Just the other day, I was sitting for my Financial Accounting Assessment Test. Let me be honest with you guys; I don’t care for this course. Why? It’s irrelevant to what I’m actually studying for. In what world does Financial Accounting apply in the world of Renewable Energy Systems? There could be some relevance but it couldn’t be that significant.
There I am, about to sit for a test of a course I don’t really care for. Here’s where it gets interesting; turns out the paper wasn’t that bad because I actually revised for like 90% of the questions asked. What was the problem then? I could barely answer any of them. After submitting my underwhelming performance, I beat myself up wondering what went wrong. It’s funny how I started remembering everything after I left the room. Then it hit me, I had a bad attitude towards the course.
Eureka!
It’s not like I discovered that fact immediately; I pondered about this the whole night and the next day when I tried to throw a crumbled up paper into my trash can. Unsurprisingly, I missed. Hey, I didn’t play basketball but I sure loved it. So, I decided to pick up the crumbled piece of paper and decided to try again. “It’s not like it matters whether I make the shot or not” is what I told myself. And guess what? I missed the next four times.
At my sixth attempt, I paused for a moment and wondered “What if this was a basketball game? We are in the last 5 seconds and you are D’Angelo Russell making that winning three point shot? How different would it be?” Again, I took to the stage and made the shot and it went straight in. “Huh” is all I could say at that point.
All it took was a change in attitude and I made the shot. You would think that shot mattered but it didn’t. I could’ve easily picked it up and threw it into the can like a normal human being. What if we applied to our daily lives? There are things we normally take for granted because we think they are not important but they could make a difference altogether.
Change in Perspective
Think about it. How do you always behave when you are walking down the street? Do you always walk around with your trusted pair of headphones (like me) and mind your own damn business or do you just smile at everyone who passes by you? You and me both know how hard it is to do the latter; you can’t imagine smiling at strangers all day can you?
What you will realize once you smile at everyone walking past you is that you will feel more confident than ever. I know, it’s crazy. What I didn’t mention is how you get this unsettling feeling that people are staring at you when you mind your own business. You know that feeling, don’t you?
My message is simple; don’t expect good results with a bad attitude. You are a powerful being who basically shapes your own reality every day. If you think today was a bad day, you will only see the bad things about the day. However, if you decide to stay positive and notice the tiny details like someone paying for your bus fare on that bad day or someone making you laugh, you will forget all the bad things that happened on that day.
So, do I feel guilty about intentionally failing that test? No, there was a valuable lesson to be learned from it.