Being a perfectionist is not really a trait of mine, however, when it comes to my writing, I am a perfectionist! There I said it. This story illustrates it well. My friend Keith knows I am good at finding errors, and often asks me to edit literature for the agency where I volunteer. He came up to me one day with a big smile saying - I read something on FaceBook that reminded me of you. A t-shirt displayed "I am secretly Critiquing Your Grammar". Of course I screamed with laughter. The way my brain works, I simply catch the incorrect words. I find them in newspapers, books, the press, etc. What's my point? Many people mis-spell e s p r e s s o and worse, mis-pronounce it e x p r e s s o. I did the unthinkable - I mis-spelled it in a blog a few days ago! I think what probably happened is one of my sons hacked into my blogger account and changed the spelling, just to tease me! Ha ha!! Don't bother looking for it, it has already been corrected. That is a perfectionist.
This morning my FaceBook account had a great quote I want to talk about briefly, because it is near to my heart. "Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds" by Diane Ravitch. Isn't that fabulous? I love it and if you have read some of my earlier posts, you know I struggled in school. Not until my early 30's did I realize I was not stupid, that I had potential, and had the ability to learn - my way. This is very true for a lot of us. We have to learn to 'undo' prior learning that is false, and harmful to our self-esteem. That was why I gravitated to books, to help change my thinking. And to learn to like reading books that interest me.
The first thing I do when I want to understand a word or thought, is look it up. Standardize is a verb and means to compare with or test by a standard, to become standardized. The last one is really offensive. We are all uniquely different, learn differently, have different talents, and different strengths and weaknesses. I like telling young people I know or meet, do what you love, the money will come. What are you interested in, what do you like, what do you dream about, what classes did you actually like in school? I realize it is not that simple, but we still can learn on our own. Look at all the entrepreneurs that started companies with a high school education. Because they were driven by a desire and a dream, and they worked very hard, and they did not listen to the nay-sayers We need to stop comparing ourselves to others and pick up books that help us to learn grow, and change.
Thank you and God Bless! Aleta
"Failure is never final unless it's the last time you're going to try." author anonymous
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