Today I am struggling to come to terms with one of my greatest weaknesses, which is also, paradoxically, one of my greatest strengths. I am a very meticulous person. However, at times I can be overly fastidious which frequently gets in my way. This morning I drove to work unsuspecting that my job had been terminated. I was given my 90-day review for the part time teller job I have held for the past, well, 90 days, and was told that my work was unsatisfactory and unfortunately I could not continue with the job. On some level this came as a relief because I needed to give my two weeks notice anyway by this Friday, and for some reason that made me nervous. Since I was hired this past March there have been several management changes within the company, thus my new supervisor was unaware of my plans to attend graduate school and resign only four months after having accepted the position. This made me very anxious, possibly irrationally so, as I anticipated the confrontation I would be faced with upon informing the company of my plans. One good thing has come of being fired today, I was spared that awkward situation.
What I learned this morning was that I am a horrible bank teller. Horrible may be a slight exaggeration, but I am somewhat embarrassed that I was fired and at the moment can't silence the self-deprecating voices in my head. In many ways this revelation is not particularly surprising. As I mentioned before I am overly meticulous and handling large quantities of money made me very nervous from the start. As a teller it is important to be accurate, but speed is also a prized quality which I was never able to attain because I was constantly second guessing myself. I need to learn to develop more confidence in my work and suppress the feeling that I need to re-check everything that I do on the off-chance that I made an error. Outside of the realm of musicological research I have a tendency to be overly-analytical, and this tendency is more often than not detrimental to my success in practical matters. For example, while it is important to be careful when cashing a check for someone, it is not necessary to count back the cash two or three times and still feel paranoid afterwards that I have somehow misread a 5 dollar bill as a 50 and just made my customer's day while shortchanging the bank!
As embarrassed as I am about having been fired from a job for the first time in my life, I can certainly overcome this blow to my dignity and I can learn from it.
I need to learn to be less careful. I have never been one for taking risks, because I am absolutely terrified of the big F word: Failure. Failure at what exactly? I frequently use the phrase "I fail at life," more often than not jokingly/sarcastically, and I haven't ever really taken the meanings of those words into much consideration. I may not be the most optimistic person out there, but I don't truly believe that I am an "epic failure at life" despite how often I claim to be one. What exactly does it mean anyway to fail at life? The reason I struggle to come up with a definitive answer is because I have yet to determine what ultimately constitutes success for me. I say for me, because I am completely aware that success for one person can be strikingly different from someone else's version of success. Perhaps because success for me is still floating around in the great unknown I am terrified of failing in any endeavor.
I read over my post from yesterday about my aspirations as a musicologist and, although not explicitly stated, I see that at least one facet of success for me would mean writing compellingly and sensitively about issues of gender identity in music, and genuinely situating myself in my writing. I do not want my tone to come across as contrived and I tend to struggle with this in my writing. Sometimes I agonize over sentence structure and word choice to the point that I have nearly completely obscured my point. This is often most problematic when I am writing about myself. Beginning this blog is actually an enormous step for me. It is true that I used to journal when I was younger, but when I was ten years old I had less high expectations for my writing than I do now, and at the time I was not as ridiculously self-critical as I am today. I should honor my capacity to be self-reflective, but need to learn how to budget (note the semi-bitter banking humor) my self-criticism. While saving files on my computer this past week I came across probably 15-20 drafts of my personal statement for my grad. school applications. I think I wrote more drafts of my personal statement than either of the two substantial papers I submitted as part of my applications. Maybe this is within the norm, maybe not, but that isn't really my concern. I need to learn how to put my self-reflection into writing without feeling a need to censor and edit everything to the point that I have sucked all the life out of my words. This is a long and redundant paragraph, but I needed to get it out onto paper. :) If I can learn to be less apprehensive about writing about myself, and making my research personal in appropriate contexts, I will be on the road to capturing my elusive version of success.
Outside of writing, I also need to be less careful in day-to-day life. I need to be less afraid of putting myself out there. What do I really have to lose? Today I lost my job. Yes it was unfortunate because my other job doesn't pay as well which means I have to be more frugal in order to continue to be able to afford my rent, and I may be forced to turn to my parents for a little financial aid. This minor setback has forced me to acknowledge that at 23 I am not completely independent and that is ok because this will change overtime as I acquire the means to become independent. Today's failure was a minor setback, and despite how embarrassed I am that I was fired from a part time job, I am not a failure at life. I have many more important things going for me, and I am gradually becoming more successful at taking risks. I can intelligently evaluate situations and avoid taking stupid risks, but I need to accept uncertainty and sometimes take a flying leap and hope for the best. I have done this once and, luckily, it worked out for the best. I decided to bypass a master's program and to instead apply to PhD programs straight out of undergrad. Admittedly this is not uncommon in my particular field, but it was still a huge risk on my part. I faced a lot of rejection this past year, but I have also been rewarded for overcoming my fear of failure and applying to several programs because I will be starting to work towards a PhD in a discipline that I am passionate about and also in the program that was probably the best fit for me from the start! Taking risks sometimes pays off, and even if I do not achieve success in everything I do, like banking among other things, as long as I start to take risks and live life instead of waiting on the sidelines hoping for something good to come my way, I will be able to say that I am a successful and happy person.
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