Life has really been a whirlwind these past few days since I left Shanghai and these past few months since graduation. I've done a lot of reflection during this time, trying to learn a little bit from everyone I meet. My goals while in school have largely oriented around how to get things done and done well. But now, my goals are more centered on self-improvement. I can be a multitude of things, try to cultivate a multitude of qualities, but first I guess I have to decide on the qualities that I value. It's not just answering the question of I want
to do in the future, but more importantly,
what kind of person do I want to be?
On the first night of Sprout Camp, we asked our campers what goals they had for themselves for the camp. Something Jessie said really surprised me and I thought it was kind of precocious. She said one of her ultimate goals was to get along with all kinds of different people, including people at this camp. It might have sounded kind of funny to me a maybe in the past, but I think it is a very good goal. While I've lucked out in the friends department (that's you guys!!!!), self-achievements have always been my ultimate goals. I've never given too much thought to how I interact in social groups, how I affect other people, or how I could change myself to better get along with others. Maybe it's all the Freshmen Counselor crap brainwashing me, but it's something I think about frequently. So here goes self-improvement goal #1: To get along with more people/different types of people.
Lately, I've been trying to cultivate the mentality that I can stand to learn something from everyone that I meet, even if I don't like them. I've already learned a lot from friends who on the surface seem very different from me--Chichi (with her gangster mom-ness) and Maylene (with her relationshipy tendencies) are two examples that pop into my head immediately. Everyone has a great quality that deserves recognition or respect and it's a lot easier to get along with all sorts of people when I can see their better traits. Zach once told me that he thought I was a fairly judgmental person (which at the moment I thought was pretty funny because sometimes I like to make Zach sweat a bit for fun (sorry!)), but being judgmental is probably a poison to getting along with other people. It makes you a lot more ready to see other people's flaws than their strengths, and then you have less respect for them, which leads to a variety of problems.
I've also noticed that I get into arguments sometimes about the silliest of topics (Ray knows lol). When I get caught up in the argument, I can't seem to stop, even when I realize that the argument is probably hurting my relationships with that person and I value them far more than winning some stupid argument. Alas, I've now realized that winning arguments at the expense of friendships is not what I want and I've also been working on admitting that I'm
might be in the wrong(even when I think I'm right!) or at least stepping back for a second and really listening to what the other person is saying. Now that I've been trying this, I've realized that it's a lot easier to get fired up and be passionate about an argument than to step back and try to see things from the other person's point of view.
Spending the past few days with my mom while trying to keep Jessie's comment in mind has really made our time a lot more pleasant, and it's really helped me to see all the amazing qualities that my mom has that I've never seen before and would love to try to cultivate in myself. I've always taken my mom's knack for getting things done as a "mom thing", but now I'm amazed by her productivity and ability to solve problems that she's never encountered before. I'm also impressed by how she's managed to stay in touch with her high school, college, and graduate school friends. It's really been a long time and yet whenever she comes back to China, she always makes time to see them. The list goes on, but I thought I'd mention a few (hi mom! :P)
