Arguably one of the greatest writers in English,
Shakespeare has influenced many people over the past four hundred years. Although
his pieces may be toughly worded and sometimes confusing to comprehend, they
include lessons and thought-provoking ideas in which we can apply to our everyday
lives, even in such a different way of life today.
When I first took a stab at this
quote, I was not easily able to wrap my head around it and how it could relate
to this week’s class discussions. But, after pondering it further, I realized
that it was trying to get across the fact that nothing is actually good or bad
itself, but rather the way each person perceives it provides the way we feel
about it. For example, we live in a country full of luxuries such as clean
water, nourishment, and shelter. We perceive other countries that are less fortunate
as something we could never get used to, but still take these things for
granted. How can we remind ourselves that there are always others who are happy
with less than what we have?
We are all human, which means we
do think differently and each person has their own point of view. The way in
which we approach daily activities and challenges are also varied among the
population but as we discussed in class from the readings, there are two
mindsets we can use to approach these different tasks. Someone who believes
that knowledge is a biological trait that cannot be altered is classified with
a “fixed mindset,” while those who believe they can constantly better
themselves and learn to love challenges would be classified with a “growth mindset.
Clearly, we discovered that having a growth mindset will not only lead you on
the path to success, but also better yourself and your outlook on life. With this,
Carol Dweck’s article suggests that we must take responsibility, be our own
advocate, and learn from setbacks because these will only motivate us to grow.
Motivation is elusive, hard to express, hard to have
complete mental grasp upon. It is the force behind accomplishing our everyday
encounters. Like mindsets, motivation is broken down into two categories which
include extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Within extrinsic
motivation, is focusing our attention on the post-task reward and or punishment
to promote action. The example used in the article, “Motivation, the Elusive
Drive” was baking. I thought this was clever because it detailed the hatred of
the process of actually baking, but indulging in the product that was produced.
Extrinsic motivation can be very effective in that it can be tempting to start
action, but sometimes will hinder the discontentment of our minds. If we only
relied on this type of motivation, in my opinion, there would be no desire to
keep that drive of going above and beyond. Intrinsic motivation may be
difficult to achieve and create inside ourselves, but taking steps such as
providing an autonomy environment, appropriate challenges to eliminate boredom and
increasing competence, can be factors to start building it, the article
suggests. “We all assign different levels of significance and meaning to
different things.” This goes back to the Shakespeare quote in that our
different levels of meaning and significance towards different things can lead
us to concluding whether they are “good” or “bad”, depending on our thinking.
I finally found the intrinsic motivation to really
dig deeper about this quote I had no idea about and was able to satisfy my
questions about it. My growth mindset allowed me to climb this mountain of challenging
quotes placed upon me and not give up. Extrinsically speaking, I can enjoy my
trip to Broadway this weekend, knowing all of my blogs were completed!
How can
we reach our fullest potential in life?
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