Friday, February 18, 2005
If You Know What You're Doing, Then You're Not Trying Hard Enough
Getting things done the other night with Modern Marvels on in the background. Modern Marvels is a show on the History Channel where they tell the story about great technological achievements of the 20th century like the Golden Gate Bridge, Pacific Coast Highway, and even Modern Plumbing. They do a great job telling the story behind the story and pointing out the fascinating in the mundane things we take for granted. While I watched and listened, I couldn't help thinking about all the great things I had in store for myself as a young engineering student, and to feel depressed about the ordinary tasks I found myself actually involved in 15 years later. Have all the great things already been accomplished? Is my timing off? What am I doing wrong?
But then, while watching some Cal Tech professor explain the role of enthalpy in steam turbine blade design, it occurred to me that these guys are not much different than anyone else. He sat in his windowless lab all day working on the same experiments, worrying about his grant funding, wondering if his kids are going to grow up happy. I sit in my office all day, hearing the same customer problems, worrying about getting laid off, and wondering if my kids are going to grow up happy.
Throughout these stories, they encounter people in history who didn't know what they were doing. They were doing things that had never been done before and had no idea how it would come out. For every modern marvel, there are 10 modern flops. You don't know what you're doing because there is no manual, no reference book, no case study, and nobody else to talk to about how to get it done. Has it been tried before but failed? Are you creating the answer but nobody is asking the question? At the heart of not knowing what you're doing is to know that you are actually making an incremental advance, somewhere, somehow.
But then, while watching some Cal Tech professor explain the role of enthalpy in steam turbine blade design, it occurred to me that these guys are not much different than anyone else. He sat in his windowless lab all day working on the same experiments, worrying about his grant funding, wondering if his kids are going to grow up happy. I sit in my office all day, hearing the same customer problems, worrying about getting laid off, and wondering if my kids are going to grow up happy.
Throughout these stories, they encounter people in history who didn't know what they were doing. They were doing things that had never been done before and had no idea how it would come out. For every modern marvel, there are 10 modern flops. You don't know what you're doing because there is no manual, no reference book, no case study, and nobody else to talk to about how to get it done. Has it been tried before but failed? Are you creating the answer but nobody is asking the question? At the heart of not knowing what you're doing is to know that you are actually making an incremental advance, somewhere, somehow.
