learn

Dec 20 2011

The mistake you can learn from… and the mistake you can’t

We are so afraid of making mistakes!

Let me first tell you about my experience in teaching classes, then explore how not making mistakes affects us even after school is over.

Whenever I teach a class or teach a student one-on-one, my biggest obstacle is always to get them to start answering questions. And I know why. Normal school has taught us that if we can’t answer a question correctly, we shouldn’t answer at all!

Every once in a while, I’ll even have a student who has it so bad that I’m forced to reveal to them an amazing truth (it’s actually not that amazing):

You’re coming to this class because you don’t know the answer

It’s fairly obvious but it seems to have been forgotten by the students (and teachers alike). We come to the class and for some reason expect the students to give the correct answer straight away. Ridiculous. They should be expected to get it wrong at first.

However, it’s not entirely the teacher’s fault. If you’re a teacher, you’ll start off loving the job. It’s rewarding, it gives you freedom to choose the way you teach, you get feedback almost instantly… basically it has almost all the characteristics of an excellent job (except for the pay). What’s not to love?

Then after a year of having students who never put in any effort to study, you start to lose interest in trying to teach people who don’t want to learn. After 2 years, you start getting frustrated. As the years go on, you lose patience with those students who keep on giving wrong answers. That’s when you just start lumping them all together with the students who never want to study.

But there’s a fundamental truth about school. School is where you go to learn. Which, by definition, means that you don’t know yet. You can’t be angry at someone for answering a question wrong about something he’s not supposed to know yet.

Obviously, I’m talking about classes here, and not exams. Be as wrong as you like in class, and quizzes, and homework. At that point, the more important fact should be that you’re putting in the effort and learning to do things. You should be angry at someone for not putting in effort, not for getting an answer wrong.

But over the past few years, I’ve heard more and more people saying:

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

That’s all fine and well, but it starts giving people an excuse to make mistakes and screw up their life. Hey there! Wait a second… am I supporting mistakes or saying that they can screw up your life?

It turns out that there are 3 different kinds of mistakes that we can do (oh, did the title imply only 2? Oops). We should only really be allowing ourselves to make mistakes in 2. The last mistake is the one that leads us to regret.

The honest mistake

This mistake is the most basic. It’s the kind of mistake you do for trivial things, often because you simply forgot.

Mistakes like forgetting to buy the milk, or being late for an appointment because you got stuck in traffic.

These mistakes aren’t a big deal. They should be worked on though. Notice these mistakes and keep track of them. If you start noticing that you’re doing some of these mistakes over and over again, you’ll have to find a workaround that will fix it.

If you’re always forgetting appointments, get a calendar. If you’re always forgetting where you put your keys, have a designated place to put them and never put them anywhere else. If you’re always 15 minutes late to appointments, go out 15 minutes early.

But the honest mistake is the least of your worries. These mistakes aren’t usually the reason that you start to sit around with your friends wondering what you’re doing with your life.

The mistake that you can learn from

One mistake is the variety of a mistake that happens because you don’t have the skills, or you haven’t learned enough yet. These are fine and this is what is meant when they say,

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

OR my favourite way of saying it:

Fail fast and fail often

Failing in this way is an important part of learning. You don’t learn anything from the field until you get into the field. To put it another way, you don’t know what’s important to your project until you actually start the project. If  you do know, it’s because you’ve done it before (and failed and learned from your mistakes before) or you’re smart enough to learn from someone else, whether it be a person or books.

It’s linked very strongly with perfectionist paralysis and making a fast decision. Whenever I notice myself researching too long before making a decision, I know that part of it is the fear of making a mistake. The fear of failure.

To avoid making a mistake, we spend waaayyyy too much time researching and gathering enough information rather than acting and gaining feedback about the choice on the way. Whenever I do this, it’s because I want to do the thing right. And for some reason, that means to me that if I can’t do it right, I shouldn’t do it at all.

And so I go on this endless search for more and more information. Does this sound familiar to you?

But this search can only really be satisfied once I’ve found someone who’s gone through the exact same experience that I can learn from. So what’s actually happening here is that i’m learning from their feedback from the project. Sometimes this is feasible.

At other times, the project is just too new or there’s no one that I know who’s gone through the same thing. What do you do then?

This is when you start the project anyway and learn about the project as it’s going on. Because the truth is that the only way you’ll learn about what is important in a project and what’s needed to make it successful is to go through it, whether through someone else’s experience or your own.

This is when you should make mistakes. And this is when you should learn from them.

The mistake you should never do

So what is this other mistake that you can’t learn from? This other mistake that you should never do?

The mistake that I mean here is the mistake that you make with your life choices. I lied a little. You might actually learn from a mistake made with your life choices, but more often than not, it results in regret that eats away at the soul.

In the skills mistake, no matter how many times you fail, you won’t regret it because it’s all effort being put in the right direction. You’re trying to learn a new skill and failing while learning that is fine, because the goal you have is worth it. Failing in the right direction is a good thing.

But this mistake, this mistake about your life choices, it makes you look back on it, trying to see if you could have done something about it, blaming yourself that your current life is like this due to that ONE mistake.

Here’s the thing, it’s not actually true. People like imagining that if only they were rich, or thinner, or had a job, their life would be perfect just like those people they admire (and envy and hate) because their life is oh-so-perfect. It’s not actually true since having just that one thing probably WON’T solve all their problems. But our human minds will still obsess over that one thing, that one mistake, again and again and again.

So what kind of mistake do I mean when I say mistakes about life choices?

It’s the mistakes you make when you forget your principles and go against them.

It’s the mistakes you make when you go against your core values. If you felt strongly about the environment, how would you feel if you threw trash by the side of the road because you couldn’t find a trash can nearby? I know I know, you wouldn’t. But if you did, you would remember it, the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Or if you thought you were a gentleman, but you made a girl cry. That would pretty much haunt you forever. What if you wanted to be a great parent, but you missed your daughter’s school show?

These are the kinds of mistakes that can go against your core values, whatever they are, and cause regret for a long long time to come.

But the truth is that this 3rd mistake is easy to avoid. You can either set a goal and know what you want or set your parameters and know how to guide your life. Have core values. Avoid regret.

Knowing what you regret BEFORE you regret it

At this point, my words might not seem feasible. To not have regret, you have to avoid the things that would make you regret. To do that, you would first have to make a “mistake” and experience it first. That’s the only way to know what you would regret. Right?

If you’re guessing that I said wrong, then congratulations. You’re starting to figure me out.

You can figure out what you’ll regret in the same way that you can figure out what will make you passionate. Notice what you feel strongly about. When you do something, or when you hear about somebody else doing something, notice what you feel strongly about.

For example, if you feel strongly about children, then it might be best to stay away from abortions. And if you feel strongly about your religion, perhaps it’s best to stay away from the sins your religion has. Do you feel strongly about honesty? Don’t lie to friends and family (lying on surveys is usually considered ok. I’ll forgive you for that).

Here are some ways to figure out what you feel strongly about:

  1. Go out and experience life. Notice how you feel about things.
  2. Talk to friends. Hear their stories. Notice what you feel as you hear them.
  3. When meeting people, ask them their stories. People love to tell you their stories. Most of the time they’re quite interesting.  Ask why they did what they did. Ask them if they ever regretted doing [fill in the blanks here]. Again, notice if you felt strongly about any part of their stories.
  4. Read books.

I’ve honestly learnt the most about myself from listening to stories of others. It doesn’t hurt that I love stories and that I love learning about people. Especially when a senior speaks, they have so much to tell from their lives that it’s always a joy to sit and listen to what they have to say. You can’t just let them talk though.

I’ve learnt to ask the questions I want so that they tell me about what their life was like, and why they chose what they chose. I don’t know why friends of my age (25-ish) are bored listening to their elders. I love it.

By listening to them tell their tales, I can then notice the times when I have the urge to stop them and say,“No! You should have done this instead.” But you see, that was their life. That was how they wanted to live it. And now I know that if the same situation ever happened to me, I’d know which choice would feel right to me. Which choice would fit in with my core values.

Over time the picture of your core values, of your principles, becomes clearer and clearer.

Once you figure it out, making a choice becomes much easier. If a decision ever goes against any of your core values, reject that decision immediately. It’s that simple. No more thought required. The moment you go against your core values is the moment you start to regret your choices.

And when you regret that choice, you’ll learn a little something about yourself, but it’ll just be too little too late.

Don’t screw up your life. Don’t make mistakes that you’ll have no time to learn from (and even if you did, would be useless because it’s too late). Learn what would make you regret.

Then…

…DON’T make that mistake.

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Reflections • 2 • Tags: , , , , , ,

Nov 25 2011

Who am I? Your multiple self

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

– Walt Whitman

I spoke in my previous post about how I tried to be consistent and changed myself to be so. It’s not the full story.

The thing is that we have, in each of us, a multitude of selves. Psychology refers to this as multiple selves. It’s easier to understand that there are different sides to ourselves. There are many sides to us,  and it’s impossible for me to document them all, especially because each of us is unique.

Combinations of self

And this is where I believe we are unique. It’s the combination of these selves that are different for each and every one of us. Perhaps in you, your shy side is stronger. Perhaps in another, their assertive side is stronger.

Rather than having a single part of us define who we are, I believe we need to embrace the fact that there are multiple sides to us. Multiple selves.

Have you ever felt like you were the person who didn’t belong to any single group, that instead, you were part of many groups? And that you couldn’t define yourself or feel that you truly belonged to either group? At least, not the way other people did?

Guess what? We all feel that way.

This realization was mind-blowing for me.

It opened doors that I didn’t think possible before. It meant that I wasn’t an outcast and that I wasn’t weird for not feeling like I didn’t belong. It was normal. It meant that it was ok for me to be a multitude.

The network that makes the “self”

So who am I? Who is my “self”?

I was watching the latest episode of Castle recently (because crime-fighting writers are just an awesome fantasy to have) and the lead female Kate Beckett said some really powerful words.

I’ve let my mother’s death define me for too long. And it’s not that I want to stop that. I don’t want to stop being me. It’s just that… I want to be more than who I am.

Sometimes we let only one part of us define who we are. Often, I see this in people defining themselves through just their job, or just their hobby, or even just their relationship. By defining ourselves through a single lens, we set ourselves up for trouble.

First, it unbalances your life. Defining yourself through one thing means that you naturally pay a lot more attention to it. This results in you paying less attention to the other sides of your life. Think of those people who obsess over their careers and imagine how they are. You see what I mean, right? It therefore makes the other parts of your life slowly rot away, until one day, when you finally notice, it’s too late.

Second, it means you have no other parts of yourself to rely on. The moment you lose that thing that defines you, you’re gone. Your whole psyche has a nervous breakdown because when you lose that thing, you lose your “self”. You are no one! It’s a horrible feeling to have.

Third, you can never be the best. When looking at only a single skill, you’ll always find someone else out there who’s better than you. Always.  You are never the best. Defining yourself by that one skill, you’ll never feel that you’re ever truly worth something. How can you when you’re number 2? Or number 2000?

So I think that we should embrace all the different roles and people that we can be, and understand that each of these define only a small part of us, and that your “self” is a total sum of all these parts. In my “about me” page, I wrote that I’m a brother, son, student, teacher, engineer, debater, basketballer, geek, reader, writer, recluse, public speaker, and so on.

I wrote all that before this concept of the networked self was ever in my mind. Or at least, before it was ever this clear in my mind. This idea that we are a network of our inner selves. So, I think that I had a subconscious idea of it even since then. When one of these parts is abruptly taken away, it doesn’t phase me.

I stopped playing basketball? Oh well. Who I am is much more than that.

I stopped debating (because, well, I graduated)? No big. I’m more than just this. I still had other parts of myself to rely on.

Imagine a person defined by his career who was fired? They could (and they have) committed suicide over it. They are just their job and nothing more. Which is extremely sad to me.

Imagine a person who breaks up with their boyfriend/girlfriend ? They could (and they have) committed suicide over it. They are just their relationship and nothing more. Which is again, extremely sad to me.

So we embrace our different, multiple sides. We embrace all these different people who we can be. We embrace all these different people who we ARE. And thus is born, a network of selves. Thus is born, the networked self.

This self isn’t just a combination of different personalities in one body. I’m pretty sure that’s a recognized mental disease (Multiple Personality Disorder). It’s about having all these different selves networking between them, arguing, compromising, negotiating with each of your other selves and finally coming to a conclusion on how all your selves can work together to do the best for your total “self”.

This network of your different selves is what makes you unique. Even if someone else had some of your “selves”, the combination they had would be different. Even if they had  the same “selves” that you had, the way you networked it would be different.

This network of selves is who I am.

But more, I believe we can take the idea of the unique network even higher. Mind you, what comes after this is a little abstract.

The network that makes “new ideas”

There is nothing new under the sun

It’s true. There are no truly new ideas. But then what of all these new ideas that we keep getting all the time? I believe that it’s merely a result of applying old concepts in new situations.

We now have student-centred learning? It just means that the student says and does stuff and applies skills instead of just listening to the teacher all the time. Guess what? A long long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, students had to apply skills to learn things such as fishing, farming, blacksmithing, etcetera. Doesn’t sound so new anymore, does it?

But this doesn’t reduce the usefulness and strength of the idea. It’s still worth it, because not everyone can make that connection. It needs you to fully understand that idea, and to apply it in that new situation that is unique to you. Therefore, a “new idea” comes about only as a result of this network of ideas that exist in your mind. When your mind connects and analyzes these different concepts, it becomes a completely “new idea” that works for you in your situation.

Law students would get me I think. Judges make new laws all the time. The situation surrounding every case is always different, so a judge always has to make new rulings based on old laws and fits them into the present situation. It’s not a new law, but it is.

It’s not a new idea, but it is; because you’ve applied it in a new way.

The network that makes “society”

In the same vein, society is not just a bunch of individuals standing around in the same place, just like who you are isn’t just a bunch of personalities in the same body. It’s rather about how those parts interact with each other.

The Western concept of  society is that to make a good society, you make sure that every single individual is good. Guess what? It’s not enough. It’s not enough in the same way that it’s not enough in martial arts to improve single aspects to perfection. Improving just your kick, just your punch and just your balance doesn’t give you anything unless you learn to make it all work together. It’s the networking and interaction of all those skills that make your art better.

This means to me that society isn’t just made up of individuals, but rather of the ties and interactions between those individuals. A society truly begins to grow once you allow those connections to take place and evolve it.

The network that makes “uniquely marketable workers”

If you go into the market looking for a job and you’re only advertising one skill, it’ll be tough for you. You’ll have competition. There are 60,000 engineers in the market. If I define myself only using my Engineering degree, I’ll have to battle 60,000 engineers for a job. But what if I throw in my experience in debating? Perhaps even my interest in codes and programming? All of a sudden, the field gets a lot narrower. What about my interest in poetry? And all that time I’ve spent teaching?

An intersection of all these skills that make me unique, also make me unique in the job market.

Example? Randall made xkcd (an awesome webcomic) because he linked his interest in geeky things with his interest in drawing and expression through art. He now gets to draw geeky things. Awesome right? Did I mention I love stick figures?

Another example? The last I heard, there were like maybe 2 biotechnology lawyers in the whole of Malaysia. Only TWO! Maybe only one. I forget. That person took their degree in biotech, then did a second degree in law. Guess who’s earning big bucks now? This person can’t be replaced because of that unique spot they made for themselves using a networked skill-set.

So to recap, build skills so that you’re unique in the job market. There’s actually a name to this strategy, even though it’s such an obvious strategy. (Refer “There is nothing new under the sun”). Business type people call it the “Blue Ocean” Strategy. Look it up. Buy the book if you’d like. Then tell me about it. I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.

Your inner networks make you unique

I’m sure you’ve caught on to the theme here now. You are unique not because of a particular part of you, but because of you as a whole. Therefore, it’s fine to add more to yourself as you grow. In fact, becoming “more than who you are” makes you even more unique.

Do you feel that temptation?

I feel it too. That temptation to define myself using only a single side of me. After all, it’s soooo much more simple and gives much less headaches than having to be a well-rounded person.

But I won’t. Not anymore. Nowadays, I give myself permission:

  1. to be a multitude
  2. to change parts of me without having to feel that I’m betraying me
  3. to feel ok when I’m not the best in any single thing, because I don’t need to be the best to feel I’m worthwhile
  4. or to feel I’m worthy
  5. to add more and become more than who I currently am

So a quick recap. Your “self” isn’t just a single side of you. Be careful when you limit the way you define yourself. Then you’re limiting yourself too.

Ideas are never completely new. But take the great ideas that you’ve heard and try to apply them around you. You might be surprised what you come up with.

Society and groups of people are defined not just by how they individually are, but are rather defined by the connections and networks they form.

If you’re looking for a job, don’t chase the same job everyone else is. “Blue Ocean” yourself and put together your specialized different skills.

Who am I?

I am large, I contain multitudes.

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Reflections • 17 • Tags: , , , ,

Oct 7 2011

You don’t “understand” until you’ve answered the question

In my science-related endeavours, there’s been one thing that has been absolutely true. I might think I understand, but I won’t, not really, not until I’m actually able to answer the question. Back in school, I’d listen to my teacher who was speaking in front and I’d think to myself, “Ok, I understand that”, and then zone out and read a different book instead. I found out very quickly that I was wrong.  After half an hour, she would tell us to pull out our exercise books and do some questions. That’s when you’d see me looking back at the textbook, trying to figure things out.

That little bit extra…

In physics, and in math especially, you require an extra skill besides just “understanding” to fully understand something. In debating, I never faced this problem. When I joined debating in my undergraduate days, it was a simple process of listening to something in a debate and understanding it. And using that understanding, you could pretty much explain and debate the next time. But the sciences require an extra skill. The skill to know if the answer is reasonable.

This is an odd thing to say, but I’m sure it’s true. When you take up law or economics or political science (themes debated heavily in varsity tournaments), you’re bound by reality. There are no moments when you would ever think of a person being able to float, or walk through a brick wall. The hard sciences are slightly different. In order to understand the universe, we have to look at it on a different scale, either very big (physics and cosmology) or very small (biology, physics and chemistry). It’s beyond a human to properly understand those concepts so we do it the only way we can. We cheat.

How do we cheat?

We cheat by not imagining everything at once. We forget the magnetic fields and the sunlight and whether there’s a brick wall in our way and just look at the muscles moving in a person’s leg. Does it matter if he’s walking off a cliff? Nope. We cheat by thinking of tiny atoms where you can apply “energy” to it and it will move faster and faster, without ever asking, “what energy is this”? We cheat by making things so abstract, that they lose their link to reality. So what happens is a situation where you make up a question about a boy running 200 meters in 5 seconds. Impossible, I know, but there you go.

And this is why answering questions are so important. It lets you practice questions and get a feel of their limits. What numbers are reasonable? How should the calculations look half-way through? What are those numbers you’re calculating?

I don’t have to calculate! That’s what my calculator is for!

In this day and age, we have powerful calculators and computers to do the dirty work for us. When I say “calculating”, I don’t mean adding and subtracting. Calculating is about understanding the numbers you’ve put on the paper and knowing what they represent. If you don’t know what the numbers mean, you’ll never be able to use them at the right place and in the right way to make meaning out of things.

Taking that previous example of a boy running 200 meters in 5 seconds. That’s a real question I did. In the middle of my calculations I had the number 200 and 5 and I was supposed to calculate speed. So I divided 200/5 and got the answer as 40. 40 meters per second. Ok, no big deal right? Then suddenly I looked back at the question and realized what I was calculating. This wasn’t a car or airplane moving at high speeds. This was a simple boy. And somehow he was moving over 200 meters in 5 seconds! 40 m/s! That’s crazy. And most of the time I wouldn’t even realize what I was calculating because it’s been abstracted so much. I later found out I messed up a step and it was supposed to be 200 meters over 80 seconds. Much more reasonable.

Answering the question

So what happens once you’ve “answered the question”? It means that you took the question, understood the meaning of it, were able to extract the relevant numbers, and use them appropriately in the calculation of the answer. This SHOULD mean that you truly understand. Congratulations.

Hold on…

Wait a second, now that I think about it, it applies in life too. There are so many concepts and quotes that are spouted all the time. But we never follow them even when we “understand” them. Worse, we don’t follow them even when we know them to be true.

Life lessons you’ve heard before:

  1. Be good to your parents
  2. It’s easier to take care of things on time (Don’t wait till the last minute)
  3. Love what you have
  4. There is nothing to hold you back, except yourself (Be confident)
  5. Know what you want
  6. Sometimes you have to say no (Be assertive)
  7. Ask questions
  8. Your health is your life (Take care of your health!!!)
  9. If you never act, you will never know (Take risks sometimes)
  10. It doesn’t matter how much you know unless you can explain it (Learn to speak well)

Unfortunately, a lot of these things we only know intellectually. We think we understand them, but we don’t really. It’s only when, one day long after you first heard it, something big happens to you and you go, “Oh wow, my mom was right”. That’s the moment you really understand the importance of that life lesson. But some people will forget it again afterwards. They’ll have a brief flash of understanding, then they’ll just forget again. It’s only when you apply it that you can truly be counted as having learnt the lesson.

So don’t just listen to all that excellent advice your parents have given you. They love you, you know? “Answer the question” and apply these life lessons.

Then, and only then, will you “understand” life.

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Making Plans • 4 • Tags: , , , , , , ,

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