Fear as Motivation

I had my SPOP Returner interview this morning and after the session I was still thinking about a lot the things I said in it. Yet, one that I kept thinking about was fear and how it affects people. I was really nervous before, during, and even a little bit after the interview and to be honest part of me is afraid I'm not good enough to be a returner. Thinking upon those things, I've come to realize one thing: fear drives us.

Why? Let's take the opposite of fear. What is the opposite of fear? Not happiness, but rather, contentness and comfortability. Comfort leads to nothingness. When someone is comfortable, that individual is happy and there is no stimulus to do anything productive or any need to step outside one's own comfort zone because there is no need to. When things are comfortable, things are stagnant, static, unchanging - it all remains the same. There is no change because there is no need for change because things are good the way it is.

When there is fear, fear of inadequacy, fear of failure to others and to self, then there is an internal stimulus to strive for the betterment of self and perhaps of others. I know too many people who are just plain happy in their station in life right now. Heck, I've been one of those people until I met people who told me otherwise. For an example of this fear, we can look to the animal kingdom. In it, tigers are driven to be fast in order to hunt and gazelles are driven to be fast in order to not caught. It is the fear of not eating and not being eaten that drives them.

Throughout high school, I was afraid I wasn't going to get into a good university, so I worked my butt off during extracurriculars and all the homework I assigned (and then some). And once I got into UCI, I stopped. I don't know why, maybe because I found some sort of contentness and comfortablilty here or perhaps I didn't care as much because my parents weren't riding me to do well in school, because hey, I'm already in college. I need to find that motivation again. I need to find that motivation I had where I was studious like no other, where I went to the gym like no other. I will find it.

Finding Strength

The past few weeks have been harder than I thought for some reason.

Truth be told, this is nothing new. My family has had problems my entire life and more so when I started college - during my freshmen year of college, my dad left for about a year.

Yet, I've always managed to hang on somehow. I think that throughout my five-year college experience, if there's one thing I've learned it's that friends will be there for you if and when you allow them to. It takes the bigger man to accept help than to deny it.

I'm an extrovert. All that means is that I get energy when I'm around people, rather than by myself. I deal with things, solve problems when I have others around me. When I'm down, I need to be around my friends. Maybe that's why I'm always at school, as an escape from home. Introverts, on the other hand, like to be in really small groups or by themselves - that's when they are most productive and have the most energy. Some of my friends deal with things by lighting a candle in their bedroom and reading a book.

I've gotten so much support from everyone with comments, hugs, and all that. And all I can say is that I'm very, very grateful and appreciative of it all. The day after I posted the last blog two of my friends sat me down at school and we just talked. It was pretty awesome. It's the small things in life that get you going through it.

My best friends would take me out to help get my mind off things and it helps, it really, really does. I guess the best way to deal with something is not by dealing with it directly, because that makes the problem seem bigger than it needs to be, but rather, indirectly by doing something else. I'm not saying running away from problems are the way to go, but by getting your mind off of it for awhile is.

Some of my friends go canyon carving, some of my friends go fishing, I hit the gym. There's nothing better than lifting heavy objects to get your mind off of things, in my opinion.

A quote from one of my favorite movies - Into the Wild: "It's not enough to be strong, but you also have to feel strong."

Mr. Brightside

What if you woke up one day and your world entirely changed?

I woke up today and my parents were fighting as usual. Sunday mornings are usually fight mornings anyways for some reason, so I didn't pay any extra attention to it. As I came down stairs for to head to work, my brother told me they were going to get a divorce in about a month, after the Lunar New Year.

It didn't hit me at first because maybe I prepared for it a little bit. My mom and dad have been having disagreements for years and my mom talked about it on occasion. Then at work, something happened and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. Having a horrible day at work also didn't help.

I know I'm not the first one kid to have his parents divorce but I can't help but feel that nothing's going right at all. I also can't shake the feeling that nothing I do will make everything right again.

And my favorite pair of socks has a hole in it. =(

*Edit: Please forgive me if I seem bitter or angry all the time for the next few days.*

Racial and Ethnic Identity Formation

I found an interesting article on the UCI webpage that deals with racial identity and its formation right here.

In it, it brings up the notion that identity formation is not necessarily a reflection of personal choice as much as it is a reflection of others' views upon yourself and in turn that influences how you view yourself as well.

To use an admittedly weird example, let's say an African American couple move to Taiwan for work and have kids there. The kids grow up and speak fluent Chinese, act Chinese, but doesn't look Chinese. Would the children's peers treat them as one of the in group or as an outsider, despite being born in that country and speaking the language perfectly?

So that brings up a chicken and egg-type of question - how is identity formed? Is it by the self or do we take in what we get from others first?

I'm inclined to lean toward the latter theory. That we first get our identities from our families and then we respond in kind with our peers. Our peers then would see it one another perspective and continue to give us feed back. All the while, there is dynamic that is continually changing.

New Year's Resolutions

1. Sleep at a more reasonable time on a nightly basis.

2. Get buffer.

3. Pack lunches to save money.

4. Save money.

5. Meet more people.

6. Do something amazing.