My Hero's Journey: Chapter 11

 After reading the article “Attitude On Money” it actually made me feel a little better about my thoughts concerning money.  I want money to do good things with it.  In and of itself, money is not inherently evil.  It’s how we use it that determines its nature.

  My attitude towards money is: I want to earn it to both fulfill my dreams and make a positive change in the world.  It’s been a fantasy for a while now to own a beautiful Victorian in San Francisco.  I visited for the first time yesterday, and it was astoundingly out of the world.  All the houses were so charming and full of personality.  And the city itself felt so vibrant - life on every street corner.  

  However, San Francisco is a very expensive place to live because of all the tech people.  Everyone is telling me that it’d be impossible to live there given my “prospects”, but I refuse to think that way.  I look at my dreams in a realistically optimistic way.  I refuse to back down from a challenge.  Instead of thinking, can I make this happen or will I make this happen, I put forth the ideology of I will make it happen.  I just have to figure it out, but once again, that’s part of the fun of the obstacle.  Money is a big part of that.  I don’t lust after money, but I need it if I want to live in my dream city.  

  

  I believe this way of thinking is a healthier take on money.  I never want to become stingy with it, but I do want to be disciplined.  I’m not saying I’m immune to greed, but as long as I keep my eye on fulfilling worthy goals, I think I’ll be okay.  I by no means seek to live lavishly, but I want to reach inside myself and see my visions become reality.  Seeing the world.  Living in a beautiful city.  Doing it with my family.  And making the world a better place in the process.  That’s what I want.  (As well as a massive book collection, but that’s another story…)

  There are several rules, so in the interest of brevity, I will select one to discuss.  I especially thought that taking advantage of chances for learning to avoid ignorance was important.  When I lived on my own for the first time, it was very difficult to watch my spending at the grocery store.  I learned to become a savvy shopper - taking time to price compare, look at the brands, etc.  There were products that I desired more, but was willing to compromise to save in the long run.  It’s so important to know the worth of money, and it’s through these experiences that we learn that.  It’s tough, but true.  

  

My Hero's Journey: Chapter 10

  As part of this course, I have the opportunity to read, “A Field Guide for the Hero’s Journey”.  Each chapter is divided up according to a different step of the hero’s journey, and within each chapter is a selection of stories, parables, poems, and speeches that relate to that particular step.  Although it wasn’t the assigned reading for this week, there is a passage from chapter 2 (Who am I, and Who do I want to become?) that I’d like to discuss, as it left an impression on me. 

  

  An Aesop fable, the Mouse and the Lion is a short story about a mouse who is caught by a lion.  The mouse begs to be let go, promising that he will never forget it.  The great lion, “tickled at the idea of a mouse being able to help him”, freed the mouse.  Some time later, the lion was captured by a group of hunters.  The mouse happened across the path and, noticing the situation, proceeded to gnaw away at the rope that restrained the mighty beast.  The mouse said, “Was I not right?  Little friends may prove a great help.”  

  The moral of the story is: “If you are convinced that you are a mouse surrounded by stronger and more impressive people, ask yourself, ‘What can I do that these mighty lions can’t do?”  

  I think this is a theme we all face in our lives.  From time to time, especially when faced with higher standards of achievement or excellence in the world, I will wonder what I can possibly accomplish when others are so much more qualified than myself.  At school this past spring, this is exactly how I felt in the engineering program.  Sitting in a room, surrounded by programmers, I felt like the proverbial mouse amongst lions.  Of course, there were beginners like myself, but my own lack of experience in the field was a constant, painful reminder.  I was there to learn, true, but the feeling of inadequacy was unavoidable.  

  As time passed, however, I discovered that it was a common theme among my fellow programmers that they disliked writing.  This is a talent of mine that I have a particular fondness for, so to hear their dislike for the exercise made me realize the value of our individual gifts.  Although I was a mouse in the world of programming lions, they were also mice in my world of writer lions.  Putting that into perspective helped me get through some of my acute moments of amateur programming performance.

  I also had to learn that getting through my programming course was not a matter of accomplishment or failure.  It was about discovering myself, my perceived limits, and pushing myself beyond those limits.  I’m proud to have been a mouse in those moments.  I became a braver one because of it.    

My Hero's Journey: Chapter 9

  This week, one of the readings, titled, “Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap… and others don’t”, particularly stood out to me.  I found myself nodding my head at practically every sentence.  This is one of the best descriptions of a great business that I’ve read.  If I’m in leadership someday, this is precisely the type of company model I’d want to work with.  

  To illustrate a few of my favorite points… great companies put getting great people ahead of strategy, tactics, and even vision.  By putting this first, several benefits will fall into place.  First, the company will find it easier to adapt and change, because the people they attract will be more excited about who they get to work with, rather than what they get to do.  As someone who fantasizes about someday working at places such as Google, Youtube, or perhaps Pixar, I can attest that this is a major interest point for me.  These companies place focus on hiring exceptional individuals with amazing creative capabilities.  By formulating superb teams of people that thrive on working with one another, a powerful, adaptable vision will naturally fall into place.  

  Second, putting great people first will erase the challenge of motivating and managing people, since they will be driven by a personal desire to achieve and “be part of something great.  They will naturally be fired up.”  I love this idea.  If I have personal investment in a company, I will devote my energy and drive to overcome and problem solve through challenges we face.  

  Third, the company will become great because, even with an ideal vision, the wrong people will drag the company down from finding greatness.  Thus, seeking out great people as a priority will see everything else fall into place.  If a company had these motivations at its forefront, that’s the kind of company I’d want to work for.  Even better, if I’m ever in leadership, these are the prized qualities I’d strive to implement into my business’s structure.  

My Hero's Journey: Chapter 8

  This week, one of the videos that stood out to me was Eric Ries, “The Five Whys”.  Although the subject of the analogy is programming and engineering, the proposition is one that can relate to many more situations.  Ties illustrates that, behind every supposed technical issue, there is actually a human problem that caused it.  If one doesn’t find the human problems, aka the root problem, you can’t really make progress.  

  The example Ries uses is when a server crashes.  Upon further investigation, it’s reveled that it’s the fault of an employee who isn’t properly trained in a specific area of code.  He isn’t properly trained because the manager doesn’t believe in training.  What started as a technical issue was actually a human issue.  At each level, you can step in and take action, setting up measures that, upon the revisit of the issue, are immediately brought into play.  This saves trying to figure out new prevention action, and makes it easy for people to build databases that address these questions.  

  This is something I can relate to.  Having finished a programming class last semester, when I was testing a Software Engineering degree, it was amusing/painful to observe the “technical issues” experienced by my classmates.  I knew that, no matter how right yet wrong my programming looked, it was never the computer’s problem, but rather my own.  Nearly every day, someone would complain, saying their program wouldn’t function, and that TestBed (the program that we tested our coding against), was making a mistake.  It was a great experience in the art of accepting one’s own mistakes, and figuring out how to solve them, rather than shrouding them in convenient, yet completely wrong, excuses.  

My Hero's Journey: Chapter 7

  In reviewing the principles of the 7 Habits, the last habit, number seven, really resonated with me.  Called, “Sharpen the saw”, this habit says that we shouldn’t get so caught up in the motion of sawing that we fail to realize we are using a blunt saw.  Take time to sharpen the saw in physical exercise, spiritual needs, the mental dimension, and the social/emotional dimension.

  The strength and truth of this habit is something I can personally testify of.  For example, I exercise on a regular basis, lifting weights three times a week.  According to this habit, however, I should be spending a minimum of 30 minutes a day exercising.  Just a few months ago, I didn’t understand how much better I’d feel if I exercised everyday, rather than every other day.  This past spring, when I went to school, I didn’t have car.  I walked everywhere.  My apartment was at the base of campus, so if I walked fast, I could be at the center of campus in approximately seven minutes.  

  Walking every day?, you may be thinking, sounds great, but did it make that much of a difference?  And the answer is a resounding yes.  The thing is, I walked to and from campus multiple times a day… up a steep hill.  The elevation, combined with my speed walking, lead to results I didn’t realize I can capable of.  My legs grew strong and muscled, aided by my regular workouts, and within three weeks, I was toned beyond recognition.  I truly experienced a paradigm shift of my own self image.  I was happy with myself beforehand, but this daily routine increased my existing confidence.  This satisfaction bled into other areas, such as the mental dimension, which also experienced a boost.  This is just one example of how living your life to the fullest in one dimension will affect the other dimensions.  

My Hero's Journey: Chapter 6

  This week, we had the opportunity to read a few chapters from Mastery, by George Leonard.  The concept of Chapter 6, Practice, particularly stood out to me, because it focused on the “goalless journey” rather than the goal-driven way of life our society is focused on.  Masters don’t devote themselves to a task for the sake of getting better.  They throw themselves into their passion because they love to practice, and they improve as a secondary factor.  Personally, I resonate with this style of mastery.

  In my own life, I love to write.  I’m nearly finished with my first novel because I enjoy the process of practicing.  I’ve seen multiple pieces of writing advice that suggest writers get better by practicing a little everyday.  This style of writing focuses on accomplishing these small goals, and developing them into a regular habit to become a better writer.  While this isn’t bad advice, I never related to it.  Turning writing into a formula, so to speak, took the enjoyment out of practicing and discovering the path as I traveled it.  I abandoned that goal-driven, end-game mindset and focused on the art of practice, and as a result, I’ve improved without intending to.  I feel a lot more peaceful and relaxed in this sense.

  Writing is an obvious example of this phenomenon in my life, but I look forward to when my, as of yet, unawakened entrepreneurial spirit will experience this journey of mastery as well.

My Hero's Journey: Chapter 5

  This week, we watched a video called “A Hero’s Journey”.  There were several points that stuck in my mind, which I will highlight and elaborate on here.  

  The Hero’s Journey is characterized by three factors.  1.  To live every moment of your life because it matters.  2. To live because you have an important mission.  3.  To see struggles as adventures.  

  As I’m entering adulthood and considering these questions, I’m encountering more and more experiences in which such themes play a role.  Most notably, in sifting through the multitude of educational choices to discover what I resonate with.  As my junior year of college converged upon me, and with no declared major to speak of, I took my first step into software engineering.    

  Why?, you may ask.  Because I possessed no inclinations as far as what industry I wanted to work for, but I knew I liked video games and wanted to create them.  More than that, however, I thought my inborn traits would suit engineering, (i.e. problem-solving, strategy-forming, creativity, etc).  

  Software engineering was among the biggest, if not the most momentous, struggle I’ve encountered in 21 years of life.  Without a lick of programming experience to speak of, it took me approximately 45 minutes to code my first assignment: Hello World.  Later on, I could do that thing in five seconds, but in the beginning it confounded me.  I had never before encountered such a steep learning curve, but that wasn’t a bad thing.  It was the struggle.  And, though my frustration-addled mind didn’t believe it at the time, it was one of the best adventures I’ve experienced.  Because I put my mind to something I believed was impossible.  Engineering is for smart people, extremely smart, capable, motivated people.  For a brief, bittersweet period of time, I threw my shoulders back, tilted my head up high, and marched amongst their ranks.

  Dotted with moments of extreme, cry-into-my-keyboard-despair and galvanized euphoria, those three months of intense study were a great lesson to me about the importance of trying impossible things.  As the video said, “It’s not the prize at the end, but how the hero is changed in the process.”  Although I closed the software engineering chapter of my life, I was able to start the next: Business Management.  It wasn’t about saying yes or no to engineering.  It was about discovering the next phase in the process, not only for my educational goals, but for my personal growth, though I didn’t realize it at the time.  The video also stated, “Failure once so feared, seen in reverse, only made you stronger.”  I can see that now.