In the winter sunshine through the window of the edge of the bed inside, at the moment I was to a sudden BUG, fingertips lightly knocked on the keyboard, the sun through the Windows on the computer screen of slightly reflective, so I put down the work, in the sun in the direction I looked out of the window, a cloudless blue sky, the cloud light, Beautiful mess.
At the moment, I really want to walk on the path covered with fallen leaves and listen to the birds’ twitter and fragrance of flowers in the sunshine, but in reality, I have not walked normally for more than two months.
Say also is not what big matter, ride electric car namely not heart sprain foot, fifth metatarsal base department fracture. Then there is the nearly three months of “agonising struggle”, so you never know which will come first, tomorrow or the accident, can be healthy is the greatest happiness.
Pain perception
If I have to say what I learned in the past two months, it is the following:
- Health is the most important thing, some things are money can not buy;
- Calmly accept the so-called “natural disaster” is the simplest wisdom;
- Do whatever you want, while you can.
Especially no.3. Sometimes when I am bored, I will think, if I spend my whole life like this, how will I spend the rest of my life? Honestly, all I can think about is endless frustration and frustration. There are so many interesting places I have yet to see and so many people I have yet to meet. How sad would that be?
In the days of the injury, there are many times I have done the same dream, in the dream my foot injury is good, I can run freely in any place, often so I am happy to wake up with a smile, exaggerated but true, so wake up will sigh: this foot in the end when good ah? So every day was an ordeal of counting fingers, looking forward to the day when my feet would recover, like a prisoner in prison.
A year of struggle and experimentation
Now that you’re done talking about the bad stuff, let’s talk about the good stuff. This year has been a year of struggle and experimentation for me, who is over 30. I quit my job in a traditional software development company at the end of last year. After quitting, I worked as a freelancer for half a year (mainly making a living by technical writing) and then went to work as a teacher in a training institution.
Before I resigned from the software company, I was very anxious. I believed that everyone in this age group had more or less. On the one hand, it was a new colleague who was nearly ten years younger than you and could get cheap overtime pay.
So at that time, I was thinking about doing something all day long, and I thought that this thing must meet the following conditions:
- First: do things that you like, only like things you can do well;
- Second: the value of doing this thing should be able to accumulate;
- Third: do this thing to have “through time” value, can not be a few years out of date;
- Fourth: it better have a passive benefit.
So I think there are two things more fit my requirements: first, write technical column; Second, lecture.
These two things at the same time desperately in accord with my values, can not only feed their families but also to help others, and with his strong self-discipline ability and the ability to learn, can do these things for a long time, and it also has the barriers of time, can teach a lot of people, who can write a lot, a lot of bosses also have technical ability, But not many people do well in all three dimensions.
In real life, it is not a single dimension of competition to go from mediocrity to excellence. For example, in 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, How many Chinese gold medalists do you remember?
Li Ning, Li Yuwei, Xu Haifeng, Wu Xiaoxuan, Lang Ping, Zeng Guoqiang, Wu Shude, Chen Weiqiang, Yao Jingyuan, Luan Jujie, Lou Yun…
Why can I remember only two of them?
Because both of these men have carved out another dimension or dimensions in which they do their best.
For example, if the competence of a competent tech guru is this: Technology (5 points) * writing articles (1 point) * lecturing (1 point) = 5 points, and I only need to be: Technology (3 points) * writing articles (3 points) * teaching (2 points) = 18 points, obviously 18 points is much higher than 5 points, then my advantage is obvious, this is what we call multi-dimensional competitive strategy.
So I tried my best to do two things in this year. In the first half of this year, I tried my best to write and published three technical columns in total. One of them was put online, the other two were put online under GitChat (CSDN), and in the second half, I tried my best to teach students. But mean reversion theory tells us that everything eventually reverts to its long-run mean, so there’s no need to worry about lei bleeding back.
Review in 2020
I used to add next year’s plan when I wrote the summary every year, but I don’t make plans this year (because I can’t find quantifiable indicators for the time being). Let’s simply take stock of the harvest this year:
- Published 99 original articles
- Wrote three paid columns
- Opened the way of programming teaching
- Bought a house
- Broken bones (if you can count them…)
Does “money” matter?
Finally, the dry stuff: money is not the most important thing, attention > time > money.
The ultimate goal of our efforts is not to have to sell our time for money, so prove that time is more valuable than money. If it weren’t for that, your boss wouldn’t buy your time. The essence of hiring you is to think your time is cheaper.
The difference between time and attention is that time is out of your control. It just flows on its own. Your attention is truly yours. So you see, the same time is 24 hours. Some people spend a day on Tiktok, and some people spend a day on self-growth. So time is essentially useless to us.
Attention > time > money
So investing in yourself and paying for effective and useful attention is the most important thing, so finding courses and training classes that really work is the most valuable investment you can make.
The last
There is a saying that is very reasonable, you do not know is not terrible, you do not know you do not know is the most terrible.
In 2021, may you evolve to become the best version of yourself and waste your attention on the things that are most worthwhile.
PS: Welcome to join me for WX discussion: GG_Stone
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