Intuition is, by definition, a knowledge that doesn’t appear to have been picked up by any of the five senses or derived from any previously known knowledge. Some people will refer to intuition as a gut feeling or hunch. People who are more science-oriented might call it a flash of insight from the subconscious mind. Spiritual types may describe it as spiritual guidance or a sign from God.

Personally, I try not to jump to any conclusions about intuition — I don’t know what it is or where it comes from, nor do I claim to know. I accept it as a real phenomenon because of my personal experiences with it, and I listen to it because it usually proves to be smarter than I am. For one example of my experiences with intuition, read about the grocery trip.

I can’t prove that intuition is useful, meaningful, nor that it even exists. All I can prove is that, more often than not, listening to my intuition has coincided with a positive outcome. And in the end, that’s all that matters.

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This is America. Stress is the name of the game, especially if you’re in college — right? Feeling stressed means that we’re working hard. Working hard means that we’re preparing for the future. Preparing for the future means that, someday, we’re going to have the lives we’ve always dreamed of.

… Or are we?

Take about six steps backward and look at the big picture. Ask those tough questions that your high school teachers tried to make you ignore. Why are you in college? Why are you majoring in _______? Are you learning relevant material?

Are you thinking yet? If you’ve read this far, you probably have some unanswered questions. Stay with me, then, because it’s about to get much harder.

You: AHH! I’m sooo stressed!
Me: Uh-oh, why’s that?
You: I’ve got six exams, four projects, nine dissertations and a partridge in a pear tree due next week! I’m gonna DIE!!
Me: Okay, simmer down. Stress isn’t caused by the work; it’s caused by how you react to the work. Why are you doing so much, anyway? Is getting straight A’s really worth all of this?
You: Yes, because I’m trying to get into med school! And law school! And underwater basketweaving school! And…
Me: Wow! Why do you want to do that?
You: So I can become a doctor! And a lawyer! And… an underwater basketweaver?
Me: Okay, that’s quite an ambition… why did you choose those particular fields?

Now if this is something that you’re honestly struggling with, I want you to take a moment to think about that last question. Seriously — don’t continue reading until you’ve answered it.

If your answer contained anything resembling the words “parents” or “money,” don’t take this too harshly, but you’re in the wrong field. I don’t care how much money you can make, or what other people expect of you; if you cannot honestly say that you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing because you enjoy it (not simply that enjoying it is a side effect), and because it’s important to the world, you’re going to be miserable for the rest of your life.

Some of you, especially younger pre-med majors, are screaming at me right now. “But Scott, it’s all going to pay off in the end! Once I’m done with undergrad and med school and residency and cult initiation, I’m going to love my job!”

I’m going to fire back: What, exactly, is the purpose of going through college/med school/residency? Is it not to prepare you for what you’re going to experience on the job? Is it not so that you can “practice” medicine effectively? And wouldn’t the most effective way to learn be by experiencing (as much as possible) things that pertain to the job you hope to someday have?

You can put two and two together. If you don’t like your major, and assuming that your major is actually similar to your desired career path, how are you ever going to enjoy your career? Or, for that matter, your life? (And if your major has nothing to do with its corresponding career, what’s the point of college in the first place?)

I’ve touched on this before in Purpose of Education.

So let’s say that you’ve come to an epiphany. You hate Underwater Basketweaving. Congratulations! Now, then, what’s next? If you’ve been paying attention, that step should be obvious — decide what you want to do. (There’s something for everyone… even if it’s Entrepreneurship!) Some would argue that you should choose a career path based on service, calling, contribution or what have you. I agree with that, but it still has to be something you truly want to do. Otherwise, you won’t do it effectively, no matter how important it is.

At this point, don’t even think about how much money you’ll be making (or not making). In fact, don’t even think about how much skill you have in a given field. If you’re doing what you truly love, both of those things (not to mention straight A’s) will come naturally. When your work stops feeling like work and starts feeling like an enjoyable hobby, you’ll know you’ve hit the jackpot. And hitting the jackpot is a great way to relieve stress.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go change my major.

Article partially inspired by this podcast: Creative Self-Expression

It’s Monday morning, around 7:30. I am in the weight room of the Athletic Complex, sitting at the leg press machine. I glance down at the pad of paper on which I record my progress, and see the number 16. “Okay,” I think to myself. “I did 16 reps on Friday, so today, I should be able to do 17.” And I begin. As usual, the first several reps are easy, but it doesn’t take long… 11… 12… 13… “This is starting to hurt, but I can’t give up yet!” 14… 15… 16… 17! “Whew! I made it!” That’s when I look at my notepad to jot the number, and am shocked by a realization. I didn’t do 16 leg presses on Friday (I must have been looking at a different exercise); I did only 12.

My exercise program, inspired by the Colorado Experiment, consists of several different exercises, one set each, completed to failure (i.e. when I physically cannot do any more repetitions). After hitting 20 reps, I increase the weight. Under this program, an increase of five reps between sessions is pretty significant.

But I didn’t think I was going far until the set was done. I was only trying for a small goal… and immediately quit as soon as I’d met it. I don’t know for sure that I could have done any more reps, but I almost didn’t even try after #17. I wonder how much more effort I truly could have put into my workout this morning.

Society teaches us to set goals and strive to meet them. There’s nothing wrong with that, inherently; but what happens after we meet our goals? Sometimes we’re tempted to stop there, or “take a break” even if we decide to set a higher goal and press on. Or sometimes we fail to meet our goals, and immediately conclude that they were too lofty. I, however, advocate a different approach: Failure? What’s that? It just seems like yet another excuse for apathy.

Does my exercise anecdote sound familiar? You can probably think of a situation in your own life that parallels it. The moral of the story is the same: Failure is all in your head.

What is information? What is it good for? What is its market value, and how much does it cost to produce? What are the drawbacks of faulty information? Is information subject to laws or other restrictions? Should it be?

None of these questions are trivial to answer, but I’d like to encourage you to look at them from what may be a new viewpoint for you. (more…)

“The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.” –Unknown

That must mean we crazy world-changers are just fools, right?

In all seriousness, this is something I’ve grappled with on more than one occasion. It’s quite fantastic wanting to change the world and all of that jazz, but in exactly what ways should it be changed? It’s easy for me to point at a major global problem and say, “This is wrong. Let’s fix it.” Someone else, however, may see that problem as less serious than a different one — or not even a problem at all. How can I be so arrogant as to say that my perception of an ideal world is identical to the perception that others might hold? And how can we effectively improve the world when we might not even know what “improving” means?

The questions delve into the deepest crevasses of philosophy, and I have no answers to them. Perhaps someday I will.

Changing the world is no small task. Every day, many people engage in “world-changing” activities such as performing community service or preaching an inspirational message to a church — the little things. These things can have an immediate and powerful positive effect on those nearby. Unfortunately, “nearby” is the key word in that sentence. As much effort as you may put into organizing a community cleanup day or serving at a soup kitchen, and as beneficial as those projects may be to your area, they do little to help the oppressed citizens of China or the starving children of Africa.

Any truly world-changing movement would require some level of service to local communities — you can’t do everything from Washington, D.C., as some say. However, you certainly can’t do everything from the comfort of your own home, either. In short, the philanthropic activities in which we most commonly engage are necessary but not sufficient to achieve the goals to which we aspire… or at least those to which Don’tASQ aspires.

Thinking big requires more than just an expansion of our current thoughts into new real estate. We can’t use the same strategies to affect one million lives that we use to affect one life. Let’s say, for example, that we’re strolling through an African desert on a camel (call it a low-budget safari). We come across a starving homeless man who begs us for something to eat. There’s no sign of civilization anywhere (we decide not to ask how he got here in the first place). The first solution which comes to mind is probably to give him some food and wish him well, right? But upon further consideration, we realize that we don’t have enough food to keep him alive indefinitely, and it’s pretty unlikely that any other low-budget safari adventurers will be traveling this way anytime soon. We have no choice but to take him back to our camp and point him in the direction of the nearest town.

Looking at the real world, we see a similar scenario for millions of Africans as well as people on other continents. Logically, if we extend our solution to the one starving man, we come to the conclusion that we must migrate every starving family to a different part of the world. It doesn’t take much thought to point out the reasons why that would go terribly wrong.

Our current solution to the large-scale case seems to be to throw food and money in their general direction and pat ourselves on the back for being altruistic. (Disclaimer: This is a very simplistic and only partially-realistic example. I have no idea how large the actual “feed the world” efforts are nor what methods are being undertaken.) This doesn’t work for the same reason why we wouldn’t have given our homeless man food and left him alone — we can’t give enough for an indefinite period of sustainability. Our starving beneficiaries will become dependent on our aid while we work doubly hard to generate enough food to feed them as well as ourselves.

As kind as that is for us to indefinitely provide for the rest of the world, it’s not exactly efficient. The best solution for long-term sustainability of any system is for that system to sustain itself with no reliance on outside effects. In other words, we need to teach these impoverished nations to fend for themselves.

In the case of our starving children in Africa, it may be difficult to teach desert agriculture if we ourselves don’t know anything about it. To solve this problem, we could invest more money into the research of arid-zone agriculture, and provide a solution to Africans once we’ve discovered something feasible. Hey, that’s simple enough, right? Just funnel millions of dollars into R&D, wait a few months, and watch the solution hatch!

Unfortunately, as we all know, it’s not nearly that trivial — hence providing us with another “opportunity” to think outside of the box. To feed Africa, we need research. To do research, we need money. To get money, we need a miracle- I mean, uhh… help from the government. To get help from the government, we need to convince some very stubborn people that our cause is worthwhile. And to do that requires a bit of charisma, a bit of word-twisting, and a lot of luck. Of course, any step in this process could be circumvented by a sufficiently altruistic person (e.g. the researchers could work for free), but then we’d still have to worry about convincing someone to personally invest in that manner. Who’d have thought that feeding a starving man could be so complicated?

Regardless of the specifics, any world-changing movement requires a fundamental shift of thought if it is to succeed. We cannot scale the solutions for a small region to the entire world, just as we cannot feed one million people in the same way that we can feed one. One of my reasons for launching Don’tASQ was to instigate major changes in thought, such as thinking from a global perspective rather than a local one. This will likely be a topic about which we write consistently (”we” meaning either myself or other writers), because I feel that it’s an important one.

Until next time… think big!

What if you were God? That’s quite a question, isn’t it? The only way it could be more open-ended is if we shortened it to “What if?” I’ve found that one of the best ways to understand a person is to put myself in their shoes… but what about a deity? (Non-theists, stay on the line; I’ll address your concerns in a minute.)

First, let’s get a few things straight: When I refer to “God,” feel free to substitute a suitable name of your preference; I’m attempting to be religion-independent here, so the only assumption I’m making is that God is some type of supernatural being with much more knowledge and power than any living thing on Earth. Creator, Source, Flying Spaghetti Monster… for our purposes, they’re all essentially the same. However, in order to learn anything from putting yourself in God’s shoes, you must assume that God has a consciousness. If you firmly believe that the universe does not (or did not) have a conscious creator, feel free to try and put yourself in the shoes of quantum physics or some other scientific principle… but I don’t guarantee it will be very enlightening.

From this point forward, the discussion will be biased toward a Biblical, Christian perspective. It’s not that you couldn’t make similar arguments based on any beliefs, but that this is the perspective about which I know the most. I strongly encourage you to look at your own belief system and compare it with your experiences. Do they agree, or are you following some blind belief (or non-belief) system simply because that’s what you were taught?

Let’s start with the basics, something to which many of us can easily relate — a highly addicting PC game called The Sims! The object of the game is to create families of digital people (fittingly called “Sims”) and control pretty much every aspect of their lives. You may build homes for them, guide them through various career tracks (or through school), facilitate their hobbies and their social lives… and even kill them, if that’s your style. You may also enable a “Free Will” option, which allows your Sims to control their own lives when you’re not doing it for them.

Interestingly enough, free will is also a major topic of confusion for pretty much anyone who’s ever debated religion and/or philosophy. Let’s put ourselves in God’s shoes by pretending that the world is one giant game of The Sims. This is where different personalities will come to different conclusions, but I’m going to give my own take. Based on my experience with Sims, I’ve found that they rarely do what I want them to do without my command. (”C’mon, Ttocs, your house is a mess, your very neat and tidy girlfriend is coming over in less than an hour, and you’re watching sci-fi!?”) I would love to be able to rely on the Free Will option and simply guide my Sims through the most fun parts of the game (night on the town, anyone?), but sometimes I’m afraid that they’ll burn down the house if I allow that. In a way, this is how I view God. I’m sure God’s job would be a heck of a lot easier if he could trust us to our own brains and just sit back, relax and watch us work wonders. But, being humans, we make mistakes; that’s when God has to give us little nudges in the right direction.

Occasionally, a person will become so stubborn (and/or blind) that even with God’s best efforts at a gentle nudge, that person just doesn’t get it (or doesn’t want to). Similar situations can occur in The Sims. For example, let’s say we have a college Sim who needs to study for today’s exam — yes, it’s after midnight. He’s exhausted and refuses to stay awake, despite your numerous commands to hit the books. In the Sim world, fixing this problem is cruel, but simple: Surround your Sim with four walls and a desk, and don’t give him any room to lie down and sleep. (Anyone who’s played The Sims will probably know that a Sim won’t actually study when he’s tired, even if you refuse to let him sleep. In this case, we would only end up with a very angry Sim who will still fail the test.) But you see my point — desperate times call for desperate measures. If it takes a double dose of divine intervention to pierce your thick skull, I don’t believe God has any qualms about providing it.

Understanding your beliefs is a very personal endeavor, and it would be nearly impossible for me to delve into every facet of putting yourself into the shoes of your favorite deity. However, I hope I’ve given you a starting point from which to ask the question, “What if I were God?“

There’s a theory known as the Law of Attraction which suggests that we have full control over our own lives - via our thoughts and feelings. Without going into too many details, it’s kind of like a series of self-fulfilling prophecies; every thought, feeling, and action you experience sends the message that you want more of that experience. If you think, “My life sucks!”, well… your life will probably continue to suck. It all sounds absurd at first brush, but its apparently got a fair deal of support, both from testimonies and scientific evidence. It used to be a “New Age” theory, but has become more mainstream (and was recently featured on Oprah).

One of the suggested methods for keeping your focus on things you want - and away from things you don’t - is to create a visualization and put it where you know you’ll look it. I decided to create a small example digitally (I figured that, if all else failed, I could at least become a little better with GIMP):

Don’t try to decipher it. The non-Web image is 1280×1024 and is currently my desktop background.

Regardless of your opinions on “pseudoscience” like the Law of Attraction, I like to look at it from a very open-minded perspective - if it doesn’t hurt, and it might help, why not try it out? Don’t worry, I haven’t gone off the deep end again… Last time I went there, it was far too shallow.

Edit: The image actually shows up now. I still have a lot to learn about how Wordpress handles relative links.

We’ve all heard that (in)famous phrase, “You learn something new every day!” For the most part, I agree with it. We watch the news. We pick up gossip. We discover that we’re out of toilet paper at just the wrong moment. Unfortunately, many of us seem to stop there. We become complacent living our lives in a way that (we think) makes us happy, and neglect to pick up knowledge at the speeds our minds are capable of.

Surely, no matter how stressful our lives are, most of us get bored on occasion. And what do we do in those cases? Flip on the TV, of course! (Or see who’s on AIM, read Cosmo, or go drinking.) The next time you’re bored, hold off that temptation, and instead just ask yourself a simple question. One question, that’s it; preferably one that you don’t know the answer to, about a topic that interests you. Here are some examples:

• Where did that phrase, “You learn something new every day” originate?
• How much do American students really learn compared to students in other countries? Why the differences?
• How do people in other countries perceive America?
• How do Americans perceive people in other countries?
• Just how serious is global warming?
• Are we ever going back to the Moon?
• How fast would college students, not held back by government bureaucracy, be able to plan a mission to Mars?
• It can’t be that hard to build a space shuttle… right?
• Seriously, why are most buildings square and boring? Don’t we have more creative architects?
• How often do square buildings collapse compared to, say, spherical ones? (Rolling away doesn’t count.)
• If a spherical building rolled away, would the people inside be able to run around like hamsters?
• How many calories would you burn by running in a hamster ball for one hour? How many more would it be if you were chased by an extremely large and hungry cat?
• Okay, I want a final verdict on caffeine: Healthy, unhealthy, or neutral?
• What’s all the hype about green tea?
• What’s the best way to sleep less and feel better? (By now, I think you all know the answer to this…)
• Why do we need sleep, anyway?
• What happens when a computer hibernates?
• What is this thing called Linux, and why is it ten million times better than Windows? (Sorry, just an opinion. From a Computer Engineering major. )
• Why is Windows Vista such a disappointment? (Okay, I’ll stop with the opinions. But they’re true, ya know.)
• What is DRM, and why are all the entertainment companies touting it while the tech gurus denounce it?
• How can I get a blog as cool as this one?

As you can see, there are basically no restrictions on the type of questions you could ask. If you’re in a silly mood, ask a silly question - it’s that simple. Then try to answer it! If your question was good, you shouldn’t be able to answer it immediately and will have to do a little digging, hence stirring up your curiosity, and (*gasp*) causing you to learn something new! You’ll be amazed at how deep you can dig on a topic that really interests you. I can’t tell you how many times a simple inquiry has lead me to do hours of research (polyphasic sleep is a prime example). Yes, it’s pretty nerdy, but I believe that by challenging ourselves and developing ourselves mentally when we aren’t obligated to, we’ll be much more prepared to use our noggins when it really counts.

So what are you waiting for? Go learn something!

Everyone knows the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions - and the tradition of giving up on them by February. Wouldn’t it be nice to make a resolution and know that, next December, you’ll be able to look back on how much progress you’ve made? Well, brighten your spirits - because you can.

• Don’t allow yourself to ignore it. The quickest and easiest way to ensure failure is to allow your resolution to become an afterthought, lost in the jungle of everyday stress. Find a way to include your resolution in a daily routine or schedule. Common goals such as weight loss are easy - exercise for one hour every morning at 7:00, for example. For other, more abstract goals, you may need to set aside some time to plan or think about them. Use post-it notes liberally; put them in places where you’ll see them if you feel the urge to waste time (on your TV’s remote control, for example). You could even make a poster to place near your bed, so you can’t help but see it as soon as you wake up.
• Be held accountable. If you’re reporting your successes (and lack thereof) to someone else, you’re more motivated to do your best.
• Start a blog. Openly writing about your goals to the entire world is a great way to keep yourself in check. (You can read more about my goals for 2007 in The Resolution.) Any failures will be broadcast to millions of people… or at least a few dozen. One caveat, though: You absolutely must be open and honest. Lying in a blog is essentially like lying to yourself and having everyone else read your mind.
• Find a partner - or even a full group. It’s easiest to work through the ups and downs of working for something for twelve months when someone else is right beside you doing the same thing.
• Don’t make resolutions. Instead, set an area of focus. For example, along with my “20 hours” resolution, I’ve chosen to focus on a few specific areas:
  • Finances. Yes, “college student” is usually synonymous with “poor”, but I’d like to acheive financial independence (as much as possible) from my parents by the end of the year.
  • Physical fitness. Exercise has been proven to be a key factor in improving mental fitness and energy levels as well as strengthening the body. Over the years, I’ve been a bit too lazy/busy to work on this area.
  • Relationships. I’m not in one, so let’s find that (un)lucky woman, shall we? (No personal ads, please.)

  Other areas you could focus on include your family, friendships, career, spirituality… anytime you’ve said, “I wish I could do __________ better,” there’s probably an area for it. By focusing on an area instead of a specific goal, you allow yourself the flexibility to change those goals.

• Don’t expect immediate perfection. This should be fairly obvious, but major life changes don’t (usually) happen overnight. This is where the tips on accountability will come in handy; oftentimes, you’ll need some extra motivation to get over a “plateau” in your growth. If you ever feel like giving up exercise to watch TV, just look at that post-it on the remote.

Happy New Year!