Time and time again, I realize that there is a fault in my performance as a human being. At the same time, I question, aren't humans supposed to fail to be considered a person? While this proves to be true, we are also expected to reflect on our mistakes and improve. Instead of keeping on going with pushing our failures to the side, we are supposed to get better.
This is something that I have learned that I need to work on. I can say for myself that I am a people person. I am an extrovert, which then reflects on things that happen when I am with them. However, what I most definitely do not often think about is my thought and actions. Why do I not take the time to think about things I don't mean before I say them? Why do I not reflect more on situational factors that involved my wrong doing and the things that I had said? This is not me being hard on myself. Instead, it is me critiquing my actions and reflecting on them. This is something I have learned over the past few months, that I most certainly need to work on.
Over the past couple days of winter break, I have started reading a book I told myself I would read about six months ago. This book is called "On Managing Yourself" by Peter Drucker. Insightfully, this book has already taught me to be more reflective of the characteristics of my personality. By page thirty, I have already learned that I have never thoroughly reflected on the way I learn (by listening or reading), the way I work better (with others or alone) or what I would claim my actual values are. By thoroughly, I mean have used feedback analysis, suggested by Ducker, to give feedback to myself on what I perform well at, and what I do not. This book has already taught me that I don't actually know my practical ethics, which I can find by my personality traits and the way I interact with people in daily life.
Nevertheless, I have learned from this book that work ethics come from beyond works of education. They come from individual reflection, knowing how you work best and how you can be successful in a working environment. This is essential to know when going out and looking for internships, which may eventually turn into jobs. Knowing your personality traits before you enter the real world is necessary because you will soon be "working for 50 years of your life and need to be able to manage your outside relationships," Drecker states in his book when teaching his business students how to handle their external relationships and their job simultaneously.
Even though I am already planning on rereading this book multiple times, I have already learned that individual reflection is the key to success. People tend to lash out in situations where there is high stress or they just do not know how to handle it. I am guilty to have exerted these actions in many cases. I have found this to be due to never having time to reflect when I am always surrounding myself with people. Instead, I need to isolate myself and make sure I have time to think about what I intend to say, instead of mindlessly saying things I do not mean. Although people do learn from being around others, the most critical times of reflection come when a person is alone. I have found to lack this reflection, as might many others my age.
Although some might point out that this is the time for us to make these mistakes, it is also the time to learn from them. On the brink of being a second semester sophomore in college, we are two years from entering real life situations, AKA, the real world. Our time to know ourselves comes within these two years before we have to worry about much more than ourselves. Find yourself before you fall behind. It is the only secure knowledge we have.
