Discussion
If you don't try and you fail, it might be less painful than if you try hard and still fail.
You can think "I could still do it, if I really wanted to." It protects your time, and your ego.
This can become a real problem if you are trying to learn something that can only be done with full mental investment. Mathematics is like this. It requires a kind of intellectual vulnerability.
No one wants to feel stupid. Even just to ourselves.
@futurebird Like the negative signs I always* remember to include when I integrate the cosine.
* it's maybe 40/60, it's cost me literally months of going back and starting from there
And anyone can be systematic if you take breaks every now and then.
A lot of things in life with a reputation for being "hard" and "for smart people only" can be cracked once you recognize that 9/10ths of the hard stuff is just tedious. Plodding along, will work. That last 1/10th comes to you as a gift because when you do the plodding you do eventually start to see the bigger picture.
Some of my students want to see the big picture first. They want a royal road to geometry.
Being willing to work, even without results, is the key to life. Persistence wins. Persistence with true vision wins faster.
@futurebird I love this post, thank you x
@futurebird *cautiously puts hand up* I actually quite like it, Miss!
(And kinda have the opposite psychology of being really reluctant to make great displays of cleverness.)
Math is going to make you feel foolish. It's part of the process.
But if you can follow the reasoning in this rather meandering post, you can probably understand most of the mathematics.
Often students think a problem is hard because it's ingenious and complex when in reality it's just a little tedious.
People who show off at math like to make it seem as if they run on brilliant flashes of insight when it's more about checking for tiny errors, and being systematic.