This semester was eventful.

Not eventful in the sense that it was marked by any given significant, distinct events, but rather in a “character development” sort of way.

Self-actualization remains the only problem I struggle with in any meaningful capacity. As it has been for the last decade, and as it is for most people, I assume. Considering that, I should probably have made more progress in solving this problem than I have so far.

Maybe that reflects on my capacity as a person, rather than on the problem itself. On the other hand, maybe not. Who knows?

The idea — possibly nothing more than deluded fantasy stemming from a romanticized sense of self — is that if I were able to self-actualize, there wouldn’t be realistically much I couldn’t do.

In general, I think this is one of those important truths to believe in not based off of evidence empirical or otherwise, but rather by its pragmatic value. Believing the opposite, in my opinion, does not do one any amount of good. Not that ideas should be judged by that metric, but certain beliefs that have the potential to affect your character perhaps should be.

So, with that in mind, it seemed reasonable at the beginning of the semester to hold myself to a 4.0. Which, to the head of someone who hasn’t ever honestly tried in school, seemed reasonable, because if I could just “apply” myself, the material would be fairly trivial. Which was true. None of the material this year was “difficult” to grasp, requiring at most periods of somewhat concerted effort.

This semester was a failure.

It turns out learning the material was never the “hard” part, rather, actually maintaining the discipline to continue learning the material was. And to anybody who knows me, it should be no surprise I failed spectacularly there. While I held an effortless 4.0 for about the first half of the semester, things started to disintegrate a bit during the latter half. So the semester now ends (in three days) with results well above what I would have gotten had I not changed anything, but well below what I could have gotten.

It strikes me that measurements as to what somebody “could” have done never account for the flaws that person has (this is the point, of course, as “could have” refers to what a flawless version of that person would have done) and so, while offering a useful ceiling and target to aim for, perhaps can be negatively impactful after the inevitable failure — what with humans not being flawless, and all that.

This semester was a success.

To the end of self-actualization, I have made what are in my mind concrete improvements in a fair few different aspects. My ability to work on what I need to, rather than what I want to, has improved a fair bit, and with that, my ability to stay organized. I’ve been able to convert more of my free time from useless web browsing to reading books, working on improving my mindset, actual self-motivated academic studies, and miscellaneous side projects, one of which is this website. I have built some diligence — certainly not enough, but some, which is more than I previously had.

One of the more important changes I need to make going forwards is a less absolute view of improvement and success. As someone whose inner monologue borders on abusive, it has always been a challenge to take stock of my performance in a way that compliments, rather than criticizes. I think I’m beginning to realize that perhaps that mindset impedes actual improvement, and recognizing the parts of the situation that are successes as successes and failures as failures is significantly more conducive to reaching my goal.

And with that comes the result that perhaps I should be willing to accept my failures with less bitter of a taste, because as evidenced by this semester, they’re never entirely failures.

Winter break approaches quickly — 64 hours from now, actually — and with it comes another chance to work towards that elusive self-actualization. I have a fairly large list of things I want to accomplish by its end, academic, recreational, and otherwise.

Hopefully winter break will be a success.