Dorothy Poon.com

Quit: It’s not just another four letter word.

14 January 2009 No Comment

Sometimes in life, issues float about in your mind, and then someone goes and summarizes it in a succinct blog post that pretty much encapsulates most of what I am thinking about.
So, read the post; read my mind.

“People often mistake my love for simplicity, however, as a love for inactivity. Nothing could be further from the truth. The goal of my philosophy is to keep significant percentages of your time unscheduled. That is, not dedicated to work.I define work to be anything that requires a non-trivial amount of your time and attention by a given deadline.

When I say you should quit something this semester, I mean that you should quit something that generates work.”

I have always had an affinity for education and the processes that go behind it. I watch as well-meaning campaigns by the Ministry of Education in Singapore (Teach Less, Learn More, anyone?) somewhat fail to be properly executed, possibly because of the lack of conviction and support by the generally pragmatic citizen. There is nothing wrong with practicality, but if we are to move beyond being merely efficient in our execution and towards a more idea generating economy, we honestly need to make time and room for change to occur.

I am not the type of girl to sit in a room and read about the world. Of course, I do that at times, but not all the time. I want to be out there, seeing for myself. I need to be out there. I’d written some time ago about how learning occurs best outside of a physical classroom. Why confine the process to only the time and things that are in a ‘classroom’, in the most traditional sense of the word?

This is how I found myself somewhat alone right after high school, away from my direct family and pretty much ‘stranded’. (One honestly cannot survive without a car overseas.)
This is how I found myself trying out completely new and complementary complimentary fields of study and institutions. (Insanely tough to switch mindsets between different fields, but they are all a part of me to a certain extent now.)
This is how I found myself navigating up to Class 5 rapids whitewater rafting (I can’t swim to save my life and I hate sports! Turns out it was pretty fun and I am still alive, obviously.)
And of course, the latest satisfaction of my life – If I really want to do something, I will. (Like I said last December, by hook or by crook, some creative rearrangements thrown in.)

That inspirational post of the moment ends it up nicely with the following:

“To me, the ideal student lifestyle has classes, one or two work-generating pursuits that are receiving longterm attention, and copious amounts of unscheduled time left for exploration. If you’re doing nothing, or, much more likely, if you’re doing too much, you’re at risk for getting stuck in a stress-inducing, non-impressive, busy-work saturated rut.

So start your semester off right. Reduce the amount of work in your life. Then go live it.”

I would say you just need to arm yourself with curiousity. Get out there and let life do the rest.