Great Expectations

I've never been one to handle criticism well. I know that in many instances criticism is what helps us grow and improve and in the long run, it's a pretty good thing. But for me, the tiniest mistake, the smallest misstep used to completely negate any of the positives. It didn't matter that I got six As on my report card; the only thing I would think about was that one B. It never mattered that I got a 94 percent on an exam; those three questions I got wrong would haunt me for days.

Last summer Karen told me about how at her internship, every time she handed her editor an article, he would tell her it was great and that’s it. She said she would much rather have him scribble all over it and tell her what she did wrong so she could learn. I remember thinking to myself, how if I had a choice, I would much rather take the empty praise over the mauled article, no matter how much the mauling would help. Whether that means I’m insecure or whatever, I don’t know, nor do I very much care.

But it’s not just taking criticism, but also being responsible for your actions that kind of scares me. In this country we're all about transparency. Government documents are available for all to see, public hearings allow people share their view, officials' salaries and even tax returns are disclosed. Any whiff of scandal or corruption has the potential to explode into front-page news. A few weeks ago in my government class, my professor was touching on how opaque the UN is, how you really don't know how much money the Secretary-General makes or where exactly does UNICEF's budget go to. And that's when I realized how important transparency and ultimately accountability really is.

It's very easy for us to take all the credit when something good happens, when our team wins the game or our group is the most successful at raising money. But, we all know that when things turn rough, everyone's favorite hobby becomes finger pointing and blaming the guy next to them. It takes a really strong person to stand up and accept the blame. Accept that they lost the box with all the supplies or they gave out wrong directions.

I always thought I was a strong person, but I've learned lately that being that person isn't as easy as it looks. It's hard, especially when you're a perfectionist / overachiever like me, to accept that failure was your fault. It's almost easier to accept in a personal situation, when you're the only one involved. Yes, I know, I can't blame anyone else because I didn't study hard enough and subsequently bombed an exam. But when you have to acknowledge to a group that you're the reason why things didn't work, that you're the reason why they failed and that you let them down, that's rough.

I bring this up for two reasons. First, in my journalism class, we've moved beyond the typical institution stories, covering the cops and the courts, to more issue-based stories. I've kind of latched onto this one huge issue in my beat, an issue involving imposing more taxes on a community to pay off the infrastructure that the developer built in their community. It's a very confusing issue involving legal jargon, zoning and bond-issuance, something most people in my shoes would probably shy away from covering. Each side, the residents and the county government, has a valid point, in my opinion, and I'm glad I'm witnessing this whole mess instead of actually being involved in it. As I've been researching this issue, I've been talking to a lot of people on both sides, and after hearing that I'm only writing this up for a class, many of them have asked to see my articles.

I told them yes, but I was a little nervous at the thought. Putting it on paper and letting the people who I interview see it makes the whole thing very real. What if I misinterpreted them or what if I include something they said that they didn't want me to. Well, says the pig-headed side of my brain, you told them you were a journalism student so they knew very well that their words could be used. And this is where it goes back to not only taking criticism, but also sticking up for yourself. If someone is unhappy at the way I portrayed them, sure, to some degree I can learn from the experience, but ultimately, my job as a journalist isn't to make everyone look good.

Sometimes you do have to make people mad. Sometimes you do have to cut them off when they go off on tangents. Sometimes you do have to ask them the difficult questions, present them with the other side's case. And these are all things that I'm not really that good at. I don't like making people mad, and I especially don't like it when they get mad at me. So I listen, I listen to them explain me why their side is the only side and why the government has everything all wrong. But I can't bring myself to ask them if they read the fine print of their mortgage and found out that yes, they might have to pay extra taxes. I can't bring myself to ask them if they would rather wait 20 years and have the county spend double the money to build their roads. I just can't do it because I can't make people mad.

And then there's that whole fear of failure thing, and not being able to handle when things are your fault. Today my research team was supposed to hand our surveys at this event we went to today. But after our mentor rushed to get them approved for us, there was a mix-up this morning and we couldn't actually locate the finalized survey. But beyond just that, a lot of things with our research project have not gone as planned, and it's because none of us (myself included) have really put forth 110 percent of our effort. Therein lies the flaw with group work, and regardless of all that more people means more creativity b.s., I will always hate group work because I think it's easier just to get things done on my own. I feel bad because I know if I were doing this project on my own, there are certain things I would have done differently, and there are certain things I would have taken more seriously. But I will also admit that I have at times, let this research project sink a couple of notches on my priority list. And even though I know our mentor is not going to chew us out, but she will gently encourage us in the right direction, I'm still going to be mad at myself. Despite the fact that our whole team consists of overachievers and our research goals were probably too optimistic anyways, I'm still not going to handle accepting the reality of where we are too well.

It is so hard being a perfectionist. Really, I'm not even being sarcastic. It sucks.