Albert Einstein was once a tutor?

"Norbert Bartel included the rare newspaper ad shown as part of his talk Testing Einstein's Universe. The ad offers private tutoring by Albert Einstein in physics and mathematics. The last line entices students with a free trial hour."

Hmm, what can I say.

Thanksgiving! Time to express gratitude!

It’s been 3 months of studying and adapting to new environment in the University of Illinois as a freshman. Thanksgiving break gives us students a perfect stop to take a rest and reflect on something important before and after the break. Other than that, let’s not forget the original meaning of the “thanksgiving”. This is a time to express our appreciations to the givers.

The first givers that I can think of are my family, especially parents. Parents are givers of my life. Beside this simple yet powerful reason, they also support me to grow up to who I am now. The first step I made, the first words I spoke, the first character I wrote… All of these are impossible without their adequate care and patience. Moreover, as elderlies, they guide me to a right path when I am faced with challenges that I have never expected. They tell me how to react with their experiences and provisions. Yet more thankfully, because of the fact that their experiences and lives are unfortunately very limited so that I have to walk my path alone sooner or later, they choose to mitigate their teaching (or control) of me at the right time. That’s one of the reasons I’m here studying abroad in a brand new community here in U of I. I’ve learned quite a lot about dealing new problems alone since I found my way to campus from the airport (which marks the beginning of my life in the States).

The second givers that I think of are friends (if I can include teacher in this category). Friends are people that I can really rely on when I leave my parents. They understand me well (often from a different perspective than parents’) and share similar interests. For most of time, friends are supporters. They can give me ideas when I need them, give me a hand when I’m in trouble, etc. But sometimes, friends also stand out to point out my mistakes justly. They are against me just because they don’t hope to see me on a wrong path. This is in fact another kind of support if thinking this way. Actually, true friends are those who dare to point out my mistakes in front of me. The reason I include teachers here in the friend category is that, I think, I always learn something from my friends, no matter the younger friends or elderly friends. There is always something that my friend is good at but I’m not. Thus friends, unconsciously or consciously, give me lessons like teachers. Teachers, as a profession, are just consciously giving me lessons for most of the time. So, I view teachers as friends. After all, if I have the chance to keep in touch with teachers after I leave school, teachers and I will be friends in the end if you think about it.

Third but not the least, leaders can be givers as well. There are cases when I personally get something from leaders like leader’s courage, leader’s guide, etc. But I think as a leader, the biggest contribution should be done to the team as a whole. Leaders listen to their team attentively, think deeply and finally based on that, make the bright decision best benefiting the whole team. The team as a whole has the power to get things done, but it is leaders who make the most important move, for example, decide what each one of the team does so that the efficiency is maximized.

If there were no tomorrow

What if there were no tomorrow? If you woke up in the same morning everyday, what would you do?

                                                                                       - A review of Groundhog Day

I view movies basically as entertains. So I came for the first viewing for this movie "Groundhog Day" on a Tuesday. I simply wanted to entertain myself after a day’s work. Now, as l look back, I’d say I wasn’t wrong, for just the first twenty minutes of the movie. The movie aroused my interest quite successfully in the never-seen-before setting of reliving the same day. Even I was wondering what I can do if I were able to stay on the same day. Pretty convinced by Phil, for the moment I saw him driving messily around and playing tricks on cops, I also wanted to try a day without any consequence. I can do whatever I want. I can play computer games all day long without worrying the paper due tomorrow. I can rob the bank like Phil did in the movie to buy an extremely fancy Ferrari I could ever dream of. There is no tomorrow! No responsibility, no consequences! I bet anyone would totally release the demon inside to enjoy the “today”. So far, the movie was a comedy to me.

But I start to feel depressed as Phil woke up on the same day every day. He did any evil thing he could think of on that day and ended up waking up at the same time, same place where he woke up yesterday. The excitement brought by the crazy things he did faded and turned to depression and emptiness. He was happy superficially until his mind got bored. I began to be serious to this movie. It’s not simply a comedy, but a lesson to learn. Doing evil crazy things when you can relive the same day is not the right way to enjoy the day. Phil reflected. So on the next same day, Phil hugged his high school classmate warmly, he brought his colleagues hot breakfast, he tried to save an old dying man… He changed a lot. He started to help others, become warm-hearted and versatile, and finally, won Rita’s heart.

And now, it’s time for me to reflect. I think Phil gave us the answer to the question of how does one live his/her life. The setting of reliving the same day is in fact not something funny. It’s a magnifier, which enlarges how ugly we would be and makes us realize that. Now I look back myself, I see that terrible side of myself as I was thinking about those crazy things I would do if I could relive the same day. Although I’m not going to do that in reality, I can still see the effect it has on me. Say, if the consequence of an action is irrelevant to me, will that “I can do whatever I want” thought come out of my mind? More importantly, will I be happy if I really act irresponsibly? Probably just for the second of action. After that, nothing left at all. What if I act responsibly and try to make things near to perfect like Phil did? In the movie, the spell breaks because he found the right way to live and he finally won his true love. In reality, I believe it makes people really happy because whenever they look back their life, everything they did was the result of their attention and deep consideration. They feel fulfilled, which I think is one form of ultimate happiness.

Top Twelve Questions for Success

I found these 12 questions on a book recommanded in my Leadership class. They are quite easy to understand but useful as well.

1. What do I want?
2. What are my choices?
3. What assumptions am I making?
4. What am I responsible for?
5. How else can I think about this?
6. What is the other person thinking, feeling, and wanting?
7. What am I missing or avoiding?
8. What can I learn?
    ...from this person or situation?
    ...from this mistake or failure?
    ...from this success?
9. What action steps make the most sense?
10.What questions should I ask?
11.How can I turn this into a win-win?
12.What's possible?

Some of these questions may seem easy to you. Like what do I want? But not every minute do we really bear that in mind. Often when we are too busy with current works, we're likely to forget what we wanted in the first place. These questions are all good reminders on our path to success.

Just write these questions down! Write on your notebook, if you have one that always in your pocket, or, type them into your cell phone or compture as a wall paper.

Listen generously is enough?

I grew up in a culture where humbleness is valued. So one of the important ideas of humbleness is to listen to others carefully and no matter you think the speaker is right or wrong, you should still listen because you can always learn something from anyone. This actually agrees with Benjamin's point in his Project on Moral Perfection. Yet even for me who is from such a culture, I find it hard to follow the principle. Sometimes I can't control myself from judging others before listening to them and thus prejudice pops out of my mind. But even in the cases I follow the principle when it is clear in my mind, I find that listen generously should be treated with care. We listen generously but take the words carefully.

After all, we live in the world full of information, from TV, radio, Internet, newspaper.... We are receiving it in a rate much much higher than the past. First of all, to be honest, the information has several kinds: some is real and authentic, the rest is fake, is fabricated or still needs proving. If we listen generously to all these kinds of information, we will loose ourselves. What is real? We don't know until we take time to judge the information. Secondly, true or false is not enough. We still need to find out what information is useful and relevant to our life or our topic. Some true information that seems to be what we need, is in fact a distraction. Recall how Picasso drew a abstract bull. Are the muscles and furs true? Yes they are. And they make most parts of the bull. But in Picasso's eye, to depict a bull, the skeleton is the core information.

Listen generously is the a good start. To make what we learn from listening truly useful to us, we have one more step: judge the information carefully.

Listen generously is enough?

Oh NO!

I didn't pass my first Math exam in college. It's HORRIBLE!！！！！！！！

I was confident that I could at least get 80. I got all my homework right before the test. It's not about missing concepts that I've learned. When I check the mistakes, most of them are because of carelessness. It's actually even more frustrated to find the poor grade is the result of carelessness, not that I have missed some concepts or laws.
Well, consider it as a wake up college test. This is it.

Franklin's Humility and Pride(The thirteenth virtue)

Pride, as Benjamin Franklin said in his Project on Moral Perfection, is one of our toughest natural passions to subdue. He admitted that he wasn’t successful in acquiring the Reality of this virtue; but merely had a good deal with regard of the appearance of it. Probably when really acquires the reality of humility, one would be proud of what he has achieved.

Originally, there were only twelve virtues listed in Franklin’s project. His proud was still there when making his virtue list as he didn’t count humility as one of the virtues until his Quaker friend kindly informed him of the missing point.  Yet his perfection on this virtue turned out to be ‘intimating Jesus and Socrates’. He forbad himself to the use of words like ‘certainly’, ‘undoubtedly’, etc. Instead, he uses ‘I conceive’, ‘I apprehend’ or ‘I imagine’ a thing to be so or so. I think this change of word is just something on the surface. The content following ‘certainly’ or ‘I conceive’ could be totally the same. The change just made Franklin sounded humble. But the other change he made as to the response to something he thought an error, to me, is a useful tool that we can learn from. Instead of immediately reputing, he began his answer by observing that in certain cases or circumstances the seemly erroneous opinion would be right.  This is in fact an uncertainty of what is right and wrong, a reserved way of engaging the conversation. Actually I have been also using this strategy in the conversation and as a result I’m often thought as a comfortable friendly guy to talk to. And when I made a mistake, I don’t have to worry about the embarrassment because I didn’t put my opinion that strongly as if it were the solid truth. Besides that, I find this technique helps open your mind. If one does include ‘observing that in certain cases or circumstances the seemly erroneous opinion would be right’ before judgment, one can always find a proper case for that opinion and very likely, you probably won’t think of that if you were put in the case you found.

But Pride is probably coded into our DNA. No matter how one ‘disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it’, Pride is still alive, always there wanting to show itself. That’s why Franklin used an irony at the ending: ‘Proud of humility’. But is it proper to put an irony here, which made weak the point he made. The same question can be raised when reading his irony about ‘the speckled ax’.  A man who wanted his surface of his ax as bright as the edge, yet finally gave up because of the arduous work needed saying ‘ I think I like a speckled ax best’. I think the reason for the ironies is that we are all common men. Franklin was an uncommon common man himself. The moral perfection is a work against bad habits; struggle to become a better man. It’s especially hard for being a human is already not an easy thing. With humor, Franklin probably wanted to tell us not to be too serious about it; we still need to get on with other people.  Trying to achieve self-command is also compatible with self-accepting. After all, this was intended to be read and learned by all people after Franklin. This made the project of perfection more accessible to common people. A perfect, flawless character can only be admired. It is just a distant perfect man. Feeling closer to a common man like themselves, people will actually be more confident to imitate or learn from him. And that’s the function of the humor and irony I think in Franklin’ Project for Moral Perfection.