Dumb Medicine

According to wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn, a paragon is an ideal instance or a perfect embodiment of a concept.

I want to focus on paragon as an ideal instance. I tend to think people limit themselves in what they do because they think of the paragon of a situation. That is to say, they think of the ideal instance of a situation. I’ll use a friend of mine as an example. We used to go out when we were both single, and try to talk to girls. His goal for the night would be to go home with someone, and my goal for the night was to talk to girls. Today, I’m married and he’s still single.

A paragon is a curse

I believe a paragon can become a curse. If you go out with specific expectations and you don’t meet those expectations, you’ll consider the night a failure. This doesn’t only apply to chatting up girls, but really to almost any aspect of life.

You can rehearse all you like for an interview or show, but when the spotlight comes on, the rules can change in an instance. In high school, I was in the musical Grease.  I played the character Doody who had a guitar solo during one of the interludes. If I’m being honest with you, I might as well tell you I sucked. I rehearsed that song hundreds of times, but the whole game changed when the spotlight came on me. In fact, I stopped trying to play the guitar, and forgot the words one of the nights.

So what did I do? I rolled with it. Thankfully so did the other people in the cast. The guys playing Sonny, Danny, and Kenicky (sp?) decided they’d have fun with it too. They intentionally messed up the dance, and fooled around on stage and it was perfect. I could have gotten upset with them stealing my spotlight, but that wouldn’t have made me sing any better. I guess I learned this lesson long ago.

Loosen up

You can’t plan everything, and the unexpected will usually rear its ugly head more often than not. So why fight it? Enjoy what you’re doing and go with the flow most of the time. I don’t mean to sound like a hippie, but seriously, you’ll enjoy yourself a lot more.

Clear your mind before you enter a room. Wing it.

Plan

If you have problems with high expectations and low yield, then let’s plan to loosen up. Instead of going into social, academic, or any other sphere of humanity with expectations of the outcome, go in with an open mind and a blank canvas. You may be missing opportunities by having your preconceived notions.

-DM