I’ve noticed that I’ve started losing the barrier-less mindset that has accompanied me throughout my childhood. When I was young, I thought I could do everything I could think of. Climb that tree? Solve that math problem? Get away with stealing more kaju ki barfi? Accomplishing these things never seemed to be an issue. The few things I wouldn’t be able to do were “solved” by a hug from my parents, dessert after dinner that night or the onset of forgetfulness you’d get after a couple tears. Simply put, I’d succeed at small tasks often, and I’d be comforted the few times I’d fail.
When you don’t perceive issues, you won’t feel bothered or threatened. In my case, my lack of perceiving threats was a testament to my sheltered childhood experiences (we hear of this phenomena today in how we view social phenomena like microaggressions, accessible spaces and disability. Some of us may not notice that there is no ramp or elevator accompanying a set of stairs, and this is our privilege) So then, does seeing and understanding the possible “issues” in our lives, the sources of worries, risks or doubts, mean we are making our lives complex? And if growing up means we’ll recognize worries, risks and doubts, would we voluntarily get older and lose our naivety?
For example, as a child I never considered what I put into my body. It may have looked like Lucky Charms cereal for breakfast, cheese pizza served by the school (with apple slices from Mummy), enough M&M’s to stubbornly stain my tongue after school and a cup of dal for dinner. When we see kids indulging in any parts of their lives this way, we say something similar to “ah, kids!” When we took risks, took shortcuts or did things without thinking about tomorrow, they would be justified by us being kids. Now that we are older, our understanding of optimal productivity causes us to idealize balanced diets, hours of sleep, exercise and long-term interests. Our investments in our future become our indulgences, and our goals make us consider how we spend our time. When we feel unmotivated, popular media teaches us that relenting to see to our goals is what separates survival from fulfillment. I consider this quality of relenting to be willpower.
Before my Summer 1 Research project, I kindly think I confused willpower to be a youthful (albeit vibrant) recklessness. I started to set goals for myself at age 12, so until then my accomplishments were more like “tasks” I completed. No training or mental preparation was done, and the things still got done. Great. I also happened to learn the textbook definition of “willpower” at age 10, which tells us that achieving our goals requires willpower. I defined willpower in my fifth grade speech as “the strength of will needed for a person to carry out wishes, missions or plans.” (I practised that speech so many times that it is embedded in my brain. There’s a video of me delivering it on YouTube, which I revisit every three or four years to see how far I’ve come.) Because I attributed “completing tasks” to achieving goals and knew “achieving goals” required willpower, I thought that completing tasks proved I had willpower. For example, if I’d completed swim practise (without struggling) some day I’d assumed that meant I had willpower. Today, willpower is gritted teeth in the last seconds of a wall sit, reluctantly closing a good YouTube video to get to a night of studying and making eye contact with a person you just embarrassed yourself in front of. Having these definitions of willpower helps me recognize when a task is challenging me and motivates me to relent. They also help me more easily pinpoint moments where I’ve lacked willpower. I wonder if changing my mindset in said moments could have changed the outcomes I experienced.
My mindset when I planned out my Summer 1 Research was idyllic; I’d be in the window spot of a new café peacefully reading over 20 sources while “Flight” by Johannes Bornlöf played in my AirPods and families happily chatted around me. In reality, I did a significant amount of my research during my breaks from my summer job as a Lifeguard (the splashing of water was a treat to have as background music, though!) Many times, I felt that the process of doing research was disconnecting me from the families I wanted to help and mission I’d sought to accomplish. And there were several occasions where research felt like a task. When I reflected on these moments, I decided I needed to have more willpower. But I’d feel disappointment when reading manifestos of the likes of Martin Luther King Junior when I felt unmotivated didn’t remove the discomfort. So I’ve decided to change my definition of willpower.
Rather than fighting to remove the source of or trying to numb discomfort, Summer 1 taught me to see willpower as continued persistence through acknowledged discomfort. It’s a lens I’m choosing to approach my new challenges with and one that, to me, can help me better achieve my goals. Lessons from Summer 1 like these remind me of how grateful I feel for the chance to have co-crafted this challenging opportunity.
Cheers to future challenges, and the willpower needed to overcome them!
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