Author Sebastian Junger, in his book about soldiers who had returned from war, found a similar thing. Despite dealing with post‑traumatic stress disorder, many of the soldiers wanted to return to dangerous warzones. Why? Because at war, they felt part of something, deeply connected to the men and women they were serving with. Junger reflected, "humans don't mind hardship, in fact, they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary."
...The need to feel useful is a powerful one. ..When you find the conversations you want to take part in and the work you want to keep doing, you start to feel necessary and the whole world opens up.
Paul Millerd, The Pathless Path
This explains so much why even though being a national competitor for the WorldSkills competitions is extremely difficult—12 to 16 hours of training, combined with an academic load in architecture—I still will choose to do it. Being a national competitor this year beginning in March of 2023 eventually led me to add another year in college, yet I do not regret it. Not even once.
If I would repeat this year, I would make the same decision again—prioritizing being a competitor over my college studies.
Competing felt like I was part of something bigger than myself and that the hard work that I put in is absolutely necessary in a larger sense because this is more than me. It's about bringing glory to our Creator, showing what the Filipinos are capable of even coming from a developing country.
Above all, providing hope for myself and anyone that even if one started with non-existent self-belief in one's work and oneself, it is completely possible to gain what you want through with a bit of luck, a great mentor, faith, persistence, curiosity, hard work, and perseverance.
In my conversation with a fellow competitor—a college undergrad as well—we discussed how after the trainings that we had gone through for international competitors, doing assignments and quizzes felt pointless.
And that thoughts came to me because similar to what Millerd reflected above, competing is where I feel useful and most especially, connected to the world.
I will not argue the importance (or unimportance) of assignments or quizzes but having the reason why I behaved that way towards the most challenging thing yet that I have experienced in my life opens up the conclusion that the reason why I don't like to do certain things (even if it is what's deemed 'important' by arbitrary standards or that I needed to do it) was because I haven't felt that it was useful for me.
A good thing to reframe this is something I learned from a mentor while I was in Korea for training: it is to imagine far ahead of where I could use what I am doing now towards something good in the future.
Or asking, "rather than being a means to an end, how can this activity that I'll do be an end in itself?"
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