This is what happens when I don't blog for too long

October 02, 2015 Alex Anderson Thoughts

Over the past few months, I've compiled together a collection of totally unrelated yet meaningful ideas which I was planning on writing in this blog about, things which at various times have had some kind of special meaning to me, but just haven't gotten around to developing those ideas. Instead of leaving them to languish forever, I've decided to just throw them together in one post in no particular order. Here it goes!

This came from the comment section of a developer website which I visit frequently. I found it incredibly powerful and especially meaningful to those who are just getting started in anything. Here's the source.

I guarantee you that everyone you know who you think is so much smarter than you got that way not through inherent ability, but through work. You might have heard stories about how incompetent they were in the beginning, but I bet you discount them and say "well, of course they're not serious about that, this is just false modesty." No, it is really true.

Everyone I know who is really good started out that way. In fact I'm starting to think that one of the prime qualities needed to become a good hacker is a kind of willful disregard of one's own incompetence, coupled with a strong desire to do something that's personally meaningful. In other words, you need hubris.

As long as you keep measuring yourself by stuff that's personally meaningful, you'll advance in your hacking skills -- don't worry about that. If you think you need skills before you start something personally meaningful, you will never, ever get anywhere.

Much of life does not change, but let me testify to you that one area of life is good and will never change—that's when we live the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ...

Your futures depend on the present. Live life well today. Life passes quickly. Let us not be guilty of hoping that someday we will become happy and contented, after college or after this next semester or after this next test or after this date tonight or after the bills are paid or after the kids are grown or when we are retired. The good will always outweigh the bad—let me say that again: The good will always outweigh the bad. There are far more lovely, fine, honest people in this world than those who are dishonest and injurious. May you learn at your age—and we at ours if we haven't—to recognize the good and to bring joy into the lives of others.

LUKE

But how am I to know the good side from the bad?

YODA

You will know. When you are calm, at peace. Passive. For my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you... me... the tree... the rock... everywhere! Yes, even between this land and that ship!

LUKE

I don't... I don't believe it!

YODA

That is why you fail.

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day. ~Great Expectations

Knowing what to do when no one’s there telling you what to do - that is what I call an adventure!

Cheers!