A Hint of Genius
Written on 7:12 PM by O
“Chance favors the prepared mind,” says Louis Pasteur. I couldn’t agree more. I had a friend in college who was one of the friendliest, most outgoing party animals I have ever had the pleasure of meeting but he was also the smartest kid I knew back then. I was not able to figure out how he missed classes, skipped recitations and still ended up getting an ‘A’ on the test and the class. To me, he was just one of those lucky people with brilliant genes. I on the other hand, would always have to work extra hard to get mine, hardly missing a class and making it to office hours like it was a duty. It always baffled me to see his grades when we got our tests back so I asked him how he did it.
Unbeknownst to most of his friends, Albert studied whenever he was not on the social scene. When he missed class, sometimes, it was not as a result of being tired from staying out late but more so the result of studying late or early for the test next week. He was book smart, no doubt, but he was also a strategic planning genius! He didn’t waste time attending class if he knew the teacher was not going to veer from the lessons in the book (which we would have to read anyway). This ability to plan strategically is apparently the very fine difference between the ordinary and extraordinary.
Although most of us would like to be called anything but ordinary, we constantly take short-cuts and refuse to do the things that might bump us up a notch. When I unexpectedly got sick this weekend and was too weak to write a blog for Monday, it would have helped to apply the principle of strategic planning. I had read somewhere a while ago that great bloggers always have a blog prepared one or two days in advance, yet I never did it. Do I not want to be considered ‘great’ or was it simply a case of good old laziness? Fortunately, Joshua was able to fill in for me with an outstanding post. However, it got me thinking on a deeper level of all the times I’ve waited until time was nearly over to do something? Fact is: I could have exceeded expectations and not simply met them if I was better prepared.
So it is with most things in life: we get what we put in. My big move: I’ve decided to raise my status from the status quo to fabulous! I am currently taking the Princeton Review Course to help me prepare for my MCAT in May and sacrificing my weekends just until then. Perhaps this time, Chance will be on my side.
What’s your next big move and how do you plan on getting there?
