Remove GOTO From Your Life!

I love analogies. I love the way a Computer Science concept can be applied to philosophy given that they’re two completely different facets of science.

For example, in Design and Analysis of Algorithms, we have something called The Greedy Technique, which is a problem solving heuristic that makes locally optimal choices at each stage in hopes of finding an optimal solution at the global level. In layman terms, this technique is shortsighted. It does what is best at that moment and doesn’t think of the future consequences, doesn’t think of the sub problems that might arise later. It keeps doing whatever it wants without reconsidering its choices.
This strategy doesn’t always yield the best results (most of the time it fails terribly) but it is does yield locally optimal solutions that approximates a global optimal solution in a reasonable time.

And if you look at it, most of us live by this strategy. We do whatever sails our boat at that particular moment and don’t care a hoot about the consequences or the trouble we might get into.

I had UNIX test yesterday and I didn’t write the paper because I hadn’t studied. Not writing the paper seemed best for me 3 hours before the exam and I escaped, even though I knew I was making a mistake and would probably regret later.

I contemplate too much, mostly about unnecessary things, but pursuing to think about those unnecessary things sometimes takes me to places where I’m awed by the layers of complexities of life, our purpose of existence and purpose of life altogether! And I have these tiny epiphanies that help me improve the way I lead my life.

This one fine day while I was studying Java, I learnt that the language doesn’t have a GOTO (Go-To). GOTO is a keyword (It’s alright if you don’t understand these jargons) that lets you jump to any part of the program which makes the program very unreliable and complicated. And Java developers decided to not include this.
After a day or two, it struck me that we too should remove GOTO from our lives.

Let me explain: We all want to succeed in life. And whenever we ask the supposedly-enlightened people how to go about achieving success, they say “Work hard”. But we’re all working hard already! The actual question must be, “How to achieve success by putting in the same amount of hard work?”

Well, you remove GOTO from life!

The mind has a mind of its own! It is extremely unreliable and is distracted all the time! It can jump from one place to another in one zillionth of a second! One moment I’ll be rummaging for answers in the pages and I don’t know how but the next moment I’ll be fantasizing about becoming the CEO of Google. 

We need to control this jumping from one place to another.

If you plan to sit and study for an hour, make sure you actually study for an hour. It shouldn’t be 30 minutes of studying, 10 minutes of fantasizing about your crush, 10 minutes of wall-gazing and another 10 minutes of self-grooming! Have 100% concentration.
If you’re attending a class, listen to the lecturer. You’ve already made an effort to wake up early, skip breakfast, and travel to your college in those rickety BMTC buses, and sit in crammed positions, why not make an effort to actually listen what the lecturer has to say? This way you’ll understand the concept better when trying to study by yourself!

Train your mind to not go to places. Whenever you find yourself wandering away, pull it back. Tell yourself why you need to study. Have a keyword! If you really want to get into University of California (LA), UCLA shall be your keyword!
As soon as your mind jumps, pull it back and say UCLA. Period.

PEACE OUT!