Math. Most dread the subject, some are good at it, few actually enjoy it.
The thing is, I would love to love math.
Imagine how marvelous being an engineer would be. Wearing a helmet and using construction lasers, standing at a whiteboard for hours writing complicated formulas and solving long equations, bragging at family reunions about how hard all of your classes are.
The issue with me wanting to be an engineer, however, is the fact that I don’t enjoy math. Of course, if you had a passion for something, obstacles and obstructions being thrown in your way wouldn’t matter as much, because in the end, you know this is what you want to do.
But why don’t a majority of people enjoy math?
Personally, math isn’t boring; I think all the various graphs and creations that come out of it are unique and interesting. Realistically, we would not be the same without math, as it is everywhere. Even now, glance across the room you are in. In some way, triangle shapes fit in each crevice and crack and some formula can be applied to the stack of books that lays on your desk or the water bottle you bring to school.
But, maybe this is all only interesting in theory. When you actually have to sit down and learn about each of these applications, and study for hours on end, that is when math becomes dull.
Often, I think of my brother. I enjoy reading, whether this be the most recent news, a novel, or the latest Voices articles. But the way my brother thinks is completely different, almost a different language. My brother thinks in numbers.
He’ll spend his free time playing or watching soccer, but meanwhile, he is thinking about how the physics of it fits in. He looks at soccer in a mathematical way. When you’re one-on-one with a goalkeeper, at what angle should you hit the ball? What pace? Are you curving it or passing it flat?
When you want to hit a long ball across the field, where does your foot go on the ball? It’s a sphere, so if you want the ball to go far and high in the air, you tilt your knee inward, put your head and chest facing down, and place your foot on the bottom part of the sphere, hitting it sweetly with the inside of your big toe.
If you want to head the ball, the first, most important thing is to not close your eyes. Next, where do you want to place the ball? If you want the ball to go down, simply look down as your forehead makes contact with the ball; it’s as simple as that. If you want it to bounce up, look up and guide it forward.
All in all, I think it’s easiest to enjoy math when you are born that way.
Certainly there are people that learned to love it over time, or maybe even forced themselves into a career that involved it.
But, with people like my brother, math is their way of going through life. They breathe and live math. Honestly, even though I still put effort in my math classes in school, and I take pleasure in the occasional spiel my brother goes on about what he’s learning, I’ve come to accept I’m simply not that person.
