Choose Your Theme
Warren Shea

Insightful thoughts

Sunday, November 18th, 2012 at 12:23 am

These types of…(don’t know what the literary term for these is)…um…short…um…sayings?…have been on my mind lately.
I keep coming up with them!

Joining: “Reliable to succeed. Passionate to excel.
as something that I find incredibly true (even one year later), I’ve been thinking and want to explain these other ones I’ve come up with.

“You don’t know what you don’t know”
Taken from Things Change
That is, you don’t know what else exists because you simply don’t know. I think the more you think you know something, the less you really know about something.
As an example, I’m finding that I know so much about HTML. And that I’m near the end of my learning for it. But I also thought that a year ago. Two years ago. And every year, I get better showing how little I knew before. And with every new thing I learn, it opens up an infinite door of knowledge to everything else.

“I work hard so that I don’t have to work hard”NEW!
Basically, it’s like the opposite of procrastination. I’m finding that professionally, I’m very good at working hard early so that I don’t have to work hard later. I’ve always been like this. I’ll stay late one day and finish up all this work when it’s quiet and I’m left alone….so that the next day, I can just kinda chill and take things easy. One thing I’ve always found is that in the professional environment, you can accomplish more in 2 hours after hours than you could in 2 days during work hours – because of all the distractions, emails, and questions. DEAR GOD LEAVE ME ALONE.
One of my friends said recently that I have “such an easy life”. And well, I couldn’t disagree with her, but I think it’s easy because I make it easy. That is, I don’t put myself into situations where I have to stress…that constant vigilance is key. Do a little bit here and there and you don’t have to do a lot later. Do things early and you won’t get overwhelmed.
That’s how I am with work and professionally. That’s how I am with keeping my condo clean.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to everything. Personal me is very much a procrastinator, doing things last minute. It’s odd because I understand the benefits of not procrastinating…but sometimes I just can’t help myself.

“Good enough is not good enough”NEW!
I’m finding that a lot of people around me, especially professionally, think that “Good enough” is “Good enough”. That they do a good enough effort. But it bothers me when these people expect more than what they get. For me, “Good enough is not good enough”. That is, the mentality of “Good enough” is pretty much as close to satisfactory as you can get.

In Waterloo Co-op, they rate you as:
Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, Very Good, Excellent, Outstanding

Even at the place I’m employed at, they rate you as:
Below Expectations, Mixed, Solid, Distinguished, Outstanding

And they used to rate you as:
Contribution Below Expectations,Successfully Meets Expectations, Exceptional Contribution

Basically though, “Good enough” – doing a successful bare minimum is just average. You’re not failing, you’re barely passing – but you’re passing. And that’s average – the same as everyone else. But how can a person expect to get promoted, recognition, a raise, or anything like that by doing average? There’s no way. People don’t reward average or satisfactory. They reward those that stand out. The only way you’re going to get things you expect are coming to you is if you do above average. I’m realizing as I write this that it’s actually the similar to “Reliable to succeed. Passionate to excel.” but it’s adding something before that: “Good enough to be average. Reliable to succeed. Passionate to excel.”

Anyways, just getting a little peeved at those who do the bare minimum and think they’re doing an awesome job…and then get pissed when they don’t get money..or power…or women. People should really try to look at other people’s views and feedback…and re-evaluate who they are and who they want to be, if anything. Looking at yourself through your own eyes is the most biased way of looking at things. Try to meet high standards in other people’s eyes. Only then will you know if you’ve been successful.

Again, if a person’s not complaining, then that’s cool. Good enough is good enough for them.

Leave a Reply