Unexpected Sources For Motivation #1: Genius

Introduction

O hai again, it's been awhile since I last wrote an article. So, what is this new one about? Well, it is mainly some unexpected places that I get motivation from. This ranges from games, to shows, to books, or just something someone said. For the first part of this article, I would like to talk about one of the best speeches I've heard and never really thought of, but something I can kinda relate to. It's about geniuses, explained by Haikyuu's Kita Shinsuke. So, what is so amazing about this speech? Well, let's have a little bit of a breakdown on it and why and how it effected some of my point of views. Note that most if not all of it is from my point of view

The Speech

How it inspires?

The first thing about this is that it makes me rethink about the definition of genius. Often times, we treat geniuses, such as good players, gamers, students and so on, as if they are already at that level. We forgot to take into account the hours and hours of training, pain, blood, sweat and tears they went through.

"Everything I do every day, from a scale of one to ten, guys like Atsumu (one of the Japan's top high school setters) do on a scale of one to twenty, or it's a more effective ten, or a denser ten."

One of the reasons the people who praise highly of get to where they are, is because they push themselves to do more than others. As an example of what Kita said, the things others do on a scale of one to ten, they push their limit to do it from one to twenty, or they still do it as one to ten, but it a more difficult manner or different methods. This is how to grow and push your limits further, as practicing with different methods and putting more effort and time in it will make you better at a particular skill more than taking it easy and not taking the risks to try out new things. This is explained more on the next part of his speech:

"and sometimes instead of one to ten, they try things from A to Z"

This is another insightful quote that hits me as both a teacher and a programmer. Sometimes we stay in our comfort zone and do it the easy way, which is sometimes good because you are comfortable in that manner and can deliver expectations on it. However if the risk is taken and we try out things differently, we will get a wider range of skillset and can mix them up to sometimes produce a better product and also to adapt to changes. For example from a programming standpoint, someone asked us to print 1 to 5 in Python.

The easy way? Scenario 1:

print(1)

print(2)

print(3)

print(4)

print(5)

But by learning more and expanding your skill set, you can do this instead, scenario 2:

for x in range(1,6):

print(x)

or you can do, scenario 3:

x=1

while x<6:

print(x)

x += 1

Notice the different ways we can simplify the method, and even then there are more ways to do so. By switching it up from scenario 1, we can make it easier with scenario 2, and we can challenge ourselves further with scenario 3. Hence in the future it will be easier to adapt with different circumstances

Now this next part is something I can kind of resonate since my schooling days but didn't really realise it until Kita said it.

"Even if they mess up sometimes of they're hated by strangers or cast out, even if they completely ignore something we'd consider important, they just have to do it. Even if they start coughing up blood, they're the guys who just wanna keep running"

For some reason even since my schooling days, I will like to take the option not many people take. If the teacher says that you can do part A or part B for the homework and she recommends to do part A, I will like to challenge myself and do part B. Does it always work out? No, sometimes it ends it failure as well. But it does make me feel happy though. Why? I don't know. It's just something like I had to do it or else I feel like I failed something worse than just the homework or an exam.

This phrase also shows about how the people we consider "geniuses" put in way more effort in something. Even if they ignore something others considered important such as partaking in an event, they will still chase for dreams. Even if they get hurt along the way, they still have the desire to go for it as if nothing else matters.

Finally, we have the final part of his speech that made me rethink about the word genius:

"There are plenty of guys in this world who we're no match for and it's natural to find people like that amazing. I think being able to dive headfirst into things is a talent in and of itself, and it doesn't matter what you call them and it's not like genius is an insult.

But, if you're thinking they're geniuses from the start, that just means you've lost before you even had a match with them and it's rude."

When I first saw this, it made me rethink my point of views about geniuses. They are geniuses because they took the time, effort, and most of all, the risk. It's natural that we admire them. For example, if we were to play a friendly football match with FC Barcelona. It's natural to find their players such as Depay and De Jong skillful. But we can't say that they're the geniuses from the start. We haven't seen the hours and hours of training and bad memories they went through to make them into the players they currently are. The other part is if we have the attitude of "Ahh, they are too good, we can't beat them" before we even play them, it is rude to others who put in the effort. It is giving up before trying, and it is rude to those who were training hardly for that match or so, be it a teammate or the opposition. First of all, we are not showing any effort to those who showed the most effort. Secondly, we can be as good as them, but we did not put the effort in and just make excuses or jealous remarks such as "Ahh, you are so skillful, I can never reach your level", "must be nice to be that good". Jealousy that pushes you to improve yourself to be better is okay in my opinion as it brings good effects to you, wanting to be better. Jealousy that just makes you give up though...ehhh....no.

Conclusion

There is always room to better ourselves in a particular skill. And we have to improve upon it to adapt the skill in various situations. We can't just give up when we see someone we are competing against is more skillful. Instead we must make the effort to improve and be better. We can't also think everyone who is good is a natural. Sure, some of them are born different, but even so, if they don't train, the talent will just be wasted. So, never stop training, learning, and improving!