You ever find yourself in a mood where you just want to stay in and do absolutely nothing? That was me on Friday night and I found myself binge-watching TED Talks. I recently found a white marble notebook I just HAD to buy because I guess I don’t have enough blank stationary laying around yet. So there I was sitting on the couch with my Christmas candles burning, apples doused in cinnamon, and a blank notebook. I want to specifically mention three talks that I found interesting. If you click on the title of the talk, I've embedded the link for your easy viewing access.

I started with “Math is the secret to understanding the world” by Roger Antonsen. He spoke about how looking at mathematics can lead to us learning how to view the world from a new perspective. I'm not sure if I'll do it enough justice by trying to explaining it myself, so I suggest checking it out. 

I then watched a hilarious talk titled, “This is what happens when you reply to spam email” and I found myself actually laughing out loud more than I thought I would. We all get those annoying spam emails, and rarely do people ever respond to them. But James Veitch did and he shared his experience with us. At about six minutes into the talk, you will laugh. I guarantee it. 

But the best one that I found is titled, “Teach girls bravery, not perfection” where Reshma Saujani brought up some really interesting points. Society raises boys with the mindset that they should play rough and take risks. Little boys are encouraged to climb to the highest point on the playground and then jump. They're told to be brave, daring, and courageous.

Yet girls are told they must be perfect. Women are ridiculed for tiny mistakes that no one would even think twice about had a man made the same ones. Women may work extremely hard for something and be completely qualified, but it still isn't enough. Election 2016, sound familiar? It’s so important to teach young girls that they don’t always need to be perfect. Perfection is not attainable, however that’s the standard that we're held to.

Reshma spoke with a coding professor who brought up a gender comparison that really emulates this concept of how women seek perfection. When the males in his class had an issue, they said that there was something wrong with their code. When the females had an issue, they said that there was something wrong with how they'd written it. While the men blamed it on the code, the women blamed it on themselves.

This TED Talk was concluded by Reshma specifying that it’s important to be socialized to be imperfect. We need to teach young girls to be courageous. We have to let them know to not be afraid to take risks. Many women wouldn’t even think twice about applying for a job unless they were 100% qualified. Men frequently apply for jobs that they’re only 60% qualified for. Some even apply for jobs that they’re 0% qualified for… ahem, Donald Trump.

I personally am a perfectionist. I go back and edit everyone’s work in group projects, I delete my tweets if there’s one word on the next line because I don’t like how it looks, I obsess over tiny details in PowerPoints that no one notices, I correct grammar and spelling like no other, and I spot typos in less than one second... As someone who is always striving for perfection, refuses to make mistakes, and hates admitting that they’re wrong, I think that there’s an important message for me to learn from Reshma’s talk. And there's some sort of lesson that everyone can benefit from. The most relevant one directly correlates with the change that my generation can make when we decide to have kids. We need to raise our children to take risks and be brave. It’s necessary that we try to release ourselves from society’s expectations of us.

I encourage everyone to try something new this upcoming week. I started an online coding course from Lynda.com (one of the few reasons why I like my school is that they provide me with free access to this online database) and I’m determined to learn the basics of programming. It's something I've never done before, but trying new things is a necessity in life. So go out into the world, take a risk, challenge yourself, and hold back from obsessing over perfection. It doesn't exist.