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Originally Posted by sciguy125
The pessimist will blame themselves, the optimist will blame others. It's human nature. If there's something wrong with you, then you are flawed. Nobody likes to think that there's a problem with themselves.
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I've always thought that what makes an average person exceptional is not their inability to make mistakes, but rather their ability to recognise, rectify, and learn from them. It is not easy for people to take responsibility for themselves. But then, like most things in life, we must recognise when we have been at fault and accept it. It will be hard for many people, but then again, that is why some people will rise a cut above the rest.
When I joined Team 228 in freshman year, I was a quiet freshman. I liked to watch how everything was run, and I helped immensly during the build season that year. I didn't really step up to anything important because I didn't know very well yet the other people of the team. But this past year, my second year on the team, we found ourselves without a student to run our website. By now, I decided that I had nothing to lose by volunteering, so I stepped up. As Shakespeare once said in Julius Caeser, "Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."
I didn't know anything about HTML, CSS, or anything even remotely connected to creating websites. And yet, I still volunteered. Starting with a blank slate (literary), I created the layout, graphics, and most of the content for the website. Within two monthes I had a very large, fully functional website online, just in time for the submission deadline. And guess what? Our team won the Best Website Award at the UTC Regional.
Just setting a goal, or a dream, or some other aspiration and giving it your all to accomplish it is a very rewarding endeaver. But as with all things in life, failure is inevitible. As Walt Disney once said, "A good hard failure early on in life can usually do more good than bad". Don't be afraid to fail. Be afraid of the fear of failing.
If and when you fail (it will happen sooner or later, just accept it), learn that it is not personal, that it isn't [insert name]'s fault, that failure just happens. Not everything is going to go your way. Work with failure, not against it. Learn from it, and use that knowledge to better your chances of success. For just remember, that it took Edison thousands of attempts to perfect his idea for the electric incandessant light bulb. And when his illuminating innovation suddenly worked, it outshown all his failures.
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Originally Posted by KenWittlief
I think one of our biggest problems is we dont have any specific purpose or direction as a country, species, or for society in general.
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I too have wondered about this. But then again, refure this if I am wrong. Capatalism of the Internet, especially by average people, is just the oppisite. Sure there are still alot of people looking to profit off it, but there are a ton that are doing this stuff for basically free. More and more people are creating free programs, open source software (like the incredible Firefox browser
), totally free libraries worth of information (Wikipedia), and people host millions of websites that generate no income, yet hold innumerable amounts of information.
Why? Many of these websites and programs will generate no immediate income - except for generous donations from average people who are impressed with the software/information and want to keep it available. But we must wonder, is this some giant, yet subtle movement that as a species we want (even if subconsciously) to reach out and bridge the gaps, and want to better ourselves for the sake of being better? This, I believe, would be an excelent goal for the human race.