Jason Truong

I believe that my greatest asset is the ability to adapt and understand other peoples' perspectives. I made an essay on failure a couple of weeks ago and I think it is a great part of me on paper.

Failure is an integral component in the learning process, a core necessity in personal growth; a valuable teacher. Looking back, I wish I had internalized this process before secondary school. I struggled tremendously when I was confronted with an issue that did not have an immediate solution. I cruised through the earlier academics and tasks, however, this cruise affected my perception and reaction to new difficulties. One of these challenges was becoming an effective leader.

It is an unfortunate reality that, in the microcosm of high school, the acquisition of leadership roles are based entirely off of popularity. My secondary school had a total of 44 people. That’s right, 44 people. I knew every single person in my highschool. You might think that with such a small school, the feeling of community and upliftment would be a high regard and it is, however, it also makes everything competitive, including voting. Fortunately for me, with my narcissistic kindness and selfless insecurities, I achieved the roles of Vice President and Treasurer of the National Honor Society, Vice President and Parliamentarian of the Junior Classical League, and several other minor events that required some form of leadership. While revising this essay, I realized something. I originally said that I tried to become a leader in my roles for popularity, confidence, and “most of all” a good leader. That was false and I lied to myself. What I wanted most at that time was respect and I believed that with due diligence, the respect of my peers would be achieved from maintaining those roles.

There were two major identifiers that made my leadership adverse. Originally I had said there were four major identifiers; however, after careful thinking, I realized that there were only two that I wanted to focus on since they were by far the most memorable. First and foremost, I tried to be a people pleaser. Trying to befriend everyone made me change myself in the long term and I made choices based on their opinion more than my own. I wanted everything to work for absolutely everyone and this made difficult decisions such as scheduling a pain in the ass. For example, I recall trying to reschedule the dates for a kids help program and every time I thought I had it perfect. Someone would tell me that they were unable to make it that day and time. So, I would change it, and once again the time was not sufficient. It would be even worse if it was an event that everyone wanted to partake in because I wanted to make sure everyone could participate and I would revamp, retouch, and change things around so that it could fulfill their desires. Mistakes were made and some events didn’t even come into fruition because of how many times I changed and scheduled it.

The second major identifier that made my leadership adverse was my thought process on respect. In my household, I was raised to always respect my parents. Not because they deserved it, but because they created me and had authority over me. I carried this mindset into school and work and this made me a terrible person because I demanded respect instead of earning it. Don’t get me wrong, I respect and love my parents, but, the way respect worked in their eyes made me disdain them. Fear and respect are a double-edged sword and I swung fiercely. Mutual respect was something I needed to learn and the fear of losing control of the situation was what made me a fearful person. I allowed pain to guide my judgment and decisions of people.

Meet Al Hagen. An old, elderly, ex-principal, unjudging, christian, faithful geezer sage. I’ve had many conversations with this man however, there is one that I recall vividly. It was after school hours and I was waiting for my father to pick me up. The conversation went something like this.

“Hey!”

“Hi, Mr. Hagen.”

“What's up with that frown!”

“Nothing, I’m just thinking. About life and stuff.”

*silence* *just want to point out that this was at least sixty whole seconds of silence*

“You know, when I was around twenty-six years younger, I was questioning about life a lot too. Am I doing this good and like am I making a difference? Am I doing what I said I wanted to do? My god, do I want kids? That type of thing. I always wondered if I was at a good point in my life and if I was on the right track. It took me a while, but my girlfriend at that time, now my wife *laughs* told me I needed to look at other people’s perspectives because sometimes, we can’t always just assume.

“Thanks Mr. Hagen.” *end of conversation*

I went home that day thinking about perspective. If I can’t identify my problems, others will. As awkward as the conversations were, I willingly asked people what they disliked about me. What did they truly think of me as a leader? Where could they see improvement was needed? I would end those conversations with, “Please be patient with me, I’ll learn, just give me time.”

I heard this quote a while ago and it resonates with me. “Heroes and Villains are one and the same. Both are fueled by pain. One uses the pain and the other is used by the pain.” I no longer wanted to be the people pleaser, I simply made the best decision possible for the situation at hand. This was a much better way of handling scheduling. Locking a single day for things to happen, people had a choice to go or not. A simple yes or no. No more changes. It gave me peace of mind and events ran smoother. It took me a long time, but learning how to gain respect was perhaps the most important lesson of my life. Respect is everything to me. Respect is the backbone for love, honor, and peace of mind. No longer do I demand respect, I just don’t care for it until it shows up. If someone wishes to respect me for what I do and my actions, then cool, I respect them back. If they don’t return my respect, I still hold respect for them. That is how I basically run my life now.

Through my experiences, I emerged not as a leader acclaimed by all, but as one who can be relied upon. I learned to not be a people pleaser, but to be decisive and fair. I learned that respect is not demanded, but earned. With my learnings, I created in myself a code. A code about respect, in which my life revolves around. “Failure is an integral component in the learning process, a core necessity in personal growth; a valuable teacher.” Failure found me people and these people gave me perspective. Perspective gave me insight and insight gave me understanding. A valuable teacher indeed.