Life lessons learned in one day

Just kidding, it took more than one day to learn this life lesson.  It took 5 stress-filled days and nights... but that just didn't roll as well for a title.

Okay so I recently had to take a test for my calculus class.  This was a pretest on all past things pertaining to calculus, and in order to remain in the class, a 75% was required on the test.  As you can imagine, I was freaking out.  I do not do math.  I do not like math.  I avoid math.

Or so I thought...

I recently discovered that if you spin something that you don't like into a positive thing, you can trick yourself into thinking that you really do enjoy whatever it is you don't like.  And eventually, you will like that something that you originally hated.  You follow?

For example-- if I were to hate blood more than anything, and feel ill just at the thought of a paper cut, then I would have to spin the thought of blood into a not-so-bad thing (I use this as an example because it is a personal experience I once had.  More details to come).  Or even better, spin it into an appealing thing.  I would pull out all of the cool things about blood, drawing particularly on what it is that I find interesting.  The key word here is interesting.  This differs for everyone.  But for me, I would say that blood is a miracle, and a gift.  And that I am blessed to have healthy blood.  Moreover, I would stress the fact that this is a challenge for me.  And every challenge gives us an opportunity to grow and develop our weaknesses into strengths.  So, by learning to love blood, and understand it more fully, I am overcoming one of my weaknesses, and therefore building a strength out of a challenge.  Make sense?

I tell this, because this is what I learned to do with calculus.  I told myself that it is like a puzzle.  And I love puzzles.  I told myself that it is my ultimate puzzle to solve, and that if I practice, I will get better and build upon my weaknesses.  I told myself that if I would ask for help from tutors in the math center every day, that it would help me to stay humble and also show a willingness to learn.  I would be showing obedience by doing all that I could possibly do in order to prepare for the test.  And I would learn how to do hard things, because later in life I will not have the option to back out of certain difficult tasks.  So that's how I spun it.  And now I actually enjoy math.

And that's the story of how I grew to love math.

I know... you were on the edge of your seats.

But this is why it is so important.  This is the "so what who cares?" part of my babbling.  I have just conquered one of the greatest tasks in life.  Learning to love what you do, even what what you are doing isn't something that you love.  Fact is, most of life is not easy.  And much of life is not fun.  There are many mundane things that just have to be done, and there's no way around it.  No matter how long I stare at the pile of dirty laundry that is accumulating at the foot of my bed, and no matter how much I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning at 6:00 o'clock to go running, it still needs to be done.  Otherwise I will turn into a smelly and out of shape marshmallow with dirty clothes.  But if I spin it into something enjoyable, then life continues to be fun (although I currently can't think of any way to spin those two particular things at this moment).  This is what makes a positive person. 

Honestly, my one regret is that there are not more hours in the day for me to spend pouring over the great works that I am surrounded by.  When it comes night, I don't want to go to sleep, because I feel so invigorated by the things that I am working on.  This is so exciting.   

You're welcome.