Stars Have Fallen: Everyone has a choice
The experience and ending for a Korean pop star Sulli made me think a lot about the mindset. Will you feel sorry for death? I used to hear a sentence “The dead person always gets people’s sympathy easier. When you died suddenly, the whole world starts to love you.” Is there anyone think about the back of the story? Did they just overestimate themselves and make a wrong decision which leads to an unpredictable and unrecoverable consequence? If it is the consequence, are you still be brave and having a growth mindset?
In Dweck’s book, The Mindset, she introduced the two mindsets –fixed mindset and growth mindset. The definition of two mindsets that she provided is “Believing that your qualities are carved in stone — the fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over again.” and “This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others.” With these definitions, her thesis is that our mental mindset can and must be changed. I would partially agree with her idea. Our mental mindset can be changed because it is just the mental thinking style, but I am strongly standing in the opposite position about mindset must be changed since her arguments are not comprehensive and ignoring some important factors that would affect her thesis.
Dweck used many examples to prove that the growth mindset is a good one and people can change to it. She used herself as an example to prove it. She used to want a mate like a prince mate and an easy, glamorous career, but many years later, she gets a guy not matched the prince perfectly and a good job but not easy. She still satisfied because she switched her mindset because of her work, with some students. This is the first time she recognized that she had a choice to change. With her experience, we know that people can make the transition of their mindsets. Dweck provided a concept in psychology called “Aha! experience” as well. After researching, I understand that it is the experience one would have upon realizing. In psychotherapy, it is a moment that people recognize and understand their actions or behaviors suddenly. There are also many letters sent to Dweck that mentioned this feeling which is a large number of proofs shown the transformation of mindsets is possible. “You have a choice. Mindsets are just beliefs. They’re powerful beliefs, but they’re just something in your mind, and you can change your mind.” I completely agree with this quote from the book because it gives options for everyone to choose whether they want to be a growth-mindset thinker, instead of saying they must be.
In chapter two, question and answer section, she also was asked a question “Are mindsets a permanent part of your makeup or can you change them?” She answers that mindsets are an important part of your personality, but you can change them. When you knowing there are two new mindsets, you can start thinking and treating different events in a new way. They had research shown the designed experience changed the fixed-mindset participants into growth-mindset thinkers and acted like growth-mindset thinkers too. The conclusion from researches and experiences always is evidence that convinced people the most including me so that I stand with Dweck in this part to say mindset is a changeable belief.
However, I stand on the opposite side of the other part of Dweck’s thesis which saying that our mental mindset must be changed because everyone has their own choice. She referred there are some books with a title like The Ten Secrets of the World’s Most Successful People give useful tips. She inferred that a list of unconnected pointers said tips like “Take more risks!” or “Believe in yourself!” but readers may not get the inner of these tips which are the growth mindset. “People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it,” she stated in the book which is different from what the tips meant. The successful tip with growth-mindset is believing yourself when you faced the challenge instead of seeking a challenge
Take an example of Christopher Reeve, the actor, who was thrown from a horse. Dweck used this event as an example to prove that growth mindset people stretch themselves to make impossible. Since Reeve is a growth mindset person, he never stopped the effort. “Reeve, however, started a demanding exercise program that involved moving all parts of his paralyzed body with the help of electrical stimulation.” Even though the doctor said all the exercise would be useless, he still tried with his growth mindset by taking care of the challenge and changing it with effort. And this process lasted for a long time until five years later, Reeve started to regain movement. Because of this experience, he stretched his ability and changed the entire science to think about the nervous system and its potential for recovery. Without any doubting, this is definitely a good example to prove the benefit of growth-mindset. It helps you to face challenges by encouraging yourself with the effort that could change the poor circumstance. However, this example refers to the situation that after the accident took place, growth mindset people likely to use effort to overcome the consequence instead of seeking challenges and thriving for it. I could not admit that growth-mindset is an admirable one but people still got choices to choose to change to the growth mindset or fixed mindset when they face different conditions.
If seeking challenge is one step of being a growth mindset person to thrive on the challenge as Dweck meant, I believe that people will have enough evidence to not being a growth mindset person. Getting back from the beginning, Sulli’s dead. She committed suicide on October 14th,2019, aged 25 because of depression which led by various media outlets and cyberbullying. Are there any reasons related to mindset cause this sadness? I would definitely say yes with the reasons that she challenged the majority’s acceptance which considered to be the growth mindset with seeking challenges and love challenges. As a famous actress and former member of K-pop idol group f(x), Sulli belongs to a culture that celebrities are generally expected to be respectful which means respecting elders, not discussing politics and being careful about sex topics, especially you are a female. On the contrary, Sulli used her personal style and belief to challenge society by wearing clothes without a bra, calling older male actors by their first name and supporting South Korea’s revised abortion law. All of these “controversies” are the challenges that she found and took care of as a growth mindset person. She tried to used her power to spread the new and freedom culture to society. As a growth mindset person, she worked hard on it and contributed effort on it. She involved in the “no-bra” movement which is the movement that women go braless to make a statement about expectations and judgment of their bodies in South Korea. And she had told her fans that they had a choice about how to display their bodies. Besides, she posted her picture without a bra on Instagram which is a social media in public. As a response, she faced more and bigger controversies and blames about her actions as a pop star. She said on a TV show in 2005 “When I met people in the past, even before saying hello, I felt like I should explain myself: This isn’t who I am! The rumors aren’t true!”. She talked about the rumors and public expectations affected her life. To challenging society and insisting on being herself, she tried so hard and insisted for more than 10 years. Isn’t it considered the effort for the growth mindset? I had to say she just overestimated herself and kept in the growth mindset for such a long period which caused her to lost the ability to give up. We had to admit that not all people have a tough heart to take care of such stress for such a long time and able to achieve their goal. The consequence would be they could not achieve their goal and lead to the unchangeable outcome, in this case, Sulli just ran out of power to fight with the society and could not change the social attitude to woman or idol which hurt herself into an unrecoverable result — death. I don’t know how had she considered her mindset but I felt real pity. If she recognizes her social influence correctly that is not able to change the social attitude earlier and doesn’t have the growth mindset that telling her to keep hard-working, she might still alive.
There is a theory in economics called the stop-loss order. It is an order placed with a broker to buy or sell once the stock reaches a certain price. A stop-loss is designed to limit an investor’s loss on a security position. I would likely consider the stop-loss order partially represents the fixed mindset because they do the same reaction, stop when the lost reaches to a certain place. They stop investigating. It is security in the stock market and it is also insurance in daily life when you facing a choice. In the experience of Sulli, if she stops working hard on changing the social attitude and being herself completely, she will not face the cyberbully.
Yet, many will probably challenge my view on the grounds that Sulli’s death is because of the cyberbullying instead of her growth mindset. Of course, I am definitely not supporting cyberbullying. However, I had to find the beginning of the bullying would be her willingness to challenge and her efforts to challenge. Who would be the target that cyberbullying chose? Saying it more selfish, no one wants to be the person who suffers the cyberbully. No one wants to be that target. Then, why are we still trying to seek for challenges? If being a fixed mindset person, you will not suffer from it because you are normal and you will not look for the challenge. Being a fixed-mindset thinker, you might be hard to be successful without great talent but you will alive and staying be a normal person into the mass. Even though you are not the most successful one, you are safe and have a common life. Isn’t that also a good thing? Ordinary is happiness. I am not saying you had to be a fixed mindset person but I am saying that you got a choice.
All in all, I felt a great pity for Sulli’s death because she is such a star had fallen. I don’t want others getting hurt because of the effort from the growth-mindset. Again, everyone has a choice. Personally, I both agree and disagree with Dweck’s thesis. I trust that people have the ability to change their mindset and they can do so but I doubt with her other part of the thesis which is people must change their mindset since they really don’t need to.
