Struggling is good

17 Dec Struggling is good

An American researcher working in the field of education went to a Japanese school to see how they taught in Japan.

He sat in on a maths class in which the subject of the day was geometry.

The teacher asked the pupils to draw a three dimensional image of a cube in their exercise books.

All the children did this correctly except for one boy.

The teacher asked the struggling pupil to come up to the front of the class and draw the image on the Blackboard.

This surprised the American researcher.

In the west it would be the pupil who did it best who would be called to the front of the class to demonstrate.

The struggling pupil kept trying to draw the 3D image of the cube.

Each time he finished the teacher would ask the other pupils “is that correct?”.

The other pupils would shake their heads and say “no!”

The researcher started to worry that the struggling pupil would break down and cry.

He didn’t. He kept trying and trying until he got it right.

The teacher asked the class “is it right now?”

The whole whole class enthusiastically nodded their heads and applauded.

The boy went back to his seat with a confident triumphant look on his face.

The whole class had now been fired up by his tenacity and determination.

It dawned on the researcher that in the West struggling is seen in a negative light.

It’s a sign your no good. A sign that you lack talent and ability and should give up and try something else.

In the East struggling is embraced and welcomed.

It’s a sign your challenging your perceived limits and preconceptions as to who you are and what you can do.

Tenacity and perseverance under adversity are prized qualities more so then talent.

In an experiment Japanese and American students were given some extremely difficult maths problems to solve.

The American students gave up after a couple of minutes.

The Japanese students had to be told to stop after an hour.

Many of us think we know what we can and can’t do before we even try.

Some of us think we have found our limit after we struggle and fail just once or twice.

When we put our minds in a state focusing on just this present moment our preconceptions and judgements disappear.

We do what we have to do to the best of our abilities without over-thinking and panicking ourselves out of it.

How do we get our minds in this state? We practice meditation of course!

If your struggling when meditating and your body is sore and your mind keeps wandering, that’s good, keep going!