One picture is worth a thousand words
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| Yes, editing this pic still remains! |
This picture says it all. And it is universal.
That blissful state of learning something new is addictive, it is empowering. (Most college students, unfortunately, have no idea of this state of life.) Why then, have the four of us not done awesome things in the last six months that we have known MOOCs?
Distractions. We go through them, they keep us away from that addictive state, and that addictive state does not build up. It does not let the addiction overpower the distractions and sedentary states, which in turn keeps the addiction controlled.
It's a textbook negative feedback loop, one that keeps a system stable. Except that in this case, it is keeping the system in a state that is undesirable!
Our story is no different from the story of the human race.
Distractions, Anxiety and Boredom
We, all of us, want to get a lot of things done. We want to do them. We really want to do them. We wake up in the morning and we don't even realize that it's afternoon already. We sit down and try to get something done, but we get distracted.
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| Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. |
By night time, we want to sleep and start over again, in hope that all's not lost, that there's another tomorrow. We don't remind ourselves that we have no plan for making tomorrow different than today.
All the while we tell lies to ourselves that time wasted enjoying is not time wasted, paying no heed to the fact that a life wasted in waiting for tomorrows is indeed a life wasted.
We really want to be addicted to the courses. There's no need of "want.". One eventually does get addicted to learning, partly because learning is part of living.
We often walk through our days unaware and out of touch with our emotional lives. Our inattention makes us constantly bounce between two extremes: during much of the day we live filled with the anxiety and pressures of our work and obligations, while during our leisure moments, we tend to live in passive boredom.
The key, according to Csikszentmihalyi, is to challenge ourselves with tasks requiring a high degree of skill and commitment. It's more than just procrastination in learning. It is the story of our lives.
There's one thing that bothers me though. Passive boredom these days does not happen so much. It results into greater distractions. All you have to do is log on to Facebook and plug into the plethora of posts that seek your attention. Just to keep it. To Hijack it, with your own willingness, so that you may not be able to do anything good with it.
So that you are no longer able to face your own lack of management skills and control over life. So that no matter how much of a rebel you are, you are unable to do anything except accept the status quo of today, finding false hope in a tomorrow where you will do 15 courses, or exercise to your heart's desire or practice cricket from Dusk to Dawn.
The answers
Imagining living in a Nazi concentration camp in your head might not lead to such a great sinking feeling that the above two paragraphs that might have caused you.
But you don't have to accept this state of affairs. All you need to do is realize something. Your time slips out from your hand because you don't know it's slipping by. You keep doing things that you kept doing because you have no idea that you have a choice - a choice between being the same as before and saying no to letting time go as you sit down and engage your brain in a focused activity.
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| Young finished MIT CS in 51 weeks |
Yes, you keep doing it because you have no idea you keep doing it. So, the answer becomes simple. There's an anticlimax here. The somewhat ultra-realistic tone of this post will give way to a geeky solution.
The solution lies in Timelogging. Next post is about how we will implement it. We were introduced to timelogging by someone who finished 33 MIT courses in 51 weeks flat.
In the meanwhile, you can (but we insist you do) read about Timelogging here on Scott Young's Blog.
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| Everyone looks like a geek while doing awesome stuff! |
The Two Ted Talks introduced here:
TEDxEastsidePrep - Scott Young - Can you get an MIT education for $2,000?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=piSLobJfZ3c
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the secret to happiness
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIeFJCqsPs
The time spent on this Blog would pay dividends if....
- You have understood what we wanted to say about our daily life patterns
- You have watched Scott Young's video and wondered if a Business Student can do this then why can't a Science student do it?
- You will mull over Prof. Mihaly's work on Flow, Optimal experience and Creativity
- Most importantly, you have found the importance of timelogging.
