1st Sem Grades are out! And Oh are they bad! And my reflections on a coulda woulda shoulda

1st Semester Grades are out in the Ateneo Law School! Log in to law.ateneo.edu/als/students really horrible grades this semester. Hope I passed all of my subjects though.

Which leads me to reflect on another coulda, woulda, shoulda semester. I have been the victim ever since of my own capabilities and my confidence in these. To know that you are able to does not give automatically give you the will to.

The ability and the will are two entirely different things! I myself have experienced this ever since my sentience. The ability to become someone or attain something is merely potential. It does not mean that you are already acting the word itself suggests that the action is suspended. Example, a piece of wood can be a seat or a wooden vase, it can be shaped. However, until the shaping force is applied then it retains its pure potentiality. It is at once perfect, because it is what it is, but at the same time useless because it is not what it can be. 

Several thinkers have agreed that human beings should, nay must, change and should welcome change. Change is a symptom of the great disease called Life. We humans live in a dynamic world with a dynamic existence and we must have dynamic experiences. The ebb and flow of life should not be contained or captured it must be enjoyed and embraced. Therefore the human being who is all ability but does not bring to bear his faculties is perfect as he is but at the same time flawed as to what he can be.

Enter now the will. The will is the self applying himself or herself to the situation using the abilities available. Therefore willing to become someone or to achieve something with the capacity to be so means that the person becomes what he so desires. It is not an unrealistic belief that I merely have to want something and the entire world has to re-align itself to my wishes. What I am suggesting is that the will is the application of the self to be a certain state. I do not wish to posit that success is guaranteed by the use of the will. No, there must be harmony with the abilities of the self. If you cannot outrun a cheetah on foot even if you will yourself fully, even with training and other performance enhancing drugs, you will not outrun a cheetah on foot. You will be eaten that is what is going to happen. 

The will must fall in line with the ability. Though training can to a certain extent augment the abilities it will not totally change the make up of the ability it can only serve to improve it. 

Now having said that the ability must be applied in conjunction with the will I can honestly say that I have not performed as much as I would have wanted to this semester. I could have studied more. I should have answered better. That is why it is a coulda woulda shoulda sem. The ability is there, I don’t doubt that it is the will that was lacking. 

This is how one becomes a victim of one’s own abilities. I was too confident in my capacities. I willed myself to believe that I could coast along. Alas, this was not so. Let’s just see what the 2nd semester holds in store for us.