Today I did something that can be very difficult for some of us: I asked for help.
I've had it in my head all along that because I can't procrastinate on my honors thesis, I can't accomplish it. Procrastination is one tried and true way to avoid the fear of not meeting your own standards, as well as the scariness of getting lost in the details of a project (or re-starting it over and over to perfect it). Perfectionism dictates that all must be correct and therefore good. A moral judgment you make on yourself.
And yes, procrastination can take away all that scary time in which you normally berate yourself for not being able to figure out how to do something or figure out how to do it "correctly."
But it can also leave you with a strong sense of self-doubt and self-loathing, too. If you procrastinate to make yourself rush to get things done, thereby eliminating the ability to abide by your standards, you can start to feel like crap about the work you do accomplish, and wonder if you're really capable of producing anything that is good.
So...I walked into my advisor's office under the premise of talking to her about a presentation, and then I sit down and dropped the "bomb."
"So I was afraid to talk to you about this..." My advisor chuckles and says "good!" I laugh a little bit, because I've started our meetings this way a few times before. It's like the code word for I'm freaking out about stuff right now and I really need you to listen and be understanding. I'm lucky enough to have an advisor who totally gets that.
So I tell her what's going on, with the gut-wrenching anxiety I've been having when faced with attempting the writing of my thesis paper and the subsequent melt-downs into tears, over-exercising, or frantically calling my boyfriend to get him to calm me down (gotta love him for being so tolerant).
She's surprised, because she took it for granted that 1. I could come talk to her and 2. that I saw myself as competent and capable of writing a paper. I tell her, no, I secretly suspect she's going to lambast me for needing help everytime I need it, so I absolutely do NOT ask her for help. I tell her that every time I write something for her or produce research materials, I have to "re-prove" my ability to her. She gets what I'm saying, and she just says, "You proved yourself two years ago in whatever class you first had with me, with the first paper. It was your thinking and writing skills I saw within it." I am surprised. My self-worth is not precarious and waiting to be destroyed by my next paper? She has a positive view of me? Shock.
She goes on to say, "There are two things that make you a good writer and a good person. First, you have standards. You produce quality work according to those standards, and you typically have a good understanding of the material you encounter. The second is that you have integrity. You don't cut corners in your writing, you don't plagarize. A lot of students have one of these qualities and not the other, both of which is a shame. Integrity without standards leads to bad writing, and standards without integrity leads to cheating and shortcuts. But, you have both of these qualities, and that is what makes you a good writer."
And like a good personality/social psychologist, she continues, "These are not just things that change easily. This is a trait that you have. It tends to remain consistent. It's not going to just disappear."
She apologized a little bit for not giving more positive feedback in the past (since I admitted to being somewhat questioning of her regard of me as a writer and student), and said that part of the problem was her mentoring/teaching style; if everything is great, there's no comments. She doesn't pull punches or put stickers on your tests. Doing well is a norm to her. She has standards herself.
The whole thing got me thinking about how I approach my writing, my homework, my classes. What if there is something that I've ALREADY proved? What if simply showing up, thinking about things, and getting shit done is enough? And if I'm doing this on a consistent basis, why should every paper be just another challenge to assert my self-worth to others, and most especially myself?
It reminds me a lot about talk about the worth of a person as something that is inherent, a quality of a human being, that cannot be taken away. While I won't deny that there is an element of showing up and doing the work required beyond that of just having ability, what if this is a trait that I have and not something I need to re-prove every single day of my life?
My shaky student-esteem has been given somewhat of a support and much needed rest today. Today, I feel like it is enough to just do what I do as myself.
And I want it to be like that more often.
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