School Gatherings
-
Tuesday Talks
- Tim Annick '12
- Vanessa Lizarraga '12 & Nader Batal '12
- Cody Hamilton '12
- Jose Esqueda '12
- Lela Puckett '12
- Kel Mitchel '12
- Avery Schwartz '12
- Taylor Chatman '12
- Greg Cusack '12 & Austin Lokre '12
- Sarah Cohen '12 & Emma Birrell '12
- Lisa Huang '12 & Megan Cunnane
- Miles Barney '12
- Daniel Mock '12
- Alissa Jared '12
- Adam Werksman '12
- Catherine Thornber '12
- Sierra Trees '12 & Emily Nguyen '12
- Ian Keneally '12
- Annie Weis '12 & Erin Griffin '12
- Charlotte Bowles '12
- Scott Sinclair '12
- Faith Donaldson '12 & Sarah Griffin '12
- Jacob Winnikoff '12
- Michael Warren '12
- Fernando Hurtado '12
- Stephanie Flores '12 & Stephanie Duong '12
- Pom Bunsermvicha '12
- Taylor Erling '12
- Assembly
- Convocations
Tuesday Talks
September 27, 2011
Cody Hamilton '12
To listen to Cody's Tuesday Talk - click the play button...
Theodore Roosevelt once said, "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." Unfortunately for our generation, and when I say our generation I mean my generation, the latchkey kids born into a world post Kurt Cobain but pre 9/11, we are entirely unable to be decisive. More so than ever adolescents need more and more time to decide what they want to do with their lives. This is do to the myriad options presented to our generation. Never before has a generation been offered more options in life. This is especially true at a place of higher learning like Cate.
Though all the options we are given are obviously a blessing they are also a curse. With so many different things that we could do it becomes much harder to find what we actually want to do. In an anecdote in ‘The Omnivores Dilemma’ a study is done on a group of people looking to sample and then purchase jam. It was found that when presented with 20 different types of jam the consumer bought less jam then when only presented with 4 different types of jam. You may find this surprising but in reality this study makes sense; when given more options to choose from the act of choosing the ‘right’ option is far harder then when only given a few. People are, in general, less likely to be decisive when presented with more options. This jam dilemma is what our generation is struggling with on a grand scale. With so many different life paths presented to us we struggle to be decisive and choose the ‘right one.’ By vacillating between different passions and not being decisive we are loosing precious time that could be used to gain the skills needed to succeed in what we love. In the book 'The Outliers' Malcolm Gladwel argues that to be truly good at something one must have at least 10,000 hours of practice. Once one achieves the 10,000-hour benchmark they will be performing to their full potential. By spending so much time choosing what we are passionate about we forfeit time that we could've used to achieve the 10,000 hour benchmark. Time is the only constant in life, the only thing that will always move forward no matter how much we want to turn it back and by vacillating between passions we are giving up the little time we do have to be successful.
If I were to impart any advice on students at Cate, a place where options abound, the phrase 'ready fire re-aim,' comes to mind first. Don't waste time fluctuating between different subjects, if you think you love a certain subject throw yourself into it; take as many classes as you can in it, focus your efforts on it and test whether or not you love this class. If you find that you don't actually like the subject don't continue trying to do something you aren't really passionate about re-aim at another subject. Continue re-aiming until you do find something you love and then pursue it to it's fullest. By your senior year you should have ideally found something you do enjoy doing. In the end you have nothing to loose by throwing yourself into a subject. Every time you put conscious effort into something, you have the chance of finding out that you are really passionate about it. By being indecisive and not working at anything you are guaranteed to never find anything you are passionate about. By working at something you think you are passionate about you are not guaranteeing yourself success but by not working at anything you are guaranteeing yourself failure. So forget milk and cookies go do something you love.
