- Joined
- Jan 5, 2014
- Messages
- 3,353
In the recent month, I am slowly been getting out of a state of helplessness due to my past. As a matter of fact, one of the latest posts on GC about sowing your wild oats (one that I have some criticisms of which I will get to later), was kind of posted because of people like me whining a bit about our past and what we missed out on.
Therein lies the issue, the past, the stuff we cannot control.
I have been reading a book recently about mental toughness and it posed a question about "talent" and "genius". The author does experiments where she surveys the people and asks them their thoughts, which she groups into two schools. One school of thought is that talent, success, and greatness are all genetic and you cannot really do a thing about it. These are the people who fail at say a math problem and claim it is because they were not "smart enough" or "aren't cut out for it". The other were people who had a "growth mindset" meaning that failure was just a means to get better, it is all in your hands, as hard a it may be. Cannot do a math problem? You just need to try and do things differently, adjust your approach, and go for it.
And how do we see this play out in our dear situation here?
The victim, fixed, and defeatist mindset.
People of this mindset will say that college was the best time of your life, anything after that is lackluster, even life in a city as fine a New York. A lot of these people will say that college was logistically amazing and the best time of your life due to the amount of people you were around going through the same things in life as you. Many of these people will shame anything that comes after college, attack people who are having the time of their lives, and in general approach everything with that defeatist tone that yells "it was all better in college".
The cheap beer was better than the finest alcohol and cocktail you have in a world class city.
The sorority girls are way sexier than the international talent and model material found in a big city.
The frat house parties are way better than anything a bar or nightclub in a major city can offer.
The friends in a frat are way higher quality than the friend you can potentially make in a major city.
I won't debate the validity of any of this, the college experience is overhyped for a reason.
The growth mindset.
The growth mindset will focus more on what can be changed and what can be done. A person with a growth mindset will think of all that is possible in today's world and enjoy those moments. Instead of focusing on things that cannot be changed, they will focus on the possibilities and beauty of what can be changed.
So you didn't get laid in college, there are plenty of opportunities for it after college.
So you don't have a lot of friends now due to not peaking in college, you can make a lot of new friends in adulthood by being the person people want to be friends with. Will it be straightforward? Probably not but I am slowly starting to think it is not impossible like popular media would have you believe.
A growth mindset will see the beauty of people settling down later than what they used to, appreciate the changing times, and see the new opportunities in those times that were not available to past generations. The person with a growth mindset will think that with so many people after college spending their 20s not getting married or having kids, there are so many opportunities available that someone 30 years ago in a similar situation would have never had.
Most of all, they will experiment. Go out there, try, fail, and try again, until it starts to come together for some awesome experiences.
It isn't strict and structured, sometimes it can be spontaneous and random just for you.
It might not even make sense!
It might be an indirect path.
But it can make and it will be unique to you.
You might not have the story of how you met your best friends in a dorm, but you will have stories of how you met your best friends partying at a bar at some point in your late 20s.
Because a person with a growth mindset asks what is possible? and how can I make the most of this?
I don't know what is possible yet, but I know it beats being a whiny little ungrateful bitch that cries his life away and plays victim. I know it beats being like those many losers that long for college despite being in their 30s.
Therein lies the issue, the past, the stuff we cannot control.
I have been reading a book recently about mental toughness and it posed a question about "talent" and "genius". The author does experiments where she surveys the people and asks them their thoughts, which she groups into two schools. One school of thought is that talent, success, and greatness are all genetic and you cannot really do a thing about it. These are the people who fail at say a math problem and claim it is because they were not "smart enough" or "aren't cut out for it". The other were people who had a "growth mindset" meaning that failure was just a means to get better, it is all in your hands, as hard a it may be. Cannot do a math problem? You just need to try and do things differently, adjust your approach, and go for it.
And how do we see this play out in our dear situation here?
The victim, fixed, and defeatist mindset.
People of this mindset will say that college was the best time of your life, anything after that is lackluster, even life in a city as fine a New York. A lot of these people will say that college was logistically amazing and the best time of your life due to the amount of people you were around going through the same things in life as you. Many of these people will shame anything that comes after college, attack people who are having the time of their lives, and in general approach everything with that defeatist tone that yells "it was all better in college".
The cheap beer was better than the finest alcohol and cocktail you have in a world class city.
The sorority girls are way sexier than the international talent and model material found in a big city.
The frat house parties are way better than anything a bar or nightclub in a major city can offer.
The friends in a frat are way higher quality than the friend you can potentially make in a major city.
I won't debate the validity of any of this, the college experience is overhyped for a reason.
The growth mindset.
The growth mindset will focus more on what can be changed and what can be done. A person with a growth mindset will think of all that is possible in today's world and enjoy those moments. Instead of focusing on things that cannot be changed, they will focus on the possibilities and beauty of what can be changed.
So you didn't get laid in college, there are plenty of opportunities for it after college.
So you don't have a lot of friends now due to not peaking in college, you can make a lot of new friends in adulthood by being the person people want to be friends with. Will it be straightforward? Probably not but I am slowly starting to think it is not impossible like popular media would have you believe.
A growth mindset will see the beauty of people settling down later than what they used to, appreciate the changing times, and see the new opportunities in those times that were not available to past generations. The person with a growth mindset will think that with so many people after college spending their 20s not getting married or having kids, there are so many opportunities available that someone 30 years ago in a similar situation would have never had.
Most of all, they will experiment. Go out there, try, fail, and try again, until it starts to come together for some awesome experiences.
It isn't strict and structured, sometimes it can be spontaneous and random just for you.
It might not even make sense!
It might be an indirect path.
But it can make and it will be unique to you.
You might not have the story of how you met your best friends in a dorm, but you will have stories of how you met your best friends partying at a bar at some point in your late 20s.
Because a person with a growth mindset asks what is possible? and how can I make the most of this?
I don't know what is possible yet, but I know it beats being a whiny little ungrateful bitch that cries his life away and plays victim. I know it beats being like those many losers that long for college despite being in their 30s.
