Back during the summer of 2020 when the semester was over but quarantine had just started, my friend Harry started a multiplayer Minecraft server and invited me to join it. I accepted and redownloaded Minecraft and logged on for the first time in years. Little did I know that doing so would set me down a path that would drastically improve my mental health and change my mindset to be far more positive.
I'm definitely one of those "young adults" that has been in a pretty persistent state of "gifted kid burnout" for the past couple of years. While I saw a lot of people around me growing, changing, and experimenting with new things to develop their personalities during high school and these first few years of college, I've felt remarkably static.
It's not that I don't want to try new hobbies or activities, but more so that I was afraid of doing so because the anxiety and fear of failure that is endemic to growth dominated my mindset. As those around me grew, I stood still in a silent panic as I was left behind. I left each new activity behind as quickly as I had picked it up, as I did not immediately excel and believed that my lack of skill was not due to my obvious lack of experience, but rather an internal belief that I was simply not good at it and never would be.
These beliefs were still with me when I joined Harry's server, pushing me to build the same houses, farms, and castles I had built when I was 12. It was easy and it was routine, and I liked the easy routine; it felt like a way to maximize the feeling of accomplishment from playing the game. However, I was not totally fulfilled with my buildings and soon got bored. However, my fear of failure was so all-encompassing that even trying to build a different type of house in a video game was just a little too much for me.
A statue I decided to make
Flash forward a few months, and now I'm pretty good friends with everyone who plays on our server. We decided to build a new city for ourselves a ways away from our old settlements. I watched my new friends, Gwyneth and Rachel, put time and effort into their new houses as they tried their hand at buildings with totally different styles than we had previously made. Most importantly of all, neither of them really seemed to care how they turned out; they wanted the buildings to look nice, of course, but they ultimately built what they wanted because they wanted to and that was enough of a reason to do it.
Taking that attitude to heart, I decided to try a new and different style of housing (seen above) that I hadn't done before. It didn't turn out exactly as I envisioned it, but I still liked it, and more importantly, it was good enough for me. For the first time, I wasn't focusing on the flaws or what my project was lacking, but rather what I liked about it. I'd build a statue a while later with this same mentality, building what I wanted to just to make something that I liked.
While this may seem like a really small thing and it kind of is, it was still a personal challenge that I overcame and am pleased with the result of. This mindset has also carried over into other parts of my life as well. I used to be one of those students that panicked and shut down at the thought of making anything below an A on an exam or, god forbid, a class. However, I've recently been ok with grades that would have really upset me a year or two ago; I still study and work hard in all my classes and genuinely try my best, and that knowledge that I put in that effort is enough to make me proud of what I did accomplish.
If there's one thing I want to tell whoever is reading this, it's that your effort is good enough. When you really want to try something and when you care about it, the effort you put in will always be reflected. Your focus should be on that, on how hard you tried and how much you did accomplish, rather than what you may see as lacking.
It is not easy, but it is so worth it to be more satisfied with your work throughout your life.
