Changed for the better- Cole Kjar

Flash Fiction

Throughout your life in school you have changed so drastically. You used to be swear often and hang out with the wrong people who put bad thoughts in you head. Although you maintained good grades you never put in extra work to succeed. Luckily you have distanced yourself from what was drifting you off a good path. You have found help within new friends to shift your views. These new friends bring out your joy and laughter that your old friends never did. They accept you for who you are and encourage you to be who you truly want to be. You can finally leave the boring you behind.

Artist Statement

My main objective for this picture was to try and imitate the famous picture of Albert Einstein. Obviously my level of intellect is nowhere near his but I wanted to compare the similarities in my personality and what I believe his to be. I see my personality now as pretty goofy and fun which I attempted to show with the tongue sticking out, “mustache”, and the messy hair which is also seen in the picture of Albert. I decided to give the picture a black and white filter to show my interest subjects that are black and white. I enjoy subjects like math and science which usually have answers to their questions that are either right or wrong. This enjoyment for math and science is also expressed in the attempt to recreate Albert’s picture. Going back to personality, I gave the picture a plain white background to signify how I feel about my past. In middle school I hung out with not the greatest people but gained better friends who changed my personality to be more friendly and fun. To tie in the white background, I feel as though that part of my past as boring and dull and just like a white background which I have put behind me. In my flash fiction, I decided to make it in third person point of view. I did this to express how I feel about myself and how I see my past self.

Reflection

On the topic of personality, many people believe that one's personality is fixed and never changes. If this is true, does that mean anyone who does something bad makes them an inherently bad person? What if they did the bad thing for a good reason? I believe that no matter what someone has done in the past, they can change who they are by putting them self in a new environment.

This way of thinking was introduced to me through the Invisibilia podcast, "Personality Myth." The main part of the podcast that stuck out to me was when Professor Walter Mischel was giving his view on this subject. As an expert on the subject of psychology, Professor Mischel says, "It is the situations that determine how we behave” ("Personality"). This is backed up by his Marshmallow test. The test is given to children and consists of placing a marshmallow in front of the kid and telling them not to eat it and as a reward they would get another marshmallow. It was previously believed at if the kid ate the marshmallow they just had a badness inside of them until Professor Mischel came up with the idea that ones life shouldn't be defined by eating a marshmallow. Although it is a great concept, it implies that the option of change is possible for people.
Even if it’s change for the good, the idea of change is difficult for some to grasp. Sometimes people don’t think that the change is possible in others which scares them. I personally believe in the idea that you are not defined by a simple marshmallow and that I can change who I am if I want to. The idea that things I had done in the past not having to affect who I am is gratifying to me. Over the past 8 weeks I have started to believe that my personality is ever changing and that even though I have regrets from my past, I don’t have to let those affect how I make decisions in the future if I put myself in the right situations.