Jaiyoun Choi

We’ve all had that point in our lives where we feel like nothing is going our way: where no matter how hard you try, no matter what we do, things don’t go your way. For many of us, that point in our lives is right now. With the pandemic ongoing, fires raging across the Pacific Northwest, and protests seemingly still going, the world seems to be crumbling.

Personally, I felt like everything was going my way before quarantine. I was improving in swimming; school was going great and my grades were high; and I was able to get an internship for the summer. I felt like my plan for the future was finally coming together, and that finally, I was on a direct path toward the career I wanted. Then, the coronavirus rolled into Oregon in late March and all my plans crumbled away.

However, I know that we’ve all had the same experience, with life coming to a halt; I know that I’m not alone with these experiences. Fortunately, I have always been someone who has had a positive growth mindset. I saw the time off of school as an opportunity to focus on studying for standardized tests. With no more swimming, I started working out in different ways, experimenting with ways to gain strength and conditioning. I picked up learning Chinese as well as the guitar in my newfound free time.

I wanted to share this with everyone to show that it is possible to take negatives and turn them into positives. From my experience, something that the Asian community is guilty of fostering is a fixed mindset: they think that their skills and intelligence are fixed. They might be put down immediately by obstacles and challenges they approach. Personally, I’ve seen a lot of this within my Asian peers, where it works both ways. People in our community think people who were smart before will always be smart, putting immense pressure on them to succeed. More concerningly, people who see themselves as not very smart tend to continue to see themselves that way and lose self esteem. I’ve seen this everywhere in the Asian community, where people don’t think they can get “smarter” or get better at an instrument, sport, or other skill. The problem is, if they don’t think they can get better, they won’t try to get better at all. In the long run, this sort of mindset and the pressure to succeed just ends in low self esteem.

During these times, I think it is especially important to have a positive growth mindset: to believe that you can improve yourself if you put your mind to it and that challenges in life are just opportunities for growth. And no, you are not someone who is just naturally negative. You can change that too; anyone can change in any way. So, even if you feel like things are going downhill, try to look at things in a positive light.  Believe me, having this sort of outlook on life will keep your mood up and help you get through these tough times.