Turning My Needs Into Wants -- a reflection.

I want to practice writing. I need to practice writing.

I also know that if I need to do something, I (subconsciously or not) do my best to “like” whatever it is I need, so that it’s not as hard for me to do it when the need arises.

That way, if I have to do something, I would be more than willing to do it since I like it, since I also want to do it for myself.

It’s something I’ve been doing ever since I was a kid, when I didn’t want to get discouraged from learning Math. You know how grade school and high school kids are when it comes to Math — they hate it. And usually, you would hear all those “It’s so hard!!”, or “I can’t understand it, I won’t even try anymore, I’m giving up” lines in the classroom, and as a kid, this could affect how you perceive a certain thing or subject (in this case, Math).

I didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want to be discouraged. I found Math as an interesting thing, and I got really curious as to how you solve certain things in order to get to a solution, how different steps may take you to different answers, and mainly just how the whole process works.

Hearing the negative things about Math made me decide to at least like Math, becuase I know for a fact that I’m a type that can be swayed by these things, these negative energies. I didn’t want to be like the rest of my classmates, who struggled to understand how to get the unknown values in a given equation, and instead wanted to be the girl who was asked, “Wow! How did you do that? Can you teach me?”

Other than making my need to study and understand Math a want also for myself, I also wanted to share this feeling of amazement when solving these problems correctly. I loved hearing people go like, “Oh, so that’s how it works! It only took these steps…”, and “I get it now! It’s so cool!” and I wanted to be one of those people who made other people say that after I showed them how it truly worked.

I strived to become someone that people looked up to, because of the people I looked up to while all these things were happening. It was because of my fellow classmates who made it look like it took them little to no effort to get the answer to a certain number that I wanted to become better than my current state. I am not quite sure if I truly wanted to become better than them, though—it was something in my mind, but I never really fully pushed it for myself. It wasn’t what I wanted to do.

But either way, upon reflecting on this habit I do—making my needs my wants (when I can)—I realize that I need to get to know myself better, and know what I really need in order to know what I can want.

Or rather, I just need to be confident in what I know of myself now. I know what I need. I just need to give myself that push, so I can like them again.

I don’t want to be discouraged anymore. And I will do my best not to be.

If I do, I’ll just pick myself up and start over again. There’s always a way. If not, there’s a reason why.