Ever since my last post on this blog I have been meaning to update my various blogs but never got around to it. It has been a year and 11 days since this blog was updated. Being a man of varied interests (including Libertarian-ism and the translation of a book into Malayalam) makes it hard to be focused on one topic.
I was imprisoned by the same indecisiveness that I had talked about in the previous post. I had signed up for many online courses but did not even get around to starting most of them. This happens when there are more courses available than you can contemplate - let alone even complete. I therefore started by re-examining my career and life goals and tried to find the best possible way to make them happen without too much planning. Too much of anything is bad - even planning. Too much analysis leads to paralysis.
Lack of planning sometimes works if you are instinctively following your passions AND following up on your decisions. But when you are overwhelmed with many choices, your passion for even the most interesting and easy topics will get diluted. I realised that very often in life you must say 'NO" to many things. I also realised that I am very poor at saying "No" !There is an optimal number of concerns your brain can manage at a time - not more , not less. I had no choice but to outsource some of the decision managing to an external tool. maybe a spreadsheet to begin with. To this end in mind, I decided to therefore make an inventory of
0. all the online courses that I had
1. seen
2. found interesting,
3. perused,
4. signed up for,
5. done a few classes for,
6. paid for,
7. completed AND
8. Paid for and Completed.
This can be summarised in this Venn diagram [sorry for the garish colour scheme, I had to spend time on other activities and I had only the use of ms-paintbrush].
 |
| Course Encounters of Every Kind ! |
As you can see, taking a census of every course in the Darker Grey Universe is not possible. Since we will not remember everything we do , this will not be possible for the Lighter Grey Universe either. But all courses however, are categorizable from a utility perspective along a gradient given on the left side of the picture. One must start at Relevant and move to Crucial. All fundamental skills courses are Unnecessary if you are fluent with them - otherwise they are Crucial. Fundamental skills are not domain specific but you can't write an Odyssey without being able to spell. Learn to minimize and eliminate the Unnecessary in your life.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
– Steve Jobs
Check out my Study Plan on this
Google SpreadSheet. This will be a permanent WIP. Here I hope to aggregate courses according to major topic covered. This will reduce duplication of effort.
- Studying 52 subjects every week for a year will get you nowhere.
- Studying 1 subject per week for a year will get you everywhere.
- Finish what you're doing before you start a new course. Momentum will be lost if the current task is not completed.
- Temporary comprehension becomes permanent only on task completion. Make it permanent because relearning an interesting subject is worse than learning a boring subject the first time.
- Resist the temptation to sign up for that sexy course while you are doing a dull boring one. Let it go. Everything is not meant to be.
If you have the Aptitude, then Focus is the one weapon to defeat fate. No need for talent, luck, opportunity, intelligence, money, anything else.
FOCUS - the magic word, especially in today's LinkedIn and MOOC-ed up world!
A friend once advised me about my inability to match ambition with time, effort, luck and circumstance. It was something like this ...
"Why don't you do the small things that you can do, instead of not doing the grand things you will never do?"
It is hard enough for someone living in denial to face up to the truth which is self evident to everyone else. And even if you are humbled, it is still harder to act on the wisdom so painfully gained. There is of course the inertia of the past. But sometimes you have just invested too much pride and/or faith in something to let go. It's like asking
a parent to let go of their child to it's doom. Our thoughts are our mind's perspective of the Universe. If they are no longer true then our existence is called into question. This is why many commit suicide or accept martyrdom. This is why religion exists. This is why hope exists. This is the secret and the meaning of life. Not 42.
