I’m excited to be a part of this reflective writing club, which is motivating me as both a writer and a teacher. I might switch these posts out to a separate blog from my writing and consulting blog, but for now, here I go.
My first #CCCWrite blog post answers the following prompt: What do you know now that you wish you had known then?
Simple: it’s ok to try something without knowing how it will turn out. Duh, right? But it’s taken me a few decades to understand that taking certain risks won’t kill me. Trying something out and seeing what happens: something I am always telling my students to do, with their writing, but which I was hesitant to do, myself, for a long time, with anything else.
Drinking and driving–yes, that could kill me. Taking a two-week visiting lecturer gig in New York, which could potentially affect my employment status in San Diego (where I adjunct in English at Mesa College)–well no, it actually didn’t kill me. It did, in fact, affect my employment status. But it also opened up other possibilities, and I am reveling in some of those now. And while part of that opening up was luck or fortune, and being in the right place at the right time, I wouldn’t have been in that right place, had I not taken a risk. The other thing I know now that I wish I knew then: I can’t sit around and wait for things to come to me, as if my merit had some gravitational force. It doesn’t. I have learned that I have to broadcast it, and that broadcasting takes time, risk, possible humiliation, and potential loss. I’m cool with that now.
4 replies on “What I know now that I wish I knew then: reflective writing #CCCWrite”
Hi Dr. C! I was just reading Todd’s post about the need for patience, and he has some very good thoughts there about learning to be patient… and I also very much agree with what you said here about seizing the initiative, tinkering, trying, and then seeing what happens, instead of just waiting for things to happen. I like to make memes for my students at cheezburger, and I made this one that has a kind of similar theme:
Life has no remote. You have to get up and change it yourself!
http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2016/07/life-has-no-remote-you-have-to-get-up.html
…. meanwhile, I am pondering the possibilities of a universe in which the laws of physics DID include merit as a gravitational force. How cool would that be? Kind of like a video game where the laws of physics obey the powers and merits acquired by the players… but in real life!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here, I am glad to have met you here at this Writing Club… keep on broadcasting! 🙂
Love the cat, and love the growth mindset resources page even more–thank you! –Kristy
How funny, Kristen, that my first blog post for the reflective writing club was also about trying things without knowing how they might turn out – I called it being fearless and it is something I wish I had known then that I know now! Great post! #CCCWrite
Being fearless is much less frightening than I thought it would be, it turns out!