comfort zone is boring zone

I recently had the opportunity to serve in jury duty. Although I did not end up being selected as one of the twelve jurors, I got to experience the jury selection process for the first time, and it was quite interesting just learning about how this process works. I also learned of this magical machine called “stenotype” that the court reporter types on, and I still don’t quite understand how those machines work, but it was so cool to see someone type at godly speeds!

The jury selection involved, probably due to the content of the case, the lawyers representing the plaintiff asking the potential jurors the question “have you been turned down by a job?”.

What followed was a really fascinating outlook on life that I hadn’t known.

Overwhelmingly, the most popular answer was “No I have not been turned down.” Now I don’t know if people were just saying that, or if they really have not been rejected, but assuming that most people were telling the truth, I was shocked that that answer is at all common in this society. The friends that I’ve talked to about such matter all seem to be people who have been rejected, and in many cases, rejected MANY times! I’m no different, as I probably have been turned down by over a hundred jobs by now, because let’s face it, most job applications that you submit, if you’re submitting them for positions that you don’t meet all the qualifications (which are the most interesting and challenging jobs that you should be applying for anyway), you will naturally get rejected most of the time.

It has become kind of a goal of mine to always be seeking rejection by doing things that I might fail at. This isn’t something that I randomly picked up, it’s something that I’ve learned throughout the course of my life to be the path that leads to the most growth, and to me, growth and satisfaction are one in the same. Failure is good, because it motivates you to better yourself.

The first time I began to internalize all this was when I failed my Algebra 1 course. The failure was demoralizing, but I noticed that because I had to take the course a second time, I got more practice, and I got really good at it. It was as if I had twice the practice as everyone else, and little did I know that failing this one course really set my life well for the future that was to come. I can’t thank Ms. Leung (my first Algebra 1 teacher) enough, for having the insight to see the value of me repeating the course. So many teachers would have not cared and just passed me on as it often happens. Luckily, that was not the case for me. Sometimes, failure is the best thing that can happen to you.

Similar thing happened when I was applying to colleges. I’ve always been a slower learner compared to my peers, and my poor academic performance resulted in me being rejected by every university I applied to. I literally felt like a failure, because the younger me back then did not know how the world worked and so just assumed that going to a prestigious (or at least some four-year) university was a requirement for success. But the motivation I got from this failure was so valuable, because even though I had always worked pretty hard, I worked harder than ever during my junior college years for no good reason other than in hopes that I would prove to the world that I am not a failure. Thinking back, that was probably not the healthiest motivation for studying, but it did equip me with some really valuable, fundamental knowledge in various subjects that I used as a stepping stone to take my learning further at the university level and beyond. I no longer have the desire to prove anything to the world because I’ve learned how pointless that is (the world is too big to care about small beings like each one of us, so better not worry about such grand things and just be happy), but my urge to keep learning something new has remained with me to this very day and continues to fuel my curiosity.

This illustration by Jessica Hagy sums up my point better than I can, so I’ll just stop talking:

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Shin Adachi

I am a pianist and composer based in Los Angeles.