Extra-large problems with no extra calories

The definition of “good” is some people like it, and there’s some quality to it some people like. When neither of those is true, it’s not an important problem.

Yesterday I was working on something I won’t tell you exactly what, because I’m supposed to be working on something else. And I asked myself, “Should I really be working on this when I’m supposed to be working on the other thing?” And I thought about it for a while and decided the answer was yes. Working on this one was harder, but it is probably more important. That doesn’t mean working on the other one was the wrong thing to be doing. It’s just less important. Or maybe you can put it another way: they have nothing to do with each other, but both are important problems, so they’re at right angles to each other. That’s how it works sometimes in math.

There are two solutions that are right angles that have nothing to do with each other. Still, if anyone can find this surprising, it really is surprising how very little there is one can say meaningfully about what makes great work.

I played games or watched TV as a kid, and since doing that I’ve noticed that adults like me who play games or watch TV for hours aren’t getting very much done. Sometimes they aren’t even able to do things better than first graders can do, like getting good grades. I think the main reason first graders can do things better than adults is that they don’t stop working when other kids do.

They go to bed early, though, so it’s hard to say for sure whether first graders can accomplish things better than adults because first graders are always working harder than adults, or just because they’re asleep more often than adults are. One thing first graders don’t let stop them from working hard is the desire to accomplish great things by doing hard work.

To do really great things, everybody will have to work really hard for a really long time. You can tell whether someone will have to work very hard for a long time by asking them how talented they are. If somebody is really talented it means they can be lazy, because there’s no way to make one’s dreams come true without being talented anymore. Much effort isn’t needed because much success will follow automatically. This is not true for anyone who isn’t very talented. That kind of people have to sleep early sometimes if they’re going to sleep the whole way through life, but if they’re talented they can still dream big dreams about what they want to learn how to do before they die.

The way you decide what to work on is by finding something you are so excited to work on that it doesn’t feel like work. Then you shouldn’t stop working even if it doesn’t seem to be going well for a while.

…and never give up, never surrender!

So there are recipes for inventing the future. I don’t think everyone needs to invent their own future, or live exclusively in realms of pure invention. We all need someone to look to for guidance, especially when we don’t know which way to turn. But if you do have to make your own life, if you can’t follow someone else’s predetermined script, if you don’t have any pre-existing structure to live in, then these recipes can give you a start. At the very least they’ll tell you where you’d likely end up if you did nothing but slave away following your instincts and whims and whatever else came your way. Turns out it’s not such a pretty place!