Book 62 - A Year of Magical Learning
- cmsears8384
- Nov 23, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 5, 2022
Reflection Title - It's Okay to Quit!
Book: Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement by Rich Karlgaard
Book Description: We live in a society where kids and parents are obsessed with early achievement, from getting perfect scores on SATs to getting into Ivy League colleges to landing an amazing job at Google or Facebook--or even better, creating a start-up with the potential to be the next Google or Facebook or Uber. We see software coders become millionaires or billionaires before age thirty and feel we are failing if we are not one of them. Late bloomers, on the other hand, are under - valued--in popular culture, by educators and employers, and even unwittingly by parents. Yet the fact is, a lot of us--most of us--do not explode out of the gates in life. We have to discover our passions and talents and gifts. There is a scientific explanation for why so many of us bloom later in life. The executive function of our brains doesn't mature until age twenty-five--and later for some. In fact, our brain's capabilities peak at different ages. We actually experience multiple periods of blooming in our lives. Moreover, late bloomers enjoy hidden strengths due to taking the time to discover their way in life--strengths coveted by many employers and partners, including curiosity, insight, compassion, resilience, and wisdom.
Reflection:
If you had asked me to write down my core values, before I met my daughter and started this journey, they would have looked something like this...Grit, grind, do the things you hate the most first, fall in love with the process, never quit, discipline = freedom, etc.
That is no joke and how I thought I wanted to live my life. That was my mindset, or at least that is what I told myself. Those all came from years and decades of being taught in the classroom, pop culture, podcasts, books, etc that if you want to be the best, you have to outwork everyone. We're told that you have to find your passion and stick to it until you put in your 10,000 hours and can become a success in life. It is engrained in us as kids these days. We are encouraged to stop playing all the sports, you have to pick one when you get into high school if you want a chance at ever being great and excel.
We feel pressured to pick what you want to be at an early age as you will "fall behind" if you don't. Are you going to be a creative artist, a singer, a dancer, an athlete, an influencer, an entrepreneur, programmer, lawyer, or a doctor? If you don't pick early, put in those 10,000 hours, and never quit...you'll be a failure in life. That's a lot of pressure to put on kids and young adults.
I don't know about you, but I didn't know ANYTHING about myself until I was about 28 years old. It was around that time that I experienced the first real "hardship and pain" (if you want to call it that) in my life when I began to deal with crippling anxiety attacks that seemingly came out of nowhere. I was doing what I was told to do by this world and trying to be the person I was being told to be. On the outside I was successful in my career, leading a team, had a good education, married to a beautiful wife, had a nice house, well networked, worked hard, etc. However, on the inside I was lost. I was miserable and felt so unfulfilled. I dreaded going to work every day and didn't know why. Dealing with this pain helped me to find myself as it opened up the door to self discovery and who I really was at my core for the first time in my life. I learned so much about myself during this time.
Once I got through this trial, my life began to bloom with all this new knowledge and self discovery through a more clear direction. I quit doing a lot of the things that were bringing me pain and started focusing more on the activities I loved.
Then, the tragedy of losing my daughter happened. That devastating pain from losing her sent me on a personal quest to dig deeper and unlock more of who I was at my core. Now, I feel like, for the first time in my life I really know where I'm going in my life and have a clear direction guided by my sincerely held core values that came out of a lot of pain and suffering. Today, I spend at least 50% of each day doing activities and actions that reflect those core values that were found in the hardest points of my life. The more actions I do that I truly love, the more seemingly "successful" I become.
In LateBloomers, they talk about how quitting can sometimes be the most valuable thing for you in the long run. Well, that is one of the biggest lesson I've learned thus far in my life. If you want real success and happiness, you have to quit trying to live like others and dedicate as much time as you can to trying to live like you. If you want to bloom regularly throughout your life, you must endure through the pain that we all go through and turn those lessons into values to guide your life. Find yourself and quit trying to be like everyone else. If you can do that, something great will come out of your life at some point whether it is early, late, or all throughout.
Question: What actions should you quit in your own life that isn't reflecting your values or bringing you happiness?
Links:
What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction
YOML Podcast Discussion - Late Bloomers
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