Please do not forget your umbrella today. Love, mom. : The unpleasant memory of carelessness.
When I was in my elementary school years, I was famous for losing things to my mom. It was very fortunate that I did not lose valuable things, but I often forgot to bring those trivial things such as umbrella, pencil case, and so on. My mom was somewhat worried about this clumsiness inside me, and made me go to private institutes for concentration, such as Kendo or meditation of Qi. As one can expect, nothing really worked. I guess it was partially because I was not old enough to realize why it was important to fix the carelessness, thus resulting in inefficient results of behaviors.
This reputation that was only limited to my family began to develop on to my social standing when this continued on my middle school years. I was gradually fixing it by then, but it was not enough to show others that I lost things frequently. This undermined my image, making me shown to others as somewhat irresponsible and careless. The following limitations that came to me due to this degrading of my personal image were quite a lot. But the most serious thing was that I was losing the trust of people on those trivial matters. When the things were actually coming to my skin, I was already in a situation where I lost a large part of my trust, and I felt like I had to do something about it.
When I got into high school, it was a perfect chance for me to reset my reputation. It was a whole new environment with people not having prior knowledge of my carelessness. Also, I had tried enthusiastically during the middle school years to try to remember things more deliberately, doing things such as writing post it memos for the things I often forget and checking them often while having the memo in my pocket. I had some mistakes made in my high school years, but it was not something serious compared to my elementary and middle school years. My reputation was back on normal track, and I was not too much different from other 'normal' people while I was in my high school years.
However, while fixing this bad habit of mine, I had faced numerous situations where I had to 'cash it in' with my bad reputations. One of the things that I remember was in my middle school years, while I was in the broadcasting team for my school. Since people (including the teachers) knew I was forgetting things a lot, instead of giving me the control of the broadcasting system during the important events such as morning assembly (where the principle of the school came out and gave words to the students, very formal weekly event), I was to give out signs for the people who were actually controlling the machines about when to do what. I had a list of things written down just for that moment, so I guess it looked more safe to the teachers for me to do things instantly then preparing the equipment, which could have caused a lot of trouble if something was missing.
Were you actually forgetting or were you absent minded? The two are not the same. Absent minded is you are so absorbed in something else that you lose track of more mundane matters. Were you to fully resolve whatever it is that you are absorbed with, then you be aware of the other matters. Absent mindedness is a characteristic attributed to professors. I am that way, quite often.
ReplyDeleteBut also, and this may matter, when I was your age I could actually remember quite a lot, so I had some disdain for writing things down and making to do lists. Now I do forget things more, as a result of aging, but still have the disdain for writing things down.
If you are ok with to do lists, that would seem to be the solution - as long as you don't forget the list.
Thank you for the comment, professor Arvan. I believe that I was absent minded back then. I was not able to fully think of other things when I was upon to do a certain thing that was taking a large portion of my attention. For instance, when the school ended, I was just too happy to go back home and relax that I forgot to see if I took everything with me back home, which resulted in missing things when I was going back home.
DeleteMaking a list was a habit I developed during my high school years. The main reason for taking memos and making a list was not due to my terrible oblivion, but rather was to remember things better for my academic items (such as remembering important dates for AP American History, etc). Before my high school years, I was not a big fan of taking memos. The reason was a complexion of many things, but I believe the main reason was that taking memos were quite annoying. Also, as you have mentioned, holding on to the list was quite a problem for me, since I lost things frequently, and memo was not an exception.
However, I now find taking memos and making a list not only for the things that I have to remember, but for essentially everything, is a excellent way to maintain a steady pace of myself. I am benefiting from taking memos more than I have initially expected, and I think it is a great solution for my absent mindedness and for other reminders that I have to remember.