MGMT Reflection Assignment

Dear Ha, my younger sister,

Yesterday when I walked into your room, you were yet again struggling with writing one
of the papers for your classes. I know that it is hard writing and expressing your ideas
on paper in foreign language, but believe me, language is not a barrier to your creativity.
This is the reason why I write you this letter, to tell you how I find myself in the same
situation just discover that I am a creative person. I hope that from reading this you will
find your own creativity, in your own way.
You and I, we grow up together in a third world country where the governing entity is
that of communism. We go to school every day wearing the same uniform as everyone
else. For 12 years, we take the same classes and do the same tests as every other kid
in the nation. Our culture of collectivism is the culture of conformity, not individuality.
That is not the environment for creativity to thrive, nor is it appreciated. Yet, somehow
we find our own way. Do you remember that time we created our own water guns using
discarded water bottles? Or do you remember the videos we made using nothing but
pictures that find on the internet, put them in order and add some background music to
it so that it tells a story? All these things that we did were creative endeavors, even
though at the time we had not had a single clue how to spell creative in English. My
point is that we are inherently creative, but somehow as we were growing up, the
pressure to conform not just with our culture, but our peers, stifles our own creativity.
Our job now is not to find our creativity, but to identify the mental blocks that prevent us
from accessing it. In our case, the mental block is to let go of the notion that we are not
creative, as I learn in one my college class, creativity is both a constructive and
destructive process.
Let me tell you my story of how I find myself to be a creative person. Growing up I have
always found myself to be somewhat different from my peers. When they are interested
in what is, I am more interested in what could be. This maybe the reason why I find
myself daydreaming a lot during class. You know that I have always wanted to own my
own business. The reason behind it is that I find it limiting to be working for someone
else. I want full autonomy in what I do. I want freedom in adding value where I deem fit
not just doing what other tell me to do. But one thing that keeps me from doing a lot of
the things that I want to do is that I lacked courage. In college, like you, knowing that
English is not my primary language, for the first semester or so I was extremely
reserved and never raised my hand. That is until I have to present an assignment in
front of the class. Needless to say, I was frightened. I could not raise my hand to voice
my opinion during class, now I have to present in front of 20 other people. But I did what
I had to do and I succeeded. Ever since I made it a point to put myself out of my comfort
zone. I would volunteer and raise my hand during class, even when I do not have much
to contribute, I trust that I would come up with something or learn a few things along the
way. If you are not lucky like me, your first attempt at expressing yourself may turn out
to be a failure, please dont let it discourage you. Put yourself at risk and cultivate your
own creative confidence.

Ever since taking the creativity class at college, I learned to give my mind more time to
come up with creative ideas. The other day when I was having a group discussion. We
take turn in circle sharing our ideas. I was the last one to share, but at that moment, I
have nothing to share but a few mediocre ideas. So instead of blurting things out just for
the sake of contributing, I told my group half jokingly, My brain needs a little more time
to process, can you guys come back to me a little later? Sure enough, without stressing
myself out my mind magically came up with the idea that the group decided to go with.
I think this has a lot to do with me being a rather introverted person. Sometimes I just
need to cut myself off from the outside world, let the mental noises subside and let my
creative juice flows freely. So the lesson I learned that day is not to stress myself out too
much or feel pressured to find a creative solution.
One other thing that helped me tremendously, not just with my creative endeavors, but
in work and school is general, is not to take it too seriously. It is good having a high
GPA, but there is not much point in attaining a high GPA if you are not enjoying learning
(which, in turn, means learning more effectively) along the way. We live in such a resultoriented society that everything becomes a means to an end. Up until now, almost every
paper I have ever written is written because it is asked of me to do so - at the expense
of me actually learning and enjoying. Every time we sit ourselves down in front of a
computer to write a paper, we shift into this mode of thinking, I need a passing grade
or Is this what the professor want to read? The result is, often time, a paper that is just
good enough to cut it, but nowhere good enough at attaining its original purpose which
is to elicit creative responses. So while there is always a due day for a paper, or a
deadline for a project, learn to enjoy the journey as much as enjoying reaching the
destination, especially if creativity is involved.
Also during this Personal/Team creativity class, I learned this technique called Free
Writing where you write non-stop for 15 minutes on a specific topic. For me free write
was an eye-opening experience. I am not much of a writer, regardless free write helped
overcome writers block. The reason is that sometime I am such a perfectionist that I
want to get everything right on the first try: the sentence structure, whether I get my
message across fluently, how the reader perceive my message, ect. This later translate
into other areas of my life, such as brainstorming in groups, I learn to go with the flow
and not having to elaborate my ideas to the point of perfection before sharing them. I
also decided to pick up a pencil and do something I have always wanted to do - to learn
how to draw. What kept me from painting before was my own expectation of myself. I
wanted to draw portraits, but how do I do that when all I know at that time was drawing
stick figures? By letting go of the expectation of myself, and therefore letting go of the
perception of what my art is supposed to be, I was free to draw whatever I want, at my
own pace. I still suck at drawing, but I am a lot closer to where I want to be.
For the most curious reason, I only feel obligated to write to you for no more than two
pages, so I am going to end on this note. If creativity means to be out of the box, then
what is the box that you have created for yourself, whether physical or conceptual?
Identify that box, peek outside sometime, tear the box down even, I assure you that it
will be worth your while. After all, why be finite when we can be infinite?

Your older brother,

Duy.