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Thursday, March 8, 2012

We should have the magnanimity to acknowledge differences and appreciate others' capability

Greetings to all the readers who used to have read my blogs. First of all, I would like to say sorry to those always anticipate updates from my blog. Sorry for disappointing you so many times. If you have the feelings of OH-FOR-AGES-AND-CENTURIES-YOU-FINALLY-UPDATED, then I hope this post would be one of the interesting posts for you to read and rethink about what I wrote. This is because I need a great deal of inspiration to have ideas of what to update about. Personally,I don't like to update about my personal life or some random things. I don't want my posts to be those just to fill up your time. I would prefer to update things which are memorable to me as well as the things who could make you sit,re-read and are meaningful to you.

If you wonder where was this great deal of inspiration come from,it came from a conversation between me and my 学记(literally student reporter) senior. She and I started our conversation with our respective education plan until we slowly moved our topics to school life,personal experience in our student reporter life and finally life itself. And before I forget,the title of this post isn't really what I would just talk about in this post. This post generally contains the main points of our meaningful conversation. The title itself is basically what I learned from our conversation.

During your school life, do you ever have the attitude of judging people negatively and often overlook their ability because you dislike them or simply because you think you are smarter than them? Well,to be frank, I guess each and everyone of us including me,more or less has this kind of attitude. If you say you are the exception, I could only say you are probably the closest thing to God. xD Next,have you ever feel threatened when someone perform better than you at the things you feel you are good at? Lastly,have you ever wonder why there are always the feelings of heavy pressure from other people in your school who watch closely at what you did and are ready to pounce on your mistakes whenever you make one? If these questions make you start thinking,then I'm sure this post would be meaningful and interesting to you. =D

In my opinion,the root to the answer of all questions above is we lack the magnanimity to acknowledge differences and appreciate others' capability. In school,this problem occur to many of us,especially those so-called 'smart' student like me. To be honest, I guess many of us including me always have this negative mindset of judging people because we dislike them and we think we are smarter/better than them. And when we start to dislike them and feel we are better than them,we often overlook their capability and ability at doing things which we are not good at. These are what I feel often or sometimes occur to many of us including me in school.

Outside of school,and in my case my student reporter life,things are different. In the student reporter organisation,you can find many types of people from different backgrounds. I have a different mindset of judging my fellow student reporters aka Xue Ji compared to how I judge my schoolmates. I judge my fellow Xue Jis in a way more positive mindset. In school,I often overlook others' capability and ability in doing things which I'm not good at. But in student reporter, I actually admire others' capability and ability in doing things which I'm not good at.
It seems to be a little contradicting and funny to me when I noticed the difference. So I began to wonder why.

And I guess the simplest reason is competition. Yes,life in school itself is just like a competition. We always check out what our schoolmates/classmates did and we strive to be better than them. We always want to outscore our schoolmates and perform better in examination. And the funniest thing I found out about school life is the feeling of wanting to compete even brought to our extra-curricular activities!!! Students fighting for top position in clubs to get better extra-curricular marks. The president and vice president of the club having different opinions on matters regarding to the club. Club members side either with the president or the vice president because of personal preference. *facepalm*

The greatest thing for me to be part of the Xue Ji family is everyone of us is equal. All of us have one common identity in this big family: we are all student reporters. There are very little individualism in this family. There are no competition among us.
The leader who is in charge of this little community always try his best to instill the concept of teamwork among us when we organised a camp. The leader always remind each and every Xue Jis that although we may be different from one another in terms of background and have different opinions towards one another,we are just about the same as one another in trying to achieve one common goal together. We feel bonded to each other and therefore we have a positive mindset towards other Xue Ji.

Do not get the wrong idea that I'm trying to say the school is like hell and my student reporter organisation is like heaven. What I am trying to point out is that we should have the magnanimity to acknowledge differences and appreciate others' capability IN SCHOOL. I am sure that there are people in school who acknowledge differences and appreciate others' capability. BUT way too less,too little compared to life as a student reporter. Often I feel that many of us,INCLUDING ME,always have a negative mindset in judging other people in the school. I just think that the culture of acknowledging differences and appreciating others' capability should be instilled among the students by the teachers. But to my disappointment,very little teachers notices the importance of this culture and the students themselves neglect it in their school life.

Notice that there are couple of times I mentioned INCLUDING ME in the 3rd and 4th paragraphs? If anyone who read this post feel offended,I want to reaffirm that I'm writing this topic in general and has no means to offend anyone because this post is sort of a self reflection for me. To be frank,I have those attitude to almost everyone in school,even to my best friends SOMETIMES. If I say I despise the difference between me and my schoolmates,I actually appreciate the difference between me and my fellow student reporters. The purpose of writing this post is just to share the lessons I learned and hopefully this could help to instill a positive mindset in you to embrace more on acknowledging differences and appreciating others' capability.

Since this post is sort of a self reflection for me,I hope that there are some people who feel the same way like me. IF NOT,I'm really writing this post for the guilty TC to read and reflect on himself. It would feel very awkward. HAHAHAHAHA!!! I also hope this post manage to get you to reflect on the topic I discussed above. Lets us improve together as a person. =D

Thanks for spending your time to read this post. =)