Feel that every kid during grade school will eventually ask questions like “why do I need to know how to do arithmetic if I have a calculator”, “why do I need to be able to think for myself and make decisions when I can ask other people or have other people make decisions or follow/copy” and more recently, “is my entire career which I have worked (x many years so far) going to be doomed because of AI and am I going to be not valuable in terms of marketability and productivity?” Let’s worry about that another time and start with the first two.
The simplest answer and easiest way, for me, to get at the essence of the first question is to recognize a key observation about life.
Life is at its core a single-player game.
There are going to be many situations where one is the sole player, there is no one else in the same situation, and so you can’t copy other people, because your situation is unique, and you can’t take their advice because what do others know about you in that very moment…not as much as you do.
They can take a guess at what to do, but then you go down the typical route of asking for advice of “if this works, it was all me, but if it doesn’t, it is your fault” since you take their advice.
Sometimes in those situations, you can’t even ask for advice because the situation is so unique you sort of know only you have to figure it out.
Silly but funny example (definitely not from personal experience!) is when you are stressed out on the last problem of your math final, you know you need at least an X% on the test to squeeze by an A-, you did well so far, but you have 10 minutes left and you rack your brain to think of what to do for these remaining problems which may end up determining your grade. You didn’t excel at the test to where you know you would get a high enough score, and you didn’t do poorly enough to where you knew it was doomed. You were right in that middle, that “sweet spot” of truly walking the tightrope. No one to turn to. Just you, the clock, and your insights.
Maybe you’ll pass, maybe you’ll fail, but it is only you who is responsible.
I’d say that this scenario occurs often enough to where you should be able to live your own life from your own two feet and be independent in that regard.
If things work, pat yourself on the back. If not, get up, learn from it, and keep moving.
tl;dr There will come a time where you and only you need to make a decision and so having a foundation to be independent is imperative.
Cheers,
Vish
Published on April 13, 2023.