<#320 Desk Column>

 

 

By Rigoberto Banta Jr., Head Student Editor

 

    “How was your summer?” Most of us will rhetorically say this to friends and colleagues once we meet again on campus. With the start of the semester we recollect the memories of summer, of endless nights talking with strangers that we first met in different programs and of countless modes of transportation that we took in order to attend the plethora of activities that we had planned to take once the vacation had started. Yet, there is still a myriad of things that we want to do. We are sucked into a vortex of regret for ‘not being able to make the best of the time’ or for ‘choosing this activity over the other’. What are the factors that lead us to think in this manner?

     We enter the state of being in the ‘undisciplined pursuit of more’, as explained by Jim Collins in his book How the Mighty Fall. As a result of the shortness of our vacation time, we plan ahead and attach ourselves with the grand ideas that we have in our minds. This encourages us to bring more to the table, dividing our attention to what we really want and need and spreading ourselves too thin. Sometimes we opt to make reasons for our actions and increase our gauges without questioning ourselves. All of the while we think that we have already succeeded, as more opportunities open up we are actually going down in the spiral of failure in the pursuit of more.

    The intersection of talent, passion and the available market serves as the solution for this, says Greg McKneown in his Harvard Business Review article. Inquiring about the essentiality of an opportunity to oneself with the basis of the three criteria above shall determine its value and thus, direct one to the highest contribution that he can make. As for us, we do start small, but the target as well is to stay small and to be committed to our optimal point. As such, we need to be critical with each and every step we take, avoiding the unnecessary and building up on what’s significant. Keep calm and stay focused, CNUians, for the best is yet to come. Heads up for Fall 2012!