Not Everything Can Be Fixed

Growing up I used to feel the students who weren't doing well academically were simply lazy. Though I knew that the education system was broken and not a scale to weigh people on, but I also felt that there was no way anyone would put some effort in and not get some decent results. I used to look critically at the lifestyle of my school mates who weren't doing well academically and would figure out all the little changes they could make to greatly improve their academic performance. I, also, did try to show a few of them those changes they could easily make, but gave up in the end. I now know why they couldn't make those little changes. It's because not everything can be fixed.

image: blogs.technet.com

No matter how much you diet or starve, you can't be leaner than your skeleton. I have never come across an adult who is trying to grow taller. When it comes to our physical features we have little trouble distinguishing between what we can fix and what we can't. But when it comes to our personality we feel everything can be fixed, especially about someone else.

That was what I got wrong about my school mates. Because while in an academic environment and the focus was mainly on our academic performance I wasn't able to see what was not going right in my life that a couple of little changes would have fixed, but was seeing the few changes my not-so academically inclined friends could make to better their school life. Now that I have been long outside the academic environment, in a totally different world, I am now the lazy one. Lazy in my social interactions. People are constantly showing me the little changes I could make to achieve more decent results and give up after a while. It reminds me of what one of my friend at school used to say, "Freeman, you shouldn't judge me based on your own capability. You understand what the lecturer is saying before he is done but I have to read and have you explain to me before I get it." And he seldom got it satisfactorily. 

Everyday I get asked computer questions that I consider extremely easy but are perceived as very difficult by the inquirer. And everyday I struggle with things most people do with extreme ease. Just like we wouldn't attempt to get taller by dieting nor take on any of the obvious physical limitations, so also are there limitations around our habits that are beyond fixing. Not everything can be fixed because there will always be things that we can't permanently change even if try.