At the beginning of the semester I thought I was confident with all of the course material. I loved the child’s eye observations as I love focus to detail. I naturally tend to notice things like license plates or ceiling tiles that many others miss. As we moved onto creative confidence, my big ego was able to show off my crazy ideas without that felling of failure. My struggles in this course did not begin until we began to talk about failure and uncertainty.
MIDE 300 taught me to embrace ambiguity. Before this semester, I would plan out everything, from my class schedule, to training plans, to plans with friends. Halfway through this semester, all my plans were cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. I couldn’t make any new plans because we were all so unsure of the future. I could no longer go to class everyday, be on campus, be around people, and my season was cancelled. For the first time in my life, I had no plans and nothing to look forward to. I struggled with this, often feeling alone without my friends or discouraged as I had nothing to look forward to. However, this class changed in order to fit our current situations. We were challenged to create a solution to one of the problems we were facing in our new environments. Mine was my attitude. I learned through this challenge that I had an awful attitude about my current situation. I felt hopeless and isolated in quarantine, so I created a nightly reflection to ensure I was maintaining a positive attitude during these dark times. Over the next few weeks, I focused on this nightly checklist to begin embracing ambiguity. I would go to bed every night not knowing what tomorrow would bring, however, I maintained a positive attitude and reflected on how I could make each next day a little better.
Currently, all of our lives are on hold. But, one day, coronavirus will pass and we can begin planning the future again. I hope that after this I will be able to embrace ambiguity. As my fears are still present, I hope someday I can look at a struggling job market and economy in the midst of a global pandemic and it doesn’t scare me. The future is uncertain but this class taught us to be creative innovators. Everyday we will wake up with a new problem that we have to solve. Sometimes we won’t know how to solve it, but that’s ok. We will eventually find a solution and adapt as things change. I may get frustrated with this, but to maintain my positive attitude I hope to reflect every night as I did with my checklist. I promise to make everyday better than the last.
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