How To See Life 101

Summary – You can choose to use light or a ruler.

Have you ever wondered what life will be if we don’t have any unit of measurement. By unit, I’m referring to those such as kilogram, meter, second etc. Just imagine going to the store and try to buy 5000 grains of rice, or describing the time taken to walk from your house to the store by calculating the number of heartbeats to reach there.

It can actually be done but it will be very tedious and the process will be very complex. Take one meter for example, one meter is actually defined as the distance travelled by light in free space in 1/299,792,458 of a second. You can choose to measure all the distance throughout your life by using light and a stopwatch. But don’t you think a ruler is far more convenient?

Now here is where we can apply it in our life. I truly believe that life is very complex in all its definitions. However, there will always be a simpler way to understand and live your life.

1st Example : The Immortal Story Of The Boy & The Girl

Let say you like a girl and you really want to introduce yourself to her. But in your mind, you start to think all the ways that she can reject you and how you will react to the rejection. Some deeper people might even try to figure out what the consequences of approaching her would be. In the end, you will just end up with a major headache and becoming more invisible than ever. This is a great example of how we are constantly making our life more complex unnecessarily.

The same situation can be approached in a much simpler way. You like the girl, just go introduce yourself to her. Anything happen then is to be handled then.

2nd Example : My 2 Years of Nonsense Worrying

A personal example to further illustrate how to simplify the complex element in life is my quest for a steam certificate. I am currently working as an engineer for a mill. To make things short, I will need to be acknowledged as an authorized steam engineer for me to be promoted. In order to achieve that I need to apply and pass a series of examination conducted by the national board of engineers. It’s been over 5 years now and I’ve been postponing the application for 2 years already.

I always remind myself of the possibility of failure in the examination and how I am still not feeling ready to sit for it.

A few weeks ago, I took my own advice and see the issue in a simpler form. The board of engineers doesn’t even know that I exist since I haven’t applied yet. And unless I send in my application, all the worrying just don’t make sense. That’s exactly what I did. I sent my application and started preparing myself for the examination. Whether I fail or succeed, I know I’m half way there.

Conclusion

There are always two ways to see your life. A complex way or a simpler way. Believe me the two will always be there for you. Just choose the simpler way.

– I Wonder –
Any other example of a complex life issues that can easily be viewed in a simpler way?


————- Personal Note —————
The examination is due this June. Wish me luck! If I passed, I will buy all of you a drink 🙂

Photo Credit – Zanastardust

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This post has 6 comments.


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  1. 23 Jan 09 1:05 pm

    Hi Banji,

    This is a nice Post, it will really help others to see the life in different way. It shows there is always a simpler way in doing this right.

  2. 24 Jan 09 5:37 pm

    Joe Nathan – Thanks Joe for reading

  3. Ton from Utrecht (NL)
    24 Jan 09 6:04 pm

    Hi Banji,
    terima kasih for your post. Let me make it a little more complex 😉
    There are moments that I can not take the most simple road, but the little-more-complex road. For instance: just going to an exam and find out what type of questions are being asked there is simpler than taking a look at earlier exams of that sort. So: the question is: what is simple enough? This is not always easy to know.
    There’s my conclusion: simple ain’t always easy!
    Have a nice day, Ton from Utrecht (NL)

  4. 24 Jan 09 11:12 pm

    Tom – That is an interesting way to spice things up. Thanks.

    There’s a different between oversimplifying things and looking at things in a simpler form. This article is meant to address the latter.

    Oversimplifying life by just going to an examination without any preparation is just plain stupid.

    However we can view the whole process of examination in a simpler form (As addressed here). Visualizing the examination is just like a chat between a student and a teacher. The student ask and the teacher answers. This will help in eliminating panic attack during the examination.

  5. 27 Jan 09 2:00 pm

    Excellent perspective, Banji.

    It’s amazing how to can pave out the path ahead of us, without ever walking it.

    All the best for the coming examination! 🙂

  6. 30 Jan 09 4:03 pm

    Melanie Thomassian – Thank you for the wishes. 🙂

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