Eric Tian

When I was a kid, I was convinced that 11 times 11 was 111. I remember excitedly telling my friends, “hey, you know this thing called the rule of ones?” and then tell them all about this amazing multiplication. It felt so good to preach this elegant mathematical finding.

It took about three years until somebody said, “um… 11 times 11 is 121, dumbass.”

When something that you believe in crumbles right in front of you, you pay attention, for it’s a red flag to be more careful. What other glaring mistakes do you accept? What other falsehoods have you preached? From that on, I always double checked my math calculations. Failure is a great teacher.

Being passive, having no opinions and accepting whatever’s thrown your way is safe, but boring. You never really develop any convictions that challenge you. If you encounter a setback, it’s easy to think, “ah, whatever. That’s not really my opinion, anyway.”

On the other hand, having strong opinions, loosely held is a useful way to continuously push your character. If you have beliefs you are firm in, the tests that life throws at you will be far more worthwhile. The wins matter more and the failures shake you to your core. Sometimes it takes something quite dramatic to really teach you a lesson.

“Prêcher le faux pour savoir le vrai”: Preach the falsehood to know the truth.

If there’s one thing I’d say to my younger self, it’d be this:

You should enjoy this more.

This moment, with these people around you and this thing you’re doing: it won’t last forever. In fact, in most cases it’s completely different within a year. You should spend some time to enjoy it.

You never know when the golden age is. You might be living in it right now.

From Neil Gaiman‘s Make Good Art:

“…More of today’s world is freelance, because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three. Two out of three is fine.

People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time.

They’ll forgive the lateness of the work if it’s good, and if they like you.

And you don’t have to be as good as the others if you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.”

The rules for success are rarely set in stone. There is always another way in.