Standing Out
Most of us haven't been trained to recognize a good idea when it strikes us, or to pursue a new path. If my twenty or so years of education taught me anything, it was to follow and comply with the authority figures in my life. Stay in line, don't speak too loudly, and you won't end up being humiliated in front of the rest of your classmates.
It was in seventh grade math, when my teacher, Ms. Gilbert, refused to accept my application to test into honors math one day past the day it was due. This wasn't because her hands were bound by the deadline, or because she was trying to teach me a lesson in punctuality (although I needed it at the time.) She was doing it just because she didn't much like me. She never told me that...but I knew.
I took what she did that day and realized that adults were, sometimes, just big kids that had been alive longer than me. It was my first lesson in questioning authority, which is something a lot of people never learn in their lives. Most people recognize the need to do this during their teenage years, and it largely shapes who we later become as adults.
While questioning authority can be useful, and can be helpful in uncovering problems, it's not perfect. It can be perceived as antagonistic, and once you start a conflict, both sides become defensive about their positions. That doesn't move things forward.
Better than questioning authority is to just assume authority where you can. Instead of always asking permission, or waiting for some external source to validate what you're doing, take the initiative, assume you're in charge, and plow ahead. This opens you up for criticism, sure...but few individuals have ever started changing the world by asking someone else's permission.
Assuming authority doesn't work in classrooms in public schools, and that's the reason that so few people ever learn how, when, or even that they should bother doing it. By the time we reach the adult world, and we wind up sitting in a cubicle or at a desk someplace, we follow the rules most of the time, and occasionally, we question them.
But what's missing, and what you have the opportunity to bring to the table, is initiative. And regardless of the state of the economy, that is a great resume builder.
It was in seventh grade math, when my teacher, Ms. Gilbert, refused to accept my application to test into honors math one day past the day it was due. This wasn't because her hands were bound by the deadline, or because she was trying to teach me a lesson in punctuality (although I needed it at the time.) She was doing it just because she didn't much like me. She never told me that...but I knew.
I took what she did that day and realized that adults were, sometimes, just big kids that had been alive longer than me. It was my first lesson in questioning authority, which is something a lot of people never learn in their lives. Most people recognize the need to do this during their teenage years, and it largely shapes who we later become as adults.
While questioning authority can be useful, and can be helpful in uncovering problems, it's not perfect. It can be perceived as antagonistic, and once you start a conflict, both sides become defensive about their positions. That doesn't move things forward.
Better than questioning authority is to just assume authority where you can. Instead of always asking permission, or waiting for some external source to validate what you're doing, take the initiative, assume you're in charge, and plow ahead. This opens you up for criticism, sure...but few individuals have ever started changing the world by asking someone else's permission.
Assuming authority doesn't work in classrooms in public schools, and that's the reason that so few people ever learn how, when, or even that they should bother doing it. By the time we reach the adult world, and we wind up sitting in a cubicle or at a desk someplace, we follow the rules most of the time, and occasionally, we question them.
But what's missing, and what you have the opportunity to bring to the table, is initiative. And regardless of the state of the economy, that is a great resume builder.