Tuesday, December 7, 2010

motivation toward least effort

No but really, guilty as charged. Often times I do take the path of least resistence, but hey it's in a textbook so that means i'm not the only one, right? The question is do we do this out of laziness or are we just trying to accomplish the most we can with the time we are given. As usual, a little of both is probably the answer. Unfortunately this time I can't help but think it's a little lopsided, and not in favor of the one we might all hope for. Yes most of us are rather lazy, especially when it comes to unenjoyable activities. That's not to say you aren't a hard worker, or you aren't productive, or you aren't doing things the right way. You simply want to do the least number of pigeon spins you have to in order to get that food, because let's face it who enjoys being dizzy all the time. An example I can think of where I took the way of least effort would be this year with my housing. I opted to apply for a dorm single as opposed to the apartments because I simply wanted to live closer to campus. Now I can sleep an extra 5 or 10 minutes before waking up and getting ready for class, a real treat right? However, this ended up being a productive decision for me because if I had stayed on the apartment side yes the food would have been better and I would have roommates which would lead to a better social life for me as opposed to the wooden insanity cell that is my dorm room. However, since I am isolated for my senior year I get much more work accomplished because I simply have nothing else to do. I go to the gym more often because I can walk there in under a minute. Sure it has it's setbacks and the lack of sociability is driving me a little nuts but I was already nuts so no big deal. Interesting how a decision originally made to reduce effort on my part ended up with me putting forth more effort than ever to do the things I need to do. One step back, three steps forward. This is not always the way though, picking classes is a good example. You don't want to pick a class simply because it's easy if the information taught in that class is important knowledge for what you want to do in life. Taking a good teacher may be more difficult but you will benefit more in the end because you will obtain vital information. That's not to say you won't learn in a class taught by an easier teacher, but you need to put in the effort and read your text and not just do the bare minimum.

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