1) This project asks students to look within themselves and write about a struggle they have faced at some point in their life. This project makes students push past the boundaries of comfort and step into a jungle of vulnerability. This project blatantly ignores the walls we students have built around ourselves to keep people out and kicks through these sturdy bricks, tearing them down all at once, exposing the real and broken people hiding behind them. Who knows-- maybe this is the kind of project that's a breeze for most people. Maybe I am overthinking this whole thing, as I always do. One thing I do know though is that this project is not easy. Not for me. I sat in front of my computer for hours staring at a blank screen because I could not bring myself to write about the struggles I have faced in my lifetime. Doing this project is a conflict within itself because I am not vulnerable. I have walls. It does not come easy for me to let people in. I've never known the cause of this, but maybe it boils down to expectations. I have always had very high expectations for myself. I hold myself to such high standards that if I am not the very best-- if I am not perfect-- I have let myself down. These are impossible standards to live with and they have forced me to build walls. I tend to keep people out because I know I am not perfect. And maybe I am afraid that if I take down my walls people will realize I am flawed. Because I have such high expectations of myself, I am worried that other people have high expectations of me as well, and if they discover I cannot meet them, I will only be a disappointment. So, "What caused my conflict," you ask? My English teacher forced me to write this very blog post and do a project on it that will push me to step outside my walls of comfort and into an unknown world of vulnerability where I am not perfect and I have flaws.
2) Always having such high expectations of myself is a constant loss of energy. Stress constantly weighs me down as I struggle to be the best and give all of myself to everything I am a part of. On top of that, I am constantly giving of myself to try to provide for others because of my high expectations of myself as a friend to people that I never am able to care for myself. In constantly struggling to be the best possible version of myself, I sometimes lose sight of who I actually am. Often times, these expectations make me lose sleep as well, because there is never enough time in a day to achieve all that I want to achieve, so I am forced to trade in sleep to buy more time in hopes that I can make more of myself. But in reality, all this loss of sleep and energy ever does is damage my health and slowly deteriorate my capabilities, enabling the exact thing I am trying to avoid. Furthermore, the walls I have built around my imperfect self not only cause me to have way too high standards for myself, but also inhibit my abilities to be completely authentic. In no way am I fake, but my ability to be 100% real is often lost.
3) When I first heard the class was going to have a project, I was not looking forward to it, but I was not concerned. As with any project, I rarely ever enjoy doing them, but I know I can do well on them pretty much regardless. But as the class began discussing the project more in depth, I immediately became guarded. A billion thoughts raced through my mind but I could not think of a single thing I could think of that I could talk about in front of an entire class and publish to an online blog for the whole world to see. As I imagined myself presenting in front of the class, I could picture my walls rising higher and higher. For the next few days, my mind remained blank as to ideas I could write and present about. Then I realized that this very project is a perfect representation of the core of many of the struggles I have faced my whole life. That's when I began writing this very post. Then I erased it and started over a few times, because the thought of exposing myself and my conflicts still scared me. But as the time the assignment was due quickly approached, I realized I had to start writing or I would fail the assignment. My high expectations for my grades came to a standstill with the walls my high expectations had built, and my walls lost the battle. Now here I am, over halfway done with an assignment I never thought possible.
4) As I have grown older, I have learned to let my walls down a bit more easily than before, because I have realized that no matter what I do, impossible expectations are not worth the burden they are, and the imperfect version of Samantha Dukes is not always so bad. My junior year was a major turning point for me, because I finally got to the point where I could not maintain a healthy lifestyle at the high level I was holding myself to. My attitudes were going to have to change or I would burn out. Even though I still struggle with high expectations and vulnerability, as seen by this project, I feel like I am improving at becoming more authentic and using my high standards in a more positive way, as more of a driving force than a weight on my shoulders.
5) By doing this project I have learned to step out of my comfort zone and accept that vulnerability and having flaws is actually better than perfection. I have learned that I can use my high expectations of myself as a positive force rather than a hindrance. All this time I've always thought of my walls as things that block other people out, but in reality they are just keeping me trapped inside. It is okay to have conflicts and struggles, because the area outside of our comfort zones are where we as people have the ability to grow.
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