Figuring myself out

So over the last few months, I've gone through a lot. A normal relationship can do that for you, much less one with a lot of variables in it. I've had the counsel of many friends and my sister to help me along. I've also learned a lot about myself and what I need in my life.

One thing that's been really bothering me is why I can't seem to realize my full potential in my work. On the one hand, I want to get myself out there and go for stuff. But then I get demotivated, scared, and unsure of myself. I'm a full believer that you need to go out and try things to learn, and to learn from failure. So I shouldn't be afraid of failure!

I've been reading up on psychology and self-help books. Somewhere I read one thought as to why people have problems finishing things... it's because they grew up with critical authority figures. To avoid the hurt of criticism, they just never finish the job. I can definitely relate to that. There's really no rationale for me to feel that way, I have very supportive friends and family. And I should be mature and confident enough to know that any criticism I do get I can ignore (for the bad or unactionable criticism) or accept and work on (for the constructive criticism). But I guess the human brain doesn't work logically!

 My hop chemist dad definitely had his influence on me on this. He was your typical Asian parent. When getting a 98%, he would ask why I missed the 2%. (Although I think back on it, he only did it because he thought it was right to do. I don't think he really believed in it himself.) He pushed math and science hard, almost to the point of obsession. There's a quote that I read somewhere, where a parent was telling his kid about what he could be when he grew up: "You can be a doctor, an engineer, or a failure." There was definitely that kind of feeling.

But my dad's saving grace was that he was a softie at heart. He would do all those hard core things, but deep down I don't think he really believed in it. He was doing it because that's what his dad taught him, and that's what the culture was. He's also been much more open minded in the last few years, willing to listen to all this new age stuff my sister and I have been feeding him. Because of that, we are still very close. 

So I'd like to figure myself out more, for the purposes of removing my psychological barriers to get myself to the point of fulfilling my potential. I've done the thought exercise a lot of imagining me 50 years from now looking back to when I was 32... would I be happy with myself or regretful that I didn't take advantage of my youth and freedom? Right now, I'd say no.

The first thing I'd like to do is to understand why the Chinese culture is the way it is. Why push math and science so hard? Why so critical? Why focus on preventing things from going wrong? I did a quick Google search, and one thing that came up was the beliefs of Confucianism. The scholar was put on a pedestal. So my quest might start there...