of performing as well as him. By letting themselves be persuaded by the word
“divine”, they are more willing to accept the fact that they are simply lacking
of the natural talents to do what the talented people capable of doing, no
matter how hard they try, since they are just ordinary human beings.
Everyone has his very own yardstick to measure
his achievement in life and one’s achievement may be nothing in the eyes of others.
One should not overemphasize talent and underemphasize other things which are
as important, like efforts and hard works. The fact that there is a gap between
potential and its actualization and most people always behave below the optimum
cheer me up a bit. I ask myself “Am I possible to do something by pushing
my potential (if I have) to the extreme use?” After many years working in the industry, I came to appreciate in doing something over and over again, and enjoy seeing something that was never natural become almost second natural. I think I am not lacking
of the capacity to learn something new and then perform it well. What I need
right now is better strategizing my plans to better prepare myself for the
challenges ahead. Of course, absorbing more ideas and make them part of mine is
one of the practicable ways to go ahead……
**With ideas and lots of quotes from Angela Lee Duckworth: Grit: The power of passion and perseverance
(517words)
No comments:
Post a Comment