The Art of Not Running Away

I remember how back in our university, almost all the first year students that have the high-level math (the “laaja”) keep asking older students questions like “Was it worth it?”, “Did you learn anything?” and “Will it be hard?”. My answers to these would be yes, yes, and yes. But that’s not today’s point. More interesting would probably be asking “Why? especially related to the first two.

As background information, I didn’t come from a math-specialized high school. I felt confident about math and had some successes in high school, especially towards the end. I was invited to participate in the higher math at our University – as you might know, it’s not mandatory for automation students – so I got to choose if I wanted to do it or not. After some deliberation, I resolved to do it. Mainly, I was curious about how I’d do inside that peer group and how I’d feel about “proper math”. Secondly, I thought I could always switch back to normal math if I didn’t like the high-flying version.

To cut a long story short, it was a hard track. I remember sitting with friends and doing exercises late into the evening. I remember spending about 50% of my studying time just on math. It worked and my results were pretty good, although in no way top class. Solid 4s and a 5 Three courses were enough for me, as switching to Industrial Management meant I didn’t need the 4^th course, so I dropped it as unnecessary.

Anyway, what was the learning experience? Honestly, I don’t think I remember half of the stuff we went through. The pace was fast, exercises were not always so plentiful – or understandable – and most of the stuff I haven’t needed since. Maybe it’s somewhere in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t recall it without some supporting material.

The most important thing for me was to learn not to run away. I remember staring at problems that seemed completely incomprehensible and thinking there’s no way in hell I’ll figure this out. But in most cases I finally got it. Actually, we got it. Since I was almost always solving the stuff with friends, and that was also a key ingredient to success. Four minds thinking along slightly different lines made for a better solving process, and naturally decreased erroneous calculations.

Anyway, if you think don’t run away is an obvious principle, you’re probably right. It’s not the principle that was hard for me, it was – and sometimes still is - applying it. The math courses were a valuable experience in the field of really confusing problems. Problems, which make you think “the solution must be really hard – how will I ever think of it?” Normal problems don’t do that. The confusion leads thoughts into a sort of meta-level, thinking that since you can’t see the outline of the solution right away, it must be something outside your current knowledge. This naturally induces a thought that if the solution is outside your knowledge, how on Earth can you come up with it in the first place? Needless to say, you start focusing more on freaking out about the problem than solving it, which is a terrible spiral to get into.

In retrospect, freaking out about a problem is very unnecessary – never mind useless. For every problem, there’s always a solution. The problem might not be solved by the end of the night, but slowly you’ll get there. Every step is a step towards the solution. Just keep taking those steps.

A practical application of the don’t run away principle are my German skills. Since high school, my German skills had started seriously deteriorating. In active vocabulary I’d already fallen down to the “Ich bin” level, meaning I couldn’t really have a decent conversation anymore. At some point, I realized the situation would only get worse with time. The vocabulary wasn’t going to magically pop back in my head. Improving my German would mean I’d need to, you know, actually try to learn it. It was time to face the issue and stop running. So I decided to plan an Erasmus year in Austria (to combine language with beautiful sights), which worked as a motivation pump to take some German courses in university before the Erasmus. Well, now I’m here in Graz with the year nearly behind me, and my German is better than ever. Problem solved.

These days, whenever I face a problem, I remind myself: don’t run away. If I feel imprisoned by the problem, I just think oh well, just have to start chipping away with this spoon. The wall will crumble eventually.

Lecturer, where's your faith in theory?

Agenda for this week: yet another block course at the institute of Production Science and Management at TU Graz. Topic: Operational Risk Management. Yet another course, where the morning session after introductions starts by the lecturer's so-called motivational input:

"We will go through some theory for the morning. I'm sorry, but it's always like this, the first session of the block has always the biggest part of theory. I know you find it uninteresting, but we'll get to the case study in the afternoon."

I must say, nice going with the speech! If I didn't know better, I'd think the speech is saying "fall asleep now, wake up for the afternoon". I wonder how the students are to motivate themselves for the theory part, if the attitude of the lecturer, who in Austrian culture is more of a formidable authority than in Finland, is already at this point acting apologetic. This wasn't the first time a lecturer seems to be conveying the message that theory is an annoying obligation, only to be completed because of some higher decree. Never is the usefulness or the applicability of the theory mentioned. No lecturer says out loud that understanding theory is a necessary part of understanding practical methods.

The sentiment behind the courses seems to be: rush through theory and then throw the case study to the students, let them learn with it. One could call this a swim-or-sink strategy. There are a couple of problems with this approach. Firstly, too often the case study starts with students looking like living question marks. If confusion was a gas, there would be so much of in the air you could actually just carve block of it with a knife. The insufficient basic theoretical knowledge is a big issue, especially if one is to start analyzing a deep and complex problem. Secondly, raising students into a culture of practical application without proper methodological structure is just plain stupid: it makes us believe all methodologies are as good as others. It makes us use mostly methods we are already acquainted with beforehand. It decreases the learning achieved by using a new method. Applying without knowing what to apply is trial-and-error, not structured learning.

Sure, if you are blindfolded and then try to distinguish the important features of an animal by touching it, you'll achieve it at some point. But if you're first told that the animal in question is large and can be climbed upon, you'll figure out that much faster that instead of tree trunks you're actually hugging the legs of an elephant. It doesn't take much to get a head start in comparison to blind searching.

The "student is a customer" culture has several benefits. Lecturers need to be made aware of the fact that satisfied students learn better. But sucking up to the students is not the right way to achieve that.What should be taught is the important stuff, not just what the students like.

Making personal changes work

Change, one of my favourite words. Change stands for a challenge, a chance to turn something into a better version. A chance to make the transition to 2.0. Of course, change is also something that disturbs the pattern. So it's okay to be a bit nervous about it. After a change, you can't keep doing things the same way - that's the definition of change. On the other hand, changes make life more interesting and in that way contribute to our happiness.

The opportunities for changes in life are relatively easy to detect, and not only because the multitude of flaws in personal action patterns. With an honest outlook on one's behavior, it shouldn't be too hard. Personally I rather often feel a twinge about something that I do, and I know that it could be much better. I can do it. Yes I can. I just need to make a bit of effort.

Well, often that's exactly how far I get, and no further.

Too often, the actual change never happens, despite my strong disposition that it has to change. Thoughts never transfer into actions. Frankly, that bugs me a lot. It seems like a pretty stupid thing to do: deciding that you want to change and then not making it happen. Why is that? More importantly, how to make it work? How to change the changing?

I used to be very confident about my strength of willpower. I used to think that I just need to decide for a change and it'll happen. True enough, sometimes it does, but mostly not. Mostly, I get stuck between the action and decision phase, not because the change is so complex, so difficult or so frightening, but because I just don't make it happen. It's like there would be something wrong between the neurons transferring the information from the decision-making centre to the "let's do this" branch of my brain. What's even more stupid: I know the change is supposed to be happening, but it's not. And I know it's my fault - who else could I blame for failing to change? So, in the end I feel sad for disregarding my own instructions and not changing, making the situation worse, not better! Not very smart.

Fortunately, I've discovered a way to reroute this blockade in my mind. One trick I've learned over time is to not try abstract leaps.The change needs to be tied to something concrete. The change needs to happen with some concrete thing. Sometimes I've focused my idea of the change and focused it on an object, so that whenever I see that object I immediately think of the change I want to achieve. Quite naturally, this works best with an object you perceive positively and somehow associate with the change. For example, as I was trying to increase my levels of writing and reading, I focused it on my coffee mug. Now whenever I see the coffee mug, I go "well, I should probably read or write something now". And lo and behold, during the last months I've been reading and writing more than ever - and my instant coffee jar has emptied, twice!

Another trick is to change in parts. If the upcoming change looms too large, divide it to subprojects. This is a piece of advice told to me several times at organizational development lectures, but only now have I learned to apply it to myself. As an example I can tell about a research project that I'm doing. The goal is to a) get to know the business ethics field, b) see if there's a connection between the position in organizational hierarchy and ethical decision making. This project will last for a good 6 months, so I divided it into subprojects. So far, I'm mostly in schedule, meaning about halfway through. Will sure be interesting how the end part goes.

An exchange year has been a good way to make changes and take chances, exactly as I had hoped. I'd recommend it as a way to escape the current environment if big changes are what you want. Go abroad and discover yourself in a new way. Discover yourself in a new way - that could be a motto for most personal changes. Or at least it should be.

Trains, pendulums and jets

Today I had my mind on people and motivation. After the last text I tried to form a couple of more discriptive, but in no way scientifically researched, analogies. What kind of people are there amongst us? Here comes:

Trains
These kind of people are the single-minded locomotives of the human universe. They do their thing steadily, formidably and they will always get there eventually (unless they're owned by VR). They might not be the fastest ones to achieve it, but they have a distinct sense of the direction - they really know how to get there. Of course, in itself this is a blessing and a curse. Someone with the tracks laid already can hardly change the direction very fast. A new destination will require new rails - and that means several rounds of complaints from the little inhabitants called your brain cells.

Pendulums
These people have usually more key areas of interest, between which they alternate periodically. (I'm thinking Foucault pendulum here, so more than two equilibria positions are allowed). Their life may be one consisting of projects, or at least something in the way of those. Characteristically, once they delve deeper into something they really get into it, but after a certain period of time the interest starts to wane, until it's time to change the direction again. I feel like a pendulum guy, personally.

Jets
These people really can motor. They're the fastest ones around. Before you've even formulated your approach regarding a problem they've already halfway to the library with 27 different solutions running in their heads. As a cheetah of intellect, however, jets usually need more time to rest and gather energy after a completed quest. I mean, have you ever seen trains idling for days? (again, excluding VR trains) Another problem for the jets can be either speed limits (working in groups where not everyone wants do dedicate their life to the project) or alternatively too long distances, causing them to run out of steam (projects with too distant goals and too long a span).

Quite obviously, this is hardly a comprehensive analysis of anyone's personality. But it might make a useful tool, help you think about yourself from a new perspective or just give you a few laughs. And every one of those reactions is a good one.