"7.5 Habits..." AKA "The Accidentally Skipped Thing 2"

I inadvertantly skipped "Thing 2"! Ooops! Thanks for the reminder e-mail!

The easiest habit for me is accepting responsibility for my own learning. I love learning new things and go out of my way to find new things to learn, even if it is something obscure like "the newest symbol to the Internation Phonetic Alphabet is a symbol representing a labio-dental flap, but it not found in Standard American English". (As an aside, I am a language/linguistics junkie and actually had a small celebration with friends over the labio-dental flap.:-D) If ever a day goes by that I fail to learn something, it will be because I failed to make the effort to learn something. Ultimately, I am the ONLY one to be held accountable for my own learning. Besides, how do you get someone to learn for you?

Definitely, the hardest habit for me is to view a problem as a "challenge". I am overly practical at times and I call things as I see them. Problems are problems and shouldn't be sugar-coated. Sometimes I am viewed as having a negative perspective on certain things because I call them like I see them, but to me, it's just being honest without any attempt at deception. The way the distinction works in my mind is like this: A challenge can be accepted or denied. A challenge can also be met or you can fail the challenge. Problems have an immediacy. Problems need to be solved. To me, there is a distinct difference between the two. Problems are a little more immediate and require attention. A challenge is not as immediate and it can be put on then back-burner. I don't know, but to me, it's very difficult to call an apple an orange. Like I said earlier, often times, my practicality is perceived as pessimism, but I am working like a fiend to overcome this. For those of you who know me: Please be patient; I am a work in progress. =-D