Part 2 Abilities

Different people have different kinds of abilities, while there may some abilities that we should have in common. I’d like to talk about it in four parts, knowledge, solve problem, personal management, and communicate with others.

Knowledge

The knowledge you know.

Whether what you know is valuable can be affected by two factors: the usefulness of the knowledge and how many people compete with you. You must have something which you can earn your life. If what you know is useless, then, it means little, if not nothing to you. There is a story[1] said that a man, Zhu Ping-man, spent lots of money and time in study how to butcher dragon, while when he succeed in learning it, he found nowhere he could use the skill. So, make sure what you learn can make some contribution to the society or is needed by others. Besides the knowledge you know, competition is the other factor that you should take into consideration. The less people compete with you, the easier you can gain benefit from it.

Francis Bacon said “Knowledge is power”, in fact, knowledge itself has no power, but people who own knowledge will have consciousness to use it. Generally speaking, the more you know about something, the easier you can do it well.

Learn new knowledge.

It’s a time of knowledge explosion. What we know does count for something, but what count more is the ability to learn new knowledge and use it. We often encounter the task that we know nothing about it but have to complete it within a short time.

Solve Problem

Life is the process of facing problems and solving them. Everyday, we face many problems. Some of them are easy, such as where to have lunch; some of them are hard to solve, how to be the president of U.S.

Whether a problem is easy or hard, the solution can be separated into four parts:

1. Define the problem (where you want to go or what you want, where you are). First, ask yourself where you want to go rather than where you are. Why? Without knowing where you want to go, you can’t step forward. The situation you’re in is so complex that it would be hard for you to understand where you are. Ask yourself where you want to go will enable you know what you should take into consideration, which will help you understanding where you are easier.
2. Guesstimate some possible solutions (what factors are needed for each solution). Well, a problem may be easy to define but hard, or impossible, to solve. Such as, how to live outside the solar system. Use MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) principle to help you to break down the problem, you can use mind map to help.
3. Choose one solution and executive it. When you have some possible solutions, you have to choose one and executive it. You’re facing tradeoffs when you make decision. Design a criterion system and endow weight for each factor. If you find it’s too complex to do that, ask yourself, what I value most? What I can’t give up or scarify?
4. Adjust your action and change it if necessary. Now, you have chosen a solution and executive it. The conditions change and are different from previous ones when you make decisions. You need to adjust your action when you find situations have changed or if you find a better solution. Don’t be satisfied with what you have achieved, you can make progress if you keep thinking and acting.

Personal Management

Get control of you time and life.

The most deficit resource in our life is time. It’s such a big topic that I find it’s hard for me to talk about it. Maybe these books (How to get control of your time and your life, Getting things done, Ready for anything, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, etc.) that related to time management can help you.

What I think useful for me are:

1. One time do one thing. We are surrounded by so many things that we are often interrupted to do another thing while left what we are doing into abandoned. Maybe after a long time, we think of what we did, such as read a book. We picked up the book and read from the first page again. If you need to have a rest, just rest, don’t do anything, then, go on doing what you did.

2. Clarify what can be done in three minutes and comparative long time. If it can be done in a short time, do it at once; else, write it down and arrange time for it.

3. Identify what are important and what are not. Focus your time on those important things.

Control motion and pressure.

Happiness, sadness, and pressure are part of our life. Don’t deny them, learn how to deal with them.

Communicate with others

Communication means “a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior” (Merriam-Webster). It’s not the process that you get information passively or throw out what you think. You need to get information from others and understand what they think and want.

[1] 《庄子 杂篇 列御寇三十二》，“朱泙漫学屠龙于支离益，单千金之家，三年技成而无所用其巧。”