Wk 2 Comments on Alison's Blog

Alison's original post:

EMDT Month 11 – Alison Oprea

The Art of Possibility Chapters 1-4

April 13, 2012

As I read the first four chapters of The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, I started to reflect on how their ideas impact me.  As I was growing up, there was an unspoken expectation that I was going to do “right” – go to college, get a good job, get married and have my 2.5 kids.  I was afraid to fail.  Because I was afraid to fail, I took no risks.  In college, my viola professor was desperately trying to get me to play a piece I was working on more passionately, but I just didn’t get it.  Trying to get me to open up, she told me to yell.  Yell anything.  Scream.  But I couldn’t do it – in fact, I couldn’t even make a sound.  To me, that was so wrong, and definitely NOT proper.  However, over time I started to realize that that was exactly what I needed.  All these ideas of what were right and wrong and what was expected of me were all things I had conjured up myself.  I was hurting myself in this “safe” place I kept myself in.  I began to take risks, and I began to see the world differently.  While I allowed myself an A in many things, I realize now that there is so much more I should be giving myself an A in.  Not only that, but giving others around me an A.  Changing that perspective and opinion in others, be it students, colleagues, friends or family,  I can only begin to imagine the difference in changing my life as well as others.
--------

You can see my comment to Alison's post here:

Alison,
I can definitely understand the "unspoken expectation that I was going to do “right” and not wanting to take risks because of that expectation.

However, my own life and experiences FORCED me to take risks, if i wanted to continue with what was expected of me. Eventually, I was able to separate myself from what was expected, and came to conclusions about what I wanted and started taking risks based on what *I* wanted.

But those initial issues in my life forced me to become comfortable with making (and assessing) risks.


Reading everyone's posts about this book has made me *really* think about how different experiences radically change people's outcomes on life and continues in a spiral to continue to affect how we think and act. This seems to be part of the central thesis of the book, along with how to stop that spiral.

I may not agree with all parts of this text, but it has definitely made me think and assess my own ideas, ideals, experiences and outlooks on life.