My musings/writings/learnings
Mon Apr 20, 2020
This is meant for a friend of mine who teaches and coaches many young lives to be the best version of themselves. Teaches them about Physics and the First Principles approach to life. This is a salute to his astounding work on building the future through education.
In a time when we can’t go out and reset our brain, it must be really hard for teenagers to be dealing with emotions and hormonal changes while going through a pivotal phase in their life. That means an existential dread can set in. Which means in the long term, it will turn to a lack of desire to do anything productive. It happened to me about 4 years ago. I was more mature and had the gold luck of being in the company of people who supported me with my struggles. A company which kept me on the payroll, gave me new work and didn’t let me go even when the worst of that storm hit. I don’t want it to happen to anyone else.
Why am I saying all this? Well, I was reading this thread about mental laziness and remembered that you deal with thousands of 16-18 year old students standing at the cusp of the door to the bigger world. They might be struggling with goals and their motivations in a generation-defining time like this. Life and society as we know, will change when we are through with this. A lot of creative possibilities exist on the other side. A need for new value thinkers, builders and tinkerers will now arise. People who have a new way of thinking with the responsible mindset of accounting for unknown problems will create safety nets for all of us. These are the people who will stand tall in the world where improving lives and providing comfort in a new world order will be the key.
Since you are at the epicentre of delivering the right message to these youngsters, I say this to you. Tell them to not be bogged down by the herculean tasks ahead of them. The uncertainty of the upcoming situations and potentially their life is nothing to be taken lightly. Nor is a time of crisis to waste. Taking on herculean projects of turning your life around while the world takes a pause can be daunting for a young mind. So, please tell them to start slow and take things one at a time. Life is tough and things always resolve themselves. Just remember to do your small bit every day.
Wish you the good luck.
Here is a quote that will hopefully get you motivated
Patient: "I'm overwhelmed by (task) and can't get going."
Therapist "Do you know how to eat an elephant?"
Patient: "Uh... No?"
Therapist: "One bite at a time."
source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22922463