Why it's OK to be a 'sugar cookie'

About a month or so ago, I listened to Admiral William McRaven’s commencement speech given at the University of Texas in 2014. The full 20-minute speech can be found on YouTube and is definitely worth the time to listen to (or if you prefer reading, the transcript is readily available on the university’s website).

McRaven shares 10 lessons from his time in Navy training that can be applied to many circumstances in life. Each of those lessons could be worth a post on its own, but in this one, I want to reflect on what it means to be a “sugar cookie”, in his words, and more broadly, why working too hard to avoid failure (and/or maximize success) ends up being counterproductive.

The Admiral starts this part of the speech by talking about the uniform inspection drill he and his fellow students had to partake in during SEAL training. The instructors would ruthlessly examine all aspects of the students’ uniforms, looking for even the slightest imperfection.

It turned out that no amount of polishing the uniform was enough to satisfy them. For failing the inspection, students would be instructed to wet their clothing and then roll around in the sand, creating a coated appearance that was deemed a “sugar cookie”. Several students were unable to put up with this continuous humiliation or cope with their inability to create the ideal uniform. McRaven comments that “those students didn’t make it through training.”

At first, we as listeners are tempted to sympathize with the students. After all, how immaculate does a uniform really need to be in such harsh conditions? Upon further reflection, however, we may start to realize that the story described here is not so different from how life works.

There are countless situations in life in which no matter how hard we try, it will be impossible to get the “perfect” result, whether defined as avoiding an undesirable situation, achieving some standardized grade, or just meeting personal expectations. Oftentimes there are factors outside of our control, but sometimes, we just didn’t know better to avoid the problem, or chose to ignore warning signs.

Regardless of the cause, the outcome is the same: we find ourselves stuck in a situation we didn’t ask for, possibly publicly or privately humiliated. The most natural response in such circumstances is to become bitter and negative, blame the environment around us, and/or look for any justification we can find to absolve ourselves of responsibility for the problem. While natural, this tends to just make things worse.

A personal example: some time ago I took a combinatorics course. It had a rather distinct grading scheme from your typical postsecondary math course. Instead of assignments, tests, and an exam, it had only one graded submission: the final portfolio & its associated interview, which would be due around the last week of classes. The lectures had no graded attendance, and were thus, in theory, completely optional. The only other opportunity to submit work was an optional weekly submission of material we might want to include in our portfolio, but the feedback had no marks associated with it.

Most students described combinatorics as one of the easiest math courses in the program. Without the pressure of their final mark being based on only a few hours of proctored assessment, they were free to explore and engage the mathematical content at their own pace. Indeed, the average in the course had been relatively high for many years. As a high-achieving student, the course naturally attracted my attention as a way to have some fun while still working towards my program requirements.

Unfortunately, what I failed to realize was how much I had come to rely on the structure of a typical university math course. My time allocation skills, which had worked very well up to this point, failed me as I subconsciously deprioritized combinatorics (which had no pressing deadlines) in favor of the multiple other courses I was taking, as well as my responsibilities for the 2 courses I was also teaching as a teaching assistant. By the midterm review checkpoint, my portfolio was quite polished, but far too short. I had not put enough effort into the course exercises to have content to fill it with.

It is worthwhile to note that at this stage, recovery was theoretically still possible - half the course was yet to come and there were plenty of weekly feedback submissions left. Had I dedicated time each week to work on the portfolio, it would likely have been in great shape by the end. As you can probably guess, I did not do this.

The final interview was approaching rapidly and my portfolio remained extremely incomplete. In the weeks before my interview, things went from bad to worse. I had forgotten that my grading work for one of the courses I taught would take place within the last 2 weeks of the semester. Grading that course was extremely slow & monotonous, and would leave little time and energy to properly absorb the combinatorics content and write my portfolio. I would have to choose one or the other. The choice, however, was obvious: the students needed their marks to prepare for the exam, and I could not let them down especially over a situation that was entirely my fault for creating. I finished the grading as soon as I could, and spent a few spare hours I had left adding some mediocre content to the portfolio.

Later when we got on Zoom for the long-anticipated interview, the professor, sympathetic but forced to be consistent with his prior standards for portfolios, informed me that my work in the class was only good enough for a final mark of 65.

This was a big blow to my self-esteem and I started doubting my abilities a bit. 65 was a very low mark, the worst mark I had ever gotten in any university course. To get it in the supposedly “easy” course was even more humiliating. Most of my friends couldn’t believe it was possible for me to do so poorly in a course.

This was one of those “sugar cookie” situations. The intelligence & opportunities were there, but through a combination of external circumstances and my own poor decisions, I had humiliated myself, and somewhat publicly as well. I had shattered any chance of nudging my GPA back to the admired “near-perfect” range.

But, the reality was that none of this mattered within a couple weeks. I went on to complete the rest of my exams and my marks in those courses were fine. The professor for the course I was teaching was happy with my work, and rehired me the following semester. I would also go on to double my teaching workload from the one prior, successfully.

If I had not fumbled combinatorics in that way, I may not have paid as much attention to my time management and the next semester may have gone very poorly. The outcome in the short term was negative, but overall there were many good lessons that came out of it.

Being a sugar cookie isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s the fastest way to deeply understand a lesson that may otherwise have taken months or years to slowly learn. The harm comes when you don’t look for the lesson and stay stagnant.

The key to making progress in life is to not be permanently discouraged by hardships. Look for the lesson being taught to you, and as Admiral McRaven concludes bluntly and powerfully, “get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward.”