The other side: Project Z.
I refer to my personal account on helplessness: HELPLESSNESS: a personal note – The post you are reading now is about my mistakes. It ‘s about what I did wrong. Perhaps teacher W. is not to blame for anything at all. This is the personal account connected to the post frustration(2): FEAR, PAST and PRIDE.
If I look back the entire 6 months on project Z., I see how
my past has influenced everything in project Z.
I first see a lot of procrastination:
I could have prepared going to the sit-in in April, and could have read a lot on the software that would be the subject of the course. But I didn’t. For one thing I expected Z. to be not much different from A. and B. that I had worked on, and used in my courses before. For the other — a good excuse: the 3 weeks preceding the sit-in I was down with a severe bronchitis, something many doctors would have liked to call a pneumonia. (I didn’t, call it like that, since I didn’t want to go to hospital.)
Now, after sit-in day-1, I did the preparation of the project, to be ready for the next sit-in. When informed that I couldn’t participate in sit-in2, I prepared my own test-lab, for 3 days, until I stumbled upon ‘the license’ problem.
In stead of going straight to the heart of the problem, I started investigating side tracks, and doing other tasks that were found unattractive before. We could call this evasive behaviour. Only, this happens subconsciously. Unaware that the mental mind starts to block and becomes unwilling to the task in front. Of course there is still plenty of time, 3 months before D-Day, but the unwilling power short-circuited and stopped working on project Z. In stead I started to prepare for another course I had to teach in June.
‘Unwilling’ power is a kind of reverse desire, resistance, even antagonism.
Aversion is created by painful experiences in the past.
Which pain was I trying to avoid?
There is the pain of parents who tried to force me to study. Sending me to my study room when I had nothing to do. Feeling very bored, I explored the worlds of card games, listening to music, short wave radio, electronics, even programming and trigonometry, while in fact I had to study French.
If I look back at exams, I see subjects I liked, and subjects I didn’t like. I see teachers I liked and teachers I didn’t like. And there is a correlation. Good teachers sell their subjects well (to me). Even the most boring subject becomes interesting through their presentation.
So I have always resented uninteresting material.
Did/Do I also resent uninteresting people? Is this a personal thing?
Unfortunately I have to answer this question affirmatively.
A fear of wasting my time, and in consequence wasting my time.
This is the way mind always fools itself.
So there has been a history of doing just enough. A history that took me through high school with the least possible effort. “Why should I do anything more than necessary” is often on my mind when doing things I don’t really like.
So I didn’t like project Z.? Or was it the presentation I didn’t like? Wouldn’t it have been better if I never had gone to day-1 of this sit-in?
There is also the experience of failure when I did something, but not enough. In most of those cases, I really didn’t do enough, because the subject or its presentation was “too boring”.
So two fears:
fear of failure (stage fright) and
fear of being very bored.
And there is another thing: If I don’t do anything at all, I will not feel failure. Weird wiring. But I cannot reproach myself for failing when having done nothing. I could blame myself for not having done anything, but not for the failing. Failing is apparently more painful than not doing. This is an inflated ego problem!
Asking for help: well, this is tricky. I think I did ask for help, but in an indirect way. Communication is always tricky at first. Senses are on overdrive trying to find the best way to approach person W. The haughty air I noticed on W. was certainly not objective. And although the feeling was there, professionally one has to step over these feelings.
What fear is there?
Having your ego crushed!
This happened when asking a basic question during an infamous meeting mid July. But then it is my ego that shouldn’t be so inflated. I accepted to teach project Z. after sit-in day-1. Consequences are that I dare to ask basic questions.
My pride played this trick, and while it was happening,
I realized I had an ego the size of a zZEPPELINn.
The image-file is a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain. — source: wikimedia commons / http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Los_Angeles_moored_to_USS_Patoka,_1931.jpg
who is bert 
Very interesting analysis! I have just re-read ‘Antifragile’ by Nassim Taleb (who would be no.1 of my current ‘list of teachers’) and he has a refreshing view of procrastination – in contrast to psychologists and ‘life-hackers’ who try to offer remedies in order to make you more efficient. Taleb wisely states that we never procrastinate when there are lives in danger.
Quote: “Since procrastination is a message from our natural willpower via low motivation, the cure is changing the environment, or one’s profession, by selecting one in which one does not have to fight one’s impulses. Few can grasp the logical consequence that, instead, one should lead a life in which procrastination is good.”
Easier said than done of course.
This sounds a lot like my aunt, who told me a very long time ago that only few people are really lazy, they are just not interested in what society has to offer them.
It is a wonderful thing to share in your honest reflections. I feel as though I know you in a way I didn’t know you before, and that is the best possible share. Michael
Thank You, Michael. You wrote the best encouragement to continue blogging from the “I” experience, and less from the generalizing 3rd person singular “it”.
Almost every success I had in my life in all venues I was always worried that I would not succeed in all that I attempted, yet the success rate was about 75%. I think when I was afraid of failing, it was in those times that I was at my best. Sometimes i procrastinated and waited to the last minute on projects and papers, but over the years I began to understand that I always worked best under pressure. I am feeling you my friend, I see myself inside my mind as I read your words…but you are very good at what you do, and you will persevere…because its in you to do so. Blessings my brother, and thanks for your many visits! Have a very blessed day tommorrow!
Thank you my brother for this great advise. Blessings to you, your words, and to friendship.
=) i find, my mistakes are wonderful later in life. i’m hapi 2 b along 4 the part of the ride u share with yourself so we all can see our larger societal patterns (inasmuch as the similarity of experience would suggest a common perhaps system creation) we are here to fix together. =)
I think that indeed pride, inflated ego and fear are very pronounced on the work floor, and in our societies. Perhaps this is the very nature of living in a competitive world. Newtonian evolution comes to mind, based on the survival of the fittest.
The mistakes: only through mistakes we can learn anything, that is, if we see them as such.
🙂