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The Power of Words: "grinding"
I am not really trying to start much of a discussion here. But, I have a general thought I wanted to share. Words have power. If you say something enough, you end up believing it. If you continue to say you’re stuck, you eventually really do become stuck. I’ve noticed a lot of people use the word “grinding”, which I know a lot of us are essentially doing. I want to bring up the potential that words such as “grinding” could be negatively affecting our mindset. Grinding is something that is tedious and seemingly without end. Is this truly the mindset in which we want to approach the LSAT?
I think the LSAT is a fantastic opportunity for me to prepare myself to think like a future lawyer. I am a musician, and I see many parallels. Practicing etudes, although boring at times, helps my techniques, which ultimately helps me perform my concertos much better. I think the LSAT is a very fair test, and I believe this test will help develop some of the logical thinking skills I will need as a lawyer.
~ just a friendly thought. Study on!
Comments
This is easily my favorite post in recent memory.
The etude bit is spot on. You'll never be forced to perform any etude ever in a live concert setting. But the skills that etude built for you helped prepare you to perform that concerto that you are playing. Nobody plays Sarasate or Wieniewski to any degree of proficiency without practicing on Kreutzer's, Sevcik's, or Wohlfahrt's etudes first (shout out to my fellow violinists).
Mindset matters, people. Your attitude determines your altitude.
Ever heard of the saying "embrace the grind"? Popular in the wrestling/mma community. I grew up hearing/experiencing that phrase, so "grinding" has never held a negative connotation to me.
It’s important that you recognize what a word means to you. That’s how you can tell if it is negative or not. Some people, as displayed by the comment above, see the word differently. It’s important to be COGNIZANT
@"Paul Caint" of the way it impacts you personally. I’m glad you notice that, it helps you keep your mindset in the right place.
@LSATcantwin I'm so cognizant of the word cognizant now
@victorwu
The way I see it grinding is a description of what you are doing to the test.
It's a long grinding battle, there is no knock out blow, but at the end of it, the test loses. Sure you suffer with the boredom of studying for the test, but in the end your studying is a systematic way to beat the test.
Then, I take my cue from tennis. We call a win grinding if rather than attempting to hit winners you drag out the match returning every ball, trying to make your opponent move, trying to give up nothing, and waiting for your opponent to wither and tire. So for me grinding isn't negative or positive.
It's descriptive of a stylistic choice, in this case the choice to gradually and steadilly crush the lsat into submission rather than taking a risk trying to defeat it quickly.
@"Jonathan Wang" While practicing, I never thought I was grinding. Grinding seems to be a word we use when we want to do an extensive amount of work in a short period of time. That mindset, I think, ultimately catches up to us.
@10000019 @"Seeking Perfection" It's pretty interesting to see different point of views. Kind of reminds me of that rabbit-duck illusion. But, yeah, I guess we each know the words that empower us and the words that don't.
This is an awesome post. Personally, I am terrified of the word "grinding." I don't know if any of you have played the MMO Maple Story? That game will give you a grinding phobia. I remember one of my guild members taking me to a secret evil pig beach to grind levels. He claimed it was faster, which basically meant that I only had to kill the same evil pig for two weeks instead of some other enemy for three weeks. Not fun....
Anyways, I always thought of studying the LSAT as a process for developing useful critical thinking and reasoning skills. It was more about understanding certain concepts than about doing X number of questions. That is a lot more motivating than just thinking about the LSAT as a test and a number.
Wow, @"Jonathan Wang" Did you study the violin?? Sarasate, Wieniawski, Kreutzer, Sevcik, Wohlfahrt.... A pleasant surprise to hear those names in this LSAT community, especially from you. I practiced them very diligently as well...
You bet. In fact, renting a violin from a little shop next to Juilliard and learning the Vitali Chaconne and Mendelssohn's Meditation in my spare time saved my sanity (and therefore probably my grades too) during my 1L finals. Sadly, my skills have atrophied too much due to lack of practice - 17 year old me would have died laughing at 22 year old me's attempt at Wieniewski's Scherzo Tarantelle, and it's only gotten worse since then.
Sadly, I didn't practice Sevcik, Wohlfahrt, or Kreutzer nearly as diligently as I should have - typical teenage brat, too cool/lazy to practice. On the flip side, I don't think my mother has ever been as happy as she was when I told her I was picking the violin back up again...not even when I got into Columbia. She threw a lot of money at people to get them to try and nurture this talent I had, so I guess it's nice to see that pay off down the line.
EDIT - and to keep this at least somewhat LSAT related, I took a lot of inspiration for my teaching style from one of my heroes, Itzhak Perlman. My mother bought me a documentary about him that I watched when I was probably 9 or 10 years old, and it stays with me to this day. For the curious:
Bookmarked. This is an excellent post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Bro I like this sh**. Thanks
I think it depends on your perspective, but you do bring up a good point.
For me, I enjoy the grind. I enjoy the thought that I am doing the prep that so few others are willing to do. I enjoy knowing I am going to outwork all others, out prepare and go to every length to beat the test.
Even if we don't all agree, everyone here is so eloquent and wonderful in so many ways T_T Although I don't comment a lot I'm so thankful to have found 7sage. Thanks for the post Victor Wu! This definitely helped.
@"Jonathan Wang" You must have been pretty accomplished on the violin at one point. And wow! What a jewel that documentary is! Thank you for posting it. I couldn't stop watching it until the end in one sitting. After watching it, I picked up my violin and started practicing... Perlman is my hero as well. Happy to see the school I teach now, the old Juilliard, in the film made in 1978... and that performance of Bach Chaconne is my favorite one. Nice to see Ms. DeLay sitting in the audience and seeing her student giving a master class feeling very proud...
As music saved your sanity during your 1L, it certainly refreshes me when feeling overworked by LSAT... It may be fun to read some duets together if you are up for it...
@"Victor Wu" What instrument do you play?
The content of this test is really different from what I've been doing all my life... but I find the process very similar. Practice and repetition. Training the brain like how we trained our fingers and developed musical sensitivity over countless hours in solitude in a practice room...
@thisissparta @"Trust But Verify" @AllezAllez21 @sandypants thank you all. I really just wanted to share my thoughts. We really are in this together.
@"Grace..." I do a bunch of stuff. I compose, produce, sing and play the piano. But, I actually majored in viola performance. I really tailored my undergraduate experience so that I could succeed as a film/music lawyer. My ultimate goal is to actually be an advocate for Asian-American and Hispanic-American rights.
@"Victor Wu" Wow, you do a lot...very nice! I majored violin in my undergrad and got master's degree in viola also... With your broad background experience, you would make a good music/entertainment lawyer. Completely unexpected but nice to run into musicians in this community.