The high school years are the peak years of teenagehood. It was an awkward adolescent phase where you are no longer a child, but you are far from being a true adult. This was when I got some hints at freedom; and though I was free to do more than ever before, I was also quite lost most of the time.

Introduction

In middle school, I was in an art magnet for the full 3 years. I hated it. I was one of the worst “artists” and I did not have much passion for art. This resulted in a terrible cycle: my lack of passion for art made me worse and my lack of art skills killed any potential for passion. On top of that, the teacher yelled at us quite often, and it was just super frustrating.

I was always great at math, so when I started applying for high schools, I naturally leaned towards engineering. It involved a little art (which I could do) and math (which I loved). It seemed like a perfect match… so it seemed.

I was happy to be admitted for the engineering program at my first-choice high school. I loved touring the school and I got a gut-feeling that it would be the right choice.

Unfortunately, I found out that I didn’t have much passion for engineering either. I used it as an escape from art and not because I actually wanted to do engineering. The 2-hour block periods for engineering everyday became tedious and I disliked it for the two years I pursued it.

I transferred schools between my sophomore and junior year. This new school was a dual-enrollment school, where I took high school and college classes simultaneously (college classes in the morning and high school classes in the afternoon).

My main source of friends was from sports (mainly basketball), and it really showed in my junior year. I did not have more than four friends until about four months after school began. School started in late August and it took until December/January to achieve this feat. It was the day I played basketball with them that I earned some respect from a group of people that would become my friends. And from there it grew.

I was a very shy person. I would sometimes even take an F for participation just so I wouldn’t have to raise my hand. It was the same when it came to making friends off the court. Approaching people was a project. It was one of the most intimidating things for me to do, and it resulted in a lot of lonely hours by myself.

This is a brief summary on my characteristics and situation. With this context, you can better understand how the mistakes I made relates to my then personality.

Mistakes

1) Having the Worst-Case Scenario Bug

This bug was sooooo prominent in my life. I justified my not doing by playing out the worst-case scenario.

Go talk with someone and become friends. But what if they won’t accept me? What if I say something wrong? What if they don’t like me? I don’t want to interrupt them. I shouldn’t be rude and disturb them.

I automatically turned to all the possible negatives of a situation. The thought of positive outcomes never even crossed my mind. This plagued me for most of my high school years.

Whenever I found success, it was always being able to take action. I looked at all the potential benefits for something, and usually the perceived “risks” were all artificially drawn up by my mind. In actuality, there basically was no risk. NO/LOW RISK, HIGH REWARD: the best combination.

2) Staying in My Comfort Zone

This is pretty similar to having the worst-case scenario bug. Both are quite passive in nature. The bug is used to justify an inaction whereas staying in a comfort zone is living in a bubble.

The comfort zone was something I stayed in basically all of my high school years. This meant that I usually engaged in the same old, only doing what I have done before and sticking to that. Not much of a variety in my life, and therefore there were many opportunities I missed.

I was close-minded towards trying many new things out. And even when I did try something new out, I usually only did it once and hopped back into my safe area.

The problem with this was that I didn’t grow much. I stuck with math and sports and that was it. Basically any other subject I was pretty dry; and in retrospect, I probably wasn’t too fun to talk to.

3) Not Doing Anything Over the Summer

Summertime is funtime. Once the school year is over, it seems that the learning stops and the fun begins. But after a while, I realize that I’m binging YouTube videos and spending time doing nothing.

And as you can probably guess from my previous two mistakes, I did not look to get an internship or volunteer or any such thing. The closest thing I got to work was summer assignments, which I remember somewhat procrastinating on.

I always associated school with learning and summer as the opposite – funtime. So when I was out of school, I wasn’t really looking to learn, and it was a relief. Learning was work and fun was relaxation. Because I had this mindset, I lost a lot of time that could have been used for better.

Fortunately, I started taking advantage of my summers. After graduating from high school, I started on my self-help journey, and this will be my second summer (at the time of this writing). 

4) Thinking “I Wasn’t Born to do This”

I was born shy. I cannot be more outgoing because I wasn’t born to do this. I cannot be more organized because I wasn’t born to do this. I cannot be more [insert adjective] because I wasn’t born to do this.

This , like the worst-case scenario bug, was used to justify my laziness. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, it’s that I didn’t want to do it. So, I would think “I wasn’t born to do this“.

Some people may find something easier to do. Some people may find something harder to do. But that shouldn’t be used an excuse to limit your potential. JUST DO IT!

Throughout my life, I was mostly shy and disorganized. I previously thought I couldn’t change it. But when I decided I wanted to better my life, I didn’t think “I can’t”; I thought “How can I?”.

I removed a self-induced obstacle, which allowed for my growth. I took away the false notion of “you need to be born with it to do it” and instead just did it.

5) Actively Learning Spanish More

I took Spanish in elementary school and my first two years in high school. I was always quite a great student and enjoyed the language. It is a very practical language, since I live in an area of mostly Hispanic people.

My Spanish 1 class (freshman year) went great, ending with A’s in all four grading periods. I was forced to take my Spanish 2 class (sophomore year) online. Although I ended up with a B and an A in the first and second semester, respectively, I retained little to none of what I learned/was supposed to learn. This shows that grades doesn’t necessarily reveal one’s long-term (or even short-term) knowledge on a specific subject.

After taking the online Spanish 2 course, I slowly lost interest in Spanish. I felt that I wasted a year and still couldn’t engage in a productive conversation with a native speaker. So instead of continuing to learn, I hit ‘pause’ on Spanish and ignored it for two to three years.

As I am writing now, I have somewhat resumed learning Spanish. I have implemented some new forms of learning that I believe will be more effective than the in-school methods. These include, but are not limited to, texting my friends in Spanish, video calling them, not focusing primarily on grammar, attempting to think like a native speaker, not directly translating words into English, listening to podcasts, etc.

Despite being around Spanish-speakers my whole life, I still wasn’t able to grasp the language. This shows that being around a language alone will not make you a native speaker. You have to give your best effort if you truly want to learn the language. I have the privilege of having an optimal setting for learning Spanish, and now I want to take advantage of what I have (and not let it go to waste).

6) Being a Perfectionist

I was the guy who rarely used pencils, yet still wanted perfection.  I was the guy with multiple colored gel pens. I was the guy that had gel pens and white-out.

For the most part, I did not care how much I learned. I would rather have a beautiful notebook and learn little to nothing than learn a lot and have a messy notebook.

I remember that for my math homeworks, I took the time to cut graphing paper and tape it onto my notebook paper. I wasted extra time on something that was absolutely unnecessary. But I liked doing it.

I knew I could finish the homework within an hour, but I usually spent closer to three hours. If I messed up (and I ran out of white-out), I sometimes started on a new piece of paper.

My biology notebook, I would say, looked quite nice. Do I remember much from the biology class? NOPE!

So the point is “DON’T GET STUCK ON THE SMALL STUFF JUST TO MISS OUT ON THE BIG STUFF”.

You don’t want to spend your time nitpicking trivial details and end up with nothing to show for it.

SHORT-TERM PERFECTION LEADS TO LONG-TERM FAILURE

Takeaways

Even though I regret having many of my previous flaws, I probably wouldn’t change anything if I were able to go back in time. Why? Because I am who I am because of everything I have went through.

There is no reason to dwell on the past. It is, however, very useful to analyze your past. Observe your strengths and weaknesses. Maintain your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses.

If you don’t feel comfortable doing something new, remember that you have to start somewhere. The earlier you start, the more you can appreciate the benefits in the years afterwards.

Look to be an active participant rather than a passive spectator. You will never see massive improvement staying on the sidelines. If you want to get better at something, you first need to do it.

School is not the place to learn. Everywhere is the suited for learning. Take advantage of this idea.

Learning is constant. Learning is just bettering yourself, which is a lifelong journey.

Last but not least, do not be scared of mistakes. Mistakes are your friend! Mistakes are opportunities to get better, and there is always something to improve upon.

Failure strikes fear into most. Only few use it as fuel, motivation towards their goals.