“Could you put this book back for me?” An elderly woman asked me last week at the library. “I don’t remember where I got it.” I put the book back on the shelf, and then was thanked several times. It really got me thinking about a lot of things. Firstly, I thought about how sad it is to get old. But then I started thinking about the ways that people are alike, regardless of age. Many people don’t like to admit that they’re wrong. Many people don’t like to admit that they’ve made a mistake. Many people don’t like to admit that they don’t have any idea what they’re doing.
As I thought about it more, I realized how strong that woman was for admitting that she’d forgotten. Easily, she could’ve left the book anywhere. It happens at libraries and stores all the time. Instead, though, she announced her flaw. And that was what made her practically flawless.
Sure, she still didn’t know where the book went. She still didn’t have a perfect memory. But too often, people try to solve problems without identifying them. People try to erase mistakes without admitting that they had made them to begin with. On the first graphing homework assignment, I kind of just answered questions and drew graphs without truly understanding what I was doing. It took me a few days before I convinced myself to look at the assignment again. My first reaction was, “oh, it’s fine. You understand it now.” But in order to make something better, you have to realize what you did wrong. Without looking at my paper, I couldn’t move forward. I couldn’t completely erase my confusion without looking at what confused me in the first place. I drew all of my graphs wrong on the first assignment because I had been using the x intercepts instead of the vertical asymptotes for the sign charts. At first, I just saw that my graphs were wrong and didn’t really do anything about it. But once I went back and looked at the simple mistake, the graphs made a lot more sense and they actually looked how they were supposed to. I even wrote “moment of clarity!” on my paper because I was that happy about it.
Sometimes it feels like by saying, “I forgot where this book goes” or “I don’t know how to solve this kind of problem”, you’re admitting defeat. But admitting that you were wrong or unsure or forgetful doesn’t defeat you. What defeats you is living with something that you know you’re doing wrong, and not making any attempt to change it. What defeats you is assuming that you’re flawless. Assuming that you know exactly where everything goes and exactly how everything’s solved. Admitting that you’re wrong is a step towards being right. How can you expect to solve a problem when you don’t know what the problem is? How can you expect to be flawless when you don’t see any flaws? The woman at the library understood her problem, and although she couldn’t fix it exactly, she could come up with a reasonable solution.
Brilliant!
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