Tag Archives: Success

The Weapon of Choice

05 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by in Education, Freedom of choice, Freewill, Philosophy, Success

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

WordPress has an interesting feature called writing helper that “randomly” generates a quote, a topic, or photo to inspire a blog topic. I tried it and got the following:

Take a line from a song that you love or connect with. Now forget the song, and turn that line into the title or inspiration for your post.

Ok.  For me that would be: “If you choose not to decide to decide you still have made a choice.”

The above quote comes from the song Freewill by Rush (second track of the album, Permanent Waves, 1980). The song’s subject is about freewill; how it is not a gift, but rather a choice. What resonates with me is the fact that every day you and I are faced with many choices. Should we do this, or should we do that? Often times, we try to evade the burden of choice, put off our decision for fear of making the wrong choice. However, avoidance is itself a choice.

I often hear people complain about how their lives didn’t turn out how they planned.  If only they would have gone to college right after high school, delayed getting married until they were older/more mature, or born into money, how their lives would be different or better.  Perhaps.  However, those choices are in the past; opportunities gone.  Often, people forget that in the here and now are choices to be made to forge a better life.

To show you that I am not just talking out of my arse, I am going to share a personal experience.  This happened about 16 years ago: I was freshly divorced; my career in radio hit a wall; I was in poverty (I do not recommend being poor, it really does suck).  I had been contemplating a career change but a change to what?  I had been spending my free time teaching myself computer programming; the Internet was new and fascinating to me.  I could literally spend hours on my computer and thought if there were a way to do this for a living, I think I wouldn’t mind that.  The problem was that I had no college degree.  I graduated from high school years ago; I would need an education but the thought of college scared me.  I was in my mid-thirties; I would be in classrooms of freshly graduated high school students and twenty-somethings.*  Talk about a feeling old.  Compound that with the thoughts of how I would be 40 when I graduated and that I would be starting a new career — in my forties!  These thoughts paralyzed me into inaction.

A few days later during a jog, I was listening to the radio and ironically, the song playing was Rush’s “Freewill.”  Halfway through the song came a voice; it said, “Eric, gods willing, you are going to be 40 no matter what you do.  Would it not be better to be a 40 year old with a college degree than a 40 year old with out one?”  Case closed.  I ran back home and began the application process.  Several months later, I embarked on one of the greatest experiences in my life: being a university student and it changed my life.  I am so glad I chose to do it.

The most powerful weapon is choice; the second most powerful weapon is an educated mind.  Make the smart investment in yourself.  Choose to decide.  It will be the right choice.

============================================

* This is not meant to be a slam on young people.  It turns out that being the oldest guy in the classroom wasn’t as scary as I imagined it would be.  These students welcomed me in their study groups and I learned lots from them.  I was impressed at their discipline and dedication.  I wished I had that kind of discipline when I was their age.  I should have made a wiser choice when I had the chance.

Just Three Steps to Success

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Algorithms, Research, Success

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

I am a computer scientist and I love designing algorithms to solve problems; a series of steps or instructions that one executes until there is a solution.  Wouldn’t it be great to write an algorithm for success — what ever success means for you?  Given a set of inputs, and a set of instructions, that if acted upon correctly and faithfully,  you achieve a successful solution to you problem(s) or in meeting your goal(s).

The above thought actually stems from my concerns and fears of taking on a Principal Investigator role to a research project — a very hard problem with no guarantee of a solution.  Pretty scary venture, right?  I want the project to be successful.  While formulating a team and a plan of attack, I began seeking models of successful project management in the literature.  I thought back on my own successful accomplishments — obtaining a job as a radio announcer, earning a computer science degree, obtaining the rank of Eagle Scout, starting a new career, accepting a job, and moving from one end of the continent to the other, … what did I do consistently that ensured success?

Upon reflection, I discovered that there are three key steps to any successful endeavor.  I could be wrong, but this is based on my own experience.  Therefore, I reserve the right to be wrong.

  1. The first step is a leap of faith.  Accomplishing my goals required some faith that I would succeed even though I could fail.  Despite any fear, I took small steps and built my confidence attempting to get from “here” to “there” — and I wasn’t guaranteed there would even be a there, there.
  2. The second step is personal doubt.  This is the phase of your journey where you feel you have hit a brick wall, you hit rock bottom, and you feel that there is no possible way to go any further.  You are frustrated.  Stymied.  Addled.  This is the point where you may start to feel like giving up — and most people do at this point.  However, I argue that this period of perplexity is a good thing.  It means you are tackling a very hard problem and hard problems yield great rewards.  This is not the time to quit but the time to begin.  You may need to begin by stepping back from the problem.  Take the weekend off.  Don’t think about it.  Do something else; go for a run, play golf, whatever you consider fun to do.  This gives your subconscious some time to work on the problem without your interference.  Ever have an idea suddenly spring out of nowhere?  It usually happens when you are in the shower, on the john, or at 3 A.M.  I believe this is the work of your subconscious; just make sure you have a notebook to write down what ever that flash of inspiration is.  After this period of incubation, you can start fresh.
  3. The third step is perseverance.  This is where you “gut it out”, keep at it to get past your time of doubt.  The key is to start somewhere.  Anywhere.  If you got a flash of inspiration during the incubation or break, start with that.  Otherwise formulate a hypothesis and try it.  Most likely it will be wrong.  But you will learn something.  Apply what you learned in a new hypothesis, try and fail again.  Like a smart missile, you constantly course-correct until you reach your target.

Well, there you have it.  A simple algorithm for success.  The algorithm may be simple; performing it will be hard but you can do it.  All you need to do is take that first step.