A common dilemma in my daily life is that I have a need to figure out my own ways of doing things. It is not uncommon for me to do something that ends up contradicting a set of guidelines, or (in other contexts) pissing off someone because I'm not doing something the "right" way.
Some examples to illustrate the gist of I'm talking about:
- When I was in school (mostly in science classes, and also in english for writing assignments), I would often find myself frustrated with a method that I was supposed to use to accomplish a given task, and I would find my own way of doing something. The end result was often still good, but many teachers (with a couple of friendly exceptions) took issue with the way I wouldn't do something exactly as instructed if I thought there was an easier way.
- One of my hobbies is tinkering with/building bicycles, and all the time I find myself doing things that go against rulebooks - I experiment with things on my own (such as "proper" tire pressure being set differently for different conditions, the positioning of handlebars and how they affect how a bicycle will handle, etc) and find myself doing things that go against much of what I read/what people tell me.
Experiences like this are rampant in my life; I often find myself with a paranoid distrust of the "right" ways of doing anything. Many things that I am interested in, I find myself spending a lot of time educating myself on the topic far beyond what is needed to accomplish a task. By becoming a mini-expert I can infer a better perspective on why certain approaches were suggested and not others, and also to be able to invent some of my own.
I've left this topic deliberately vague, because this is an element of my behavior that reaches across a broad variety of contexts.
Some examples to illustrate the gist of I'm talking about:
- When I was in school (mostly in science classes, and also in english for writing assignments), I would often find myself frustrated with a method that I was supposed to use to accomplish a given task, and I would find my own way of doing something. The end result was often still good, but many teachers (with a couple of friendly exceptions) took issue with the way I wouldn't do something exactly as instructed if I thought there was an easier way.
- One of my hobbies is tinkering with/building bicycles, and all the time I find myself doing things that go against rulebooks - I experiment with things on my own (such as "proper" tire pressure being set differently for different conditions, the positioning of handlebars and how they affect how a bicycle will handle, etc) and find myself doing things that go against much of what I read/what people tell me.
Experiences like this are rampant in my life; I often find myself with a paranoid distrust of the "right" ways of doing anything. Many things that I am interested in, I find myself spending a lot of time educating myself on the topic far beyond what is needed to accomplish a task. By becoming a mini-expert I can infer a better perspective on why certain approaches were suggested and not others, and also to be able to invent some of my own.
I've left this topic deliberately vague, because this is an element of my behavior that reaches across a broad variety of contexts.