But instead, I got a lecture on fun. “Well, Jim, if you don’t love doing it, you won’t stay with it long enough to ever really get good at it.” Then he added, “Life is just too short not to enjoy what you’re doing. If we can’t make this fun, we should stop doing it!
Related Quotes
Life is way too long to give up early and way too short to be derailed from what we’re passionate about and made to do.
Hal Leavitt, who is an old hand at getting points across to students, was temporarily frustrated in trying to describe the devastating effect of socialization on creativity. Then he just let loose:
The reason I’m having trouble describing it is that it is such a pervasive problem that you can’t stay to someone, “Don’t be socialized.” We are just socialized as hell.
All of us go through the same environment. And all of us may learn the same skills. But there is some kind of distribution curve and way out there you can find somebody who says “I got my Ph.D. in physics, but I still think it’s horse shit!” (Laughter) And them’s the good guys!
““I have thought about it, my friend. It’s over for me right now. If I continue like this, coming in last at these races, I’m going to lose all hope. My leg is killing me. I don’t feel well, Jukka. I’m sorry. I can’t. This is the right decision for me.” This period of my life taught me a lot. Sometimes quitting is the right thing to do. There are times when “powering through” really does more harm than good. By then, Maria and I had had a conversation and both decided it was best to end the coaching relationship.
I also didn’t appreciate that if you ask ten questions and make ten suggestions, people may take them less seriously, even if they’re all equally good. If you have only two issues or questions, people will take your two more seriously than they may take any of your ten. During my first hundred days in the Harvard presidency, I could have had things I identified as success and could have signaled that it was a new day without dissipating as much goodwill capital, if I had been smarter.” - Lawrence Summers.
At the end of her life, in the 1860s, when she had become the Grande Dame of Champagne, Barbe-Nicole wrote to a great-grandchild, “The world is in perpetual motion, and we must invent the things of tomorrow. One must go before others, be determined and exacting, and let your intelligence direct your life. Act with audacity.” Act with audacity! In other words, play to win.