Donn: Fragments, 2008

If you can’t beat them, go around them.

I’d like to share another great passage from Jim Collin’s Good to Great, with regard to the difference between being competent at something, and being the best in the world in something:

[C]onsider the young person who gets strait A’s in high school calculus and scores high on the math part of the SAT, demonstrating a core competence at mathematics. Does this mean the person should become a mathematician? Not necessarily. Suppose now that this young person goes off to college, enrols in math courses, and continues to earn A’s, yet encounters people who are genetically encoded for math. As one such student said after this experience, “It would take me three hours to finish the final. Then there were those who finished the same final in thirty minutes and earned an A+. Their brains are just wired differently. I could be a very competent mathematician, but I soon realised I could never be one of the best.”

I recently saw a man (I forget his name) on TV, who held the record for most world records. And in that short segment about him, it showed him practising for his next world record attempt: to be the quickest person to roll an orange with his/her nose over a mile (or something like that). Look, he’s no Usain Bolt, but my money’s on him to break that speed record.

He found his niche. He found what he’s good at — so good, in fact, he’s officially listed as the best in the world.

Imagine then, if you did activity X well, and activity Y well, but individually you’d never be the best X-er or Y-er.

You could still be the best XYer.

There is a movie called “The Secret”, and it’s about the secret of getting the things you want. A book of the same name, based on the movie, was once featured on Oprah, and overall this idea, “the secret”, is probably one of the most marketed ideas in recent history.

As much as I liked the idea, I thought both the book and movie presented the ideas in too preachy a manner. Reading the book and watching the movie I felt like I was attending a religious gathering as a non-believer.

The “secret” that the book talks about is really just what was known as “the law of attraction”, that you get what you think about most of the time.

There are two things in particular that annoy me tremendously.

The first has to do with the “law of attraction” statement that sounds like it came out of some church: “The law of attraction does not care if you believe or not — like the law of gravity, it’s always there whether or not you believe it’s there.”

Well, if you substituted the “law of attraction” with God…

The other thing that annoyed me somewhat was this statement: “If you focus on the things that you don’t like, they’ll manifest. Instead, focus on the things you like. For example, if you are anti-war, be pro-peace. If you’re anti-hunger, be pro-people-having-enough-to-eat. And if you’re anti-one-politician, be pro-his-opponent.”

If that’s the case, the combined power of countless passengers on commercial flights hoping against the plane not crashing down (and not hoping that it flies without incident) should make commercial flights inviable. But it doesn’t.

Still, overall, I suppose those who don’t really believe don’t really need to, and those that do, will.

Last Thursday I attended a communications unit tutorial, and was really surprised (shocked, really) by the discussion of that went on that day.

The students and facilitator (aka. the tutor) displayed such depth and scope in thought on that week’s material (on digital and analogue modes of communication; largely philosophical stuff) that I could only observe is a state of half-shock and half-awe, almost refusing to participate because I wanted to listen more to the ideas being exchanged and debated as opposed to throwing in redundant questions and answers I only considered necessary due to their possible aid in providing me “participation marks”.

Having never taken a unit outside the business school thus far in my three semesters here in UWA, I didn’t know what to expect when I signed up for this class. Well, the UWA Faculty of Arts has not disappointed.

I suppose it wasn’t just what was being discussed in class that fascinated me, but also how different the discussion was carried out as opposed to in business classes. Unlike the business school, people seemed to be discussing issues with a real curiosity — there is no other agenda other than just saying what’s on your mind, on the issues, or otherwise. There was lively debate, and painfully honest admissions (”I don’t understand why we need to have this debate,” said one, “I just don’t believe we can change the world by thinking about these things.”)

It was also quite an eye-opener for me to realise how little I knew on these subjects. I had always assumed that I had a deeper understanding than most of my peers on philosophical ideas, and that I was more widely read than most — I assumed wrong.

As much as it was painful knowing how little I knew, it was most liberating to know that I now know how little I knew.

My current waist measurement’s at 29-3/4″, and weight’s hovering around the 69-70kg mark. I suppose these measurements don’t really show you the real picture, as much as showing my real picture would. I am a little reticent to upload my picture now, for one thing the lighting’s really bad, and for another my bout of unabashed shamelessness in uploading half-naked pictures of myself has worn off (ha-ha).

I will probably upload pictures during day #60, which is the day I expect a more developed six-pack to show.

I have cut down on the number of times I snack per day on the advice of my LiShya.

Right now I’m doing aerobic exercise (jumping rope) at least twice a week, and doing strength training at least three times a week (yes, using my 15 litre bottle of water!)

I have also, as probably mentioned in one of my earlier posts, incorporated volume-training into my workout, doing approximately 100 to 300 push-ups a day five days a week. I’m also doing spur-of-the-moment squats, which I’m hoping will build up my legs (which have always been a little skinny my whole life, even during my “fat” days, a fact I have found to be both a blessing and a curse).

I’ve never had a six-pack before, even during the toughest training period of my life during the first three months of army, so if I can manage to accomplish this, I can tell you that anybody can do it also!

As a balloon 
           filled with helium 
                      floats 
                          upward toward 
                                       the sky,
                         it gets larger 
                         and larger  
               as the atmospheric pressure 

                                       drops

               And the helium 
                     inside 
           e x p a n d s.

Eventually, 
    it gets so LARGE that it
            e    x    p    l    o    d    e    s.

Remember this 
the next time you feel arrogance                                  (fl o a t)
welling up inside of you, and you                                (fl oa t)
                                                                         flo at
                                                                       float
                                                                     float
and eventually

e    x   
            
                d

                       l                   o                    
                      
                                                                b                  e

                                       .