Embrace your flaws. Perfection is boring.

So I've been home since Monday and my time at home so far can be summed up in 5 words: sleep, real food, Skype, and Christmas movies. I need to get out. Literally, I was so bored today that I started studying for orgo next semester.

YOU THINK I'M KIDDING, BUT ALKYNES.

I guess it's better to start getting prepared than to waste my time. Though that's really what break is for. But I'm really just not good at wasting time. Maybe I should meditate. Just sit outside with no technology and meditate. For an hour. I might do that tomorrow. Unless it's cold, then I might not. But yanno, Texas.

For some reason I seem to have some of my deepest thoughts while I'm doing something else that requires my full attention, like reading orgo. I thought today about how much I control and repress some of the feelings and desires that I have and how that's probably the cause of the internal conflict that I have with my emotions and my logic. I told my friend one time that the battle between my emotional and logical sides is like Antietam. I thought it was a pretty good reference if you know anything about the American Civil War. On the other hand, it might be because of my internal conflict that I control my actions. Now, this is going to start sounding completely unrelated, but stay with me. If you don't really want to read about the background of my realization, you can skip to the next paragraph.

The 25 page paper I was writing for my linguistics/neuroscience seminar last semester was on the gendered power differentials in the Hindi language. My initial approach was to say that there was an equality in power because by fulfilling the roles that society expects of them, both men and women are empowered. I realized later that I don't actually believe this, but there seemed to be more papers that supported the idea. I then changed my thesis to the idea that it was the context in which a situation occurred that determined the empowerment of each gender and that social power differentials existed but did not imply linguistic power. This seemed like a good approach, but as I wrote the paper, I realized that some of my points didn't agree with this idea and I was simply trying to mold the facts to a position that they didn't agree with. At this point I was 18 pages in and I didn't want to rewrite it all, so I went to talk to my professor. She told me something that was so true that I could hardly believe that I hadn't seen it myself.

She told me to embrace the conflict. I didn't have to pick one side or the other because everything isn't necessarily one way or the other. Gray areas exist. This might seem really obvious to you guys and yes, that's because it is pretty obvious. Sometimes though, you know things but don't realize how they apply to yourself.  Emotion and logic are rather separate entities: pathos and logos? Something that I need to do is stop having this battle and just embrace the conflict. Yes, emotion is more important and should be focused on sometimes while logic should reign in others. Examples? Hmm, let's see. If you have a 10 page paper due the next day and your friends ask you to go to a party, logic should reign. That paper is more important. But if a boy asks you out and you like him but there are a lot of considerations and complications to figure out, I feel like emotion should be allowed to take over here. Depending on the circumstances, of course. My point being that a lot of times I tend to suppress my emotional side in favor of a more logical decision because it makes me feel more in control. "Giving into emotions" feels weak and as if my body is doing and feeling what it likes. But really, this emotion is just as much a part of you as your logic may be and by feeling less in control doesn't mean that you've given anything up. You know how I always say that I think too much about things? My personality test told me that too. Sometimes I just need to feel and not think. It's just something I have to learn. Care less about what people think and just feel.

Speaking of flaws, since I've come home I've gotten into quite a few arguments with my parents about things that barely matter and things that do matter and things that I just don't want to think about. Sonal, be doctor. Sonal, you don't care about us. Sonal, you're always talking to friends and not us. Sonal, be more responsible. They tell me that I need to keep in touch with my extended family more because I'm old enough now that it's expected of me. A lot of things. There are times when I know in my head that I'm wrong and I decide to make the effort to change. But there are definitely times that my parents don't understand the effect that they're having on me. I've started to tune them out a little where I listen to what they say and hear the advice but selectively ignore the negative connotations that go with it. Really, I know that they mean it all for my best interest, I'm mature enough now to understand that. It's rough sometimes to hear it everyday. That's one of the things that makes me wish sometimes that I was still at school. I love my parents, I love my sister. But when they tell me that I'm probably not going to care about them when I get older when I know that I absolutely will, I get really upset. I should probably tell them that and they'd believe me, but the #1 reason I don't is probably because I know I'm going to break into tears if I do and you can't think properly when you're in that state. Also, no one takes you seriously when you're crying.

I tried for a long time in my life to be perfect, mostly during 8th grade, 9th grade, beginning of 10th grade. Then I hit my rebel phase where I just wanted to do what I wanted to do. That lasted until about the end of junior year and then senior year I tried to be perfect again. I wanted my parents to be really proud of me and for them to be really happy that they had a perfect daughter like me who was good at everything they wanted me to be good at and who did everything that they expected a perfect daughter to do. I was obsessed with perfection. But honestly, I've started to realize how boring perfection is. There are so many more things in life that are so much more important than trying to fix all of the flaws in yourself. Flaws are the things that make people interesting in the first place, you know? If everyone was perfect, everyone would be the same and that would be no fun. No, I don't think true perfection exists because it's something that is very subjective. It means something different for everyone. So if you want your life to be perfect, think of the idea that maybe it is, it's perfect for you. And if you think it's not, why is that wrong? I'm glad I'm not perfect, nor will I ever try to be. I've already accepted the fact that I can't make everyone like me, something that was hard for me to take before. Yeah, people probably do hate me out there, but, shrug, I can't do anything about that. Everything is kay. "Embrace your flaws, perfection is boring." That comes from this poster I saw on the Internet today that completely embodied everything I'd like for myself to believe. I'd like to share it and I hope you'll take the time to read it because it really is wonderful.
Anyways, I should probably get to bed. Here's a picture of beautiful Texas before I go. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My First Party and More

See You Again

Some words on team-based learning