Paul Graham's Determination

bijan:

I just tweeted out a link to Paul Graham’s latest essay, The Anatomy of Determination.

There is a lot to like about it.

I especially like Paul’s thoughts about determination. He leads off with:

We learned quickly that the most important predictor of success is determination. At first we thought it might be intelligence. Everyone likes to believe that’s what makes startups succeed. It makes a better story that a company won because its founders were so smart. The PR people and reporters who spread such stories probably believe them themselves. But while it certainly helps to be smart, it’s not the deciding factor. There are plenty of people as smart as Bill Gates who achieve nothing.

There is one part of the post that made me pause. Nature vs nurture’s role with determination is an uncomfortable concept for me.

A good deal of willfulness must be inborn, because it’s common to see families where one sibling has much more of it than another. Circumstances can alter it, but at the high end of the scale, nature seems to be more important than nurture. Bad circumstances can break the spirit of a strong-willed person, but I don’t think there’s much you can do to make a weak-willed person stronger-willed.

I’m not so sure I agree with that.

But Paul follows it up with one of my favorite parts. Paul talks about the need to be “hard on yourself”:

Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline.

That’s so right. Being intellectually honest is the difference between being determined vs being delusional.

It’s a fine line that many of us are guilty of crossing from time to time.

I highly suggest reading the entire essay. Overall it’s quite excellent even if there are a few parts that don’t work for me.

There are two articles one must read to understand health care reform.

jayparkinsonmd:

How American Health Care Killed My Father by David Goldhill in The Atlantic

and

The Cost Conundrum by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker

These are the two most important articles of the past year on health care. Please take the time to read and digest them…

It’s an unfixable mess that will only be solved by complete restructuring from the ground up— the top down bureaucracy that satisfies the main players of the entrenched industry will only let you down.

Stop arguing or even thinking about “reform” and contribute as best you can, as collective individuals, to something totally different and new.

Now get to readin’…

junior.

I haven’t done physics since high school, and the feel of a TI-83 in my hands is bizarrely nostalgic for the days of thick as anything wooden tables and metal chairs that leave behind a rusty smell when you touch them. And Mr. Fabo - awkwardly standing in the middle of the room weilding a meter stick cracking a so un-funny it actually is funny physics joke.

On tuesday our professor (complete with awesome thick German accent) informed us that Physics “is the hardest class you will take at Duke.” I felt a ripple of indignation go through the premeds in the room. I don’t like premeds. I don’t admit to being one unless forced to do so, and I definitely do not enjoy being in a large room filled with them. However, physics is my one non-reading intensive class, so maybe I will actually relish it, enjoy the problem solving, number crunching, formula deriving goodness?

Generally speaking, school is fun :) However, future planning/thinking about getting a job/medical school stresses me out. I want to stay in school and take fun, semi-useless classes forever.

Genève

Thursday afternoon. Missed our coach from Oxford to Gatwick…They recommended we take a taxi to a later station to catch the bus, but this plan was thwarted for the next forty minutes as we searched for Jason, who turned out to be waiting precisely 50 meters over in another section of the station. At this point we had no choice but to take the next bus at 5:15, which, given the estimated 2-2.5 hr journey to Gatwick, would potentially lead us to miss our flight at 8pm. Fortunately, our flight ended up being delayed 30 minutes and 2 hours later, we safely landed in Geneva. Leaving the airport, we decided to take the free train into the city. The public transportation in the city is actually really nice and cheap. On one of our first random bus rides we met a really nice Swiss college student who spoke impeccable English. He said he was studying economics and finance, and interning at the Geneva Procter and Gamble office for the summer. We got off the bus, and the boys pointed down various empty dark streets while staring at the rather unhelpful map. Three hours later…after asking numerous people for directions and a failed attempt at finding our way a la McDonalds-compass (steph: Where is the McDonalds?? man in street: Does anyone speak English???? steph: 0.0 I’m an English major…-.-“ us: WHERE…IS…THE…MAC-DON-ALDS???? man in street: ohhhh!! yes, it is VERY far, that way) we realized that we had made a huuge circle and ended up exactly where we started.

From there stumbled upon the Albert Einstein center, place neuve, (where a bunch of important buildings and statues are located) and then actually ended up making it to the right bus station, only to be met with a group of rather drunk swiss men, one of whom asked all of us for kisses and requested that we ‘make room on the bench for his ass.’ His friend apologetically led him away, but only after insisting on introducing himself and shaking all of our hands. It was only after they left that we realized the bus we were waiting for didn’t actually run this late at night. After finally texting friends for help, Tony and I played some chess in a nearby park with life-size chess pieces while waiting to be picked up, finally getting to the cite universitaire where we were staying at around 1:30.

Friday - more wandering around. Art and History museum, Jet d'eau, some carnival fun in honor la fete de geneve, saw lots of huegonot statues and hung out in the park while eating swiss chocolate.

Saturday - went to the UN, red cross museum, the Ariana museum, and had a cable car ride up to mt. Saleve, and just narrowly missed out on the fireworks for swiss national day because we had to leave for the airport before the busses stopped running.

Sunday -The trip back was rather disasterous - after trying in vain to sleep on the cold hard cement ground at the airport, our flight was delayed another 3.5 hours, making for a total of 10.5 hours spent not sleeping at the airport >.< Finally arrived back at New College at 3pm, starved, exhausted, and with a paper to write due the next day. Soo just 2 weeks of Oxford remaining. Going to London this weekend, and Paris next tuesday and then hoooommme. finally. after 3 months. America I have missed you.

hello world

its week 4 at oxford. things I’ve enjoyed in random order:

- the view from my room - too much wine at high tabe - frolicking on the green - long bike rides - cloud watching - taking photographs - conversations about God - soup to go - paper writing at cafe nero - very short guides to art history - skyping lovely people - writing letters - the english countryside - beer cellar - browsing photography websites - coffee and biscuits - windowshopping -  music room bantering - swans - jukeboxes - lunch at edamame