Chapter 13 – Why I absolutely believe in critical reflection

The summer I wrote On Happiness, I also wrote a research article about the development of self-authorship among college-aged students enrolled in a service-learning course at a four-year university (I wonder which one that could be?).

I actually talk about self-authorship in a future chapter, so I’ll spare you the details for now and instead simply say that it is actually much cooler than the above description would lead you to believe. I will also say, self-authorship, is actually much of the reason we have stories like what I publish here on On Happiness. It is also largely a part of why – or how – we as individuals experience learning.

But these reasons were not why I spent a majority of the summer enamored with this concept and writing that article. No, what really initially captured my interest about writing that article on self-authorship was its prominent emphasis on the role critical reflection plays in the development of inner voice. (I guess this all still sounds pretty academic, but I have a point, I promise.) Particularly, this thing – self-authorship – struck me as remarkably similar to the journal I had kept while in Greensboro.

When I left Alabama, this journal was likely my most prized possession. It represented everything I was, had become, and aspired to be.

And when you have a memento of yourself – a solid artifact of who you are or were – you should hold on. Because never in life are you going to be able to get that time back.

I hadn’t realized it at the time, but after learning about self-authorship, I came to see my journal as the way I personally had found my voice.

So even though I could give you pages of research and citations – and I just might change my mind and decide to add it – about the definition, structure, and impact of reflection in finding your inner voice, I won’t. Because even though an autoethnography is technically supposed to draw on the writer’s interpretation and relationship to the evidence-based data, I would rather tell you about my personal experiences and plug for its importance.

When I was in Alabama,

I once wrote about the internal struggle I experienced in trying to rectify the dissonance between the amount of work I put in while in undergrad compared to the detachment I had felt from it since graduating. I had spent four years pouring over my textbooks, working multiple jobs at once, volunteering at a number of organizations across Fort Worth, applying for scholarship after scholarship, and ultimately accumulating a lot of stress.

Don’t get me wrong – I am incredibly grateful for each and every single one of these experiences – I graduated with a high GPA, several awards, and a long history of both merit and award-based scholarships. I got to know my professors – and practically lived in my department’s office.

But I don’t think I really lived. That happened in Alabama.

By really living, I wondered why I spent all of my undergraduate years falling into the vicious resume race. I will say, absolutely none of those experiences were a waste of time, and, in fact, shaped me into the person I am today. But looking back on it, I wish I could tell my younger self to do exactly all those same things but really reflect on why I was filling my resume with those things.

You see, we learn throughout college we should be adept critical thinkers – that looking beyond the box is not enough, but rather, we must figure out what to do with the information we find outside the box. I loved my college experience, but I wish I would have seen it as more than a monotonous day in and day out experience defined by the pieces I needed to make myself stand out. I lived in Fort Worth, but I didn’t really live in Fort Worth. I went to TCU. And that was, for the most part, simply it.

I wish I would have recognized that while grades matter, grades don’t really matter.

That what really mattered was the hard work I put in for things I cared about. For things that motivated me, challenged me, changed me. That thinking and critical thinking are different. Likewise, that reflecting and critical reflecting are different.

Because I believe that when you really sit down,

ponder,

let your mind wander,

look at your life experiences –

and you synthesize the thoughts between the fleeting realm of your subconscious with the rote realm of your every day –

you will set yourself up to always be on the path toward growing as an individual.

To figuring out what matters most to you, and to always being the best version of yourself you can be.

And cheesy as that may be – just wait, let me add to the cheesiness – I think being the best you should always, always be your goal.

Because if we all are striving to leave the best bits of ourselves behind at each step in our journey,

there is no way we can’t all change the world.