Post lect reflection, and my very late piece on success

Back from jogging, first time since I injured my back last june. Felt really good, and much greater clarity of thought.

First off I think alot of people are freaked out about the mid assignment milestone. Last night, at 3 am, between the 12 people in SoC basement and outside tech services, 11 were CS3216 students. On hindsight, they weren't actually that hard, and they exists so that we would plan our application better, so I really didnt have to camp overnight in SoC..

On to the software engineering lecture, so I've yet to take CS2103, and I don't plan to do it in NUS, since as a CM major there are pitifully little core modules I can map for SEP. Now the lecture by prof ben is really quite intro, and as he said himself, it's aimed towards the non-cs people, whereas for us the main course of the day was the sharing session by wei man and justin.

Now this is where it gets quite interesting, earlier this week I was involved in a little leadership crisis myself, since I was really had no experience taking charge, especially in a software engineering project, and so my work allocation was really terrible. At least that can be justified, since I really had no idea what to do, but I also neglected on the team communication aspect, and that if I had properly spoken to all my team members, I would have saved myself alot of trouble.

That said, all is well now, and I dare say this is one hell of a useful lecture :).

Now, I know this is really late, but I have my own little piece on success.

There was this issue of reader's digest, where there was this food for thought column.
And the story went like this, a very rich, retired old man was enjoying life on his yacht fishing around the pacific. He met this fishermen one day, and they had a great time chatting. To his horror, the fishermen had no concept of financial investment, or any sort of long term planning at all, so he took his time and taught him how to invest in stocks, build up his portfolio etc etc.... After he was done, the fishermen looked at him puzzled, and asked, 'so what would I do with all this money?' To which the rich man answered ' You could retire to a small island and fish in peace everyday'
And the fishermen responded immediately, 'But thats what I'm already doing now'..

Well, I know the whole point of this anecdote is to tell you that happiness lies in a peaceful and contented life.

But think about it this way.

The rich men, had he been in his 30s, how much would he had enjoyed his life is he spent the rest of his life in fishing peacefully in a serene little town?

I mean, none of you would go back and tell your parents, "I think true happiness lies in a peaceful and contented life, I shall go become a fisherman in Indonesia" after reading this right??

So what I want to say is, success is a state of mind, it's always up to you yourself to determine how successful you are, all the fame and glory in the world does not make one successful if he/she himself/herself thinks otherwise. Not only that, but your own priorities can change, what you value with your life today you may toss it aside the next morning. So don't go all in and think of what you must achieve at all costs. Take a deep breadth, go with the flow, and enjoy the ride.