Right now I’m watching Iconoclasts with Clive Davis and Bill Maher.
Clive was sitting in a room of NYU students and they were firing questions at him. One kid asked something to the tune of, “what gets you going everyday”, to which he responded with the title of this post.
What’s the point of pursuing a career if you’re not going to be an expert and on the road to be #1? However, as Bill Maher put it, “you have to prove yourself…which is why [Clive] read[s] those statistics at 2 in the morning.”
This goes back to a point I was trying to make in my initial post from CMJ. You gotta do what needs to get done. Don’t say you’ll do it next week or even tomorrow. That’s just your own resistance trying to tell you to be normal and boring.
Don’t deliberate.
I wasted 15 minutes deciding if I wanted to finish this up in the morning or right now. 15 minutes may not be a lot, but those 15 minute and 5 minute periods of contemplation can add up to large chunk of time that could be devoted to you to your hobbies or a continuation of work, but with inefficiency comes lack of options.
I have to work form 8am-midnight on and off because I have yet to find the necessary balance, efficiency, and focus to sit down and do it. I know what I need to do, but I give into that little voice that says, “Grab a beer. You’ve done enough today.”
Experts don’t do just enough, they do more than that. Experts don’t deliberate, they don’t resist work, they embrace challenge, and more importantly, they get shit done.
Clive Davis…he’s an expert. David Chaitt…to be determined.
To be honest and a conterpoint, I think that being able to sit and contemplate peacefully is a lost and meaningful art. I’m definately no zen buddist, but society today is so wrapped up in “efficiency”. As a computer scientist, my world revolves around that world, and sometimes it’s nice to sit and stare out the window, or go for a walk. Those aren’t really hobbies of mine, they’re things that I think are healthy for the brain.
I do agree that people should be serious about what they do–I hope to be an expert myself one day (I aim to be one of the best)– but you loose a little bit of yourself if you go for pure efficiency; you become kind of like a computer.
Just some food for thought. Good points, though.
completely agreed. i’m not tryin to be a machine. i wanna be able to get my work done, so i can spend more time for myself.
a lot of the time, i feel like a computer frozen.
however, i just started doing bikram yoga this week. it’s completely changed my perception on patience, timing, and accomplishment. it’s more about figuring out HOW to do a yoga pose than completing the poses, or in the instance of work it should be more about solving problems than answering a problem. you get the difference?
i just don’t want to be wasteful with my time since i only get one life to live. regret is the most tragic of human emotions. i want to inspire people to get up and do things instead of living in a fantasy of what they could, should, would, may, might, ought to accomplish.