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Being OK with not being extraordinary

tiffanymatthe.com

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Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#281

Post by coryrc »

mywittyname wrote: post #245
phkahler wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you combine an average programmer with an average statistician, you get a profile that is not particularly attractive. Nobody said being average at both was enough. The parent post specifically said if you know more than average in both areas. You still need to be good, but the combination of good in multiple areas is claimed to be sort of like being extraordinary in one. I think there's some truth in that.

I still think the parent has a strong point though. Stats and CS are correlated skill sets. Almost all CS people learn a good bit of statistics as part of their education process, and I suspect that most statisticians are passable programmers. The fact that we have a term for the combination of both skills suggests that being great in both is not unique, it just makes you a great data scientist. The crux behind the i…

> Almost all CS people learn a good bit of statistics

Oh how I wish that were true

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#282

Post by selimthegrim »

JohnBooty wrote: post #27
umvi wrote: post #2

> Climbing to a higher vantage point can also unlock new forms of extraordinary that you might have never noticed before. I read an article once about how the amount of work to get into the top tier in a single area is astronomical, but the amount of work to become top tier in a combination of 2-3 fields is attainable by almost anyone. For example, becoming a top tier statistician is hard. But becoming a top tier sta…

I like your examples: those two games were amazing to play and very inspirational to me personally, for the reasons you articulated so well. I once heard another example of a man who'd washed out of both medical school and art school, lacking the apitude and/or drive to really make it in either field. He wound up finding a very successful career as an illustrator of medical textbooks, as the number of people versed i…

My aunt trained in medical illustration at the Cleveland Institute of Art. She switched to primary education years ago and could never get a gig in her original field.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#284

Post by james_s_tayler »

taylorlunt wrote: post #201
dominotw wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m an excellent problem solver. Don't mean this to be a mean comment but how did you assess this? I think i am good problem solver but i don't know if i am better than anyone else.

Problem solving ability is basically just IQ.

Not really.

It's both fluid and crystalized intelligence that are required.

The better you can pattern match the faster you will be able to acquire crystalized intelligence by being able to connect the dots and you'll likely be able to leverage superior pattern matching abilities to utilize less crystalized intelligence to draw the same conclusions in certain cases. But if you have no or very little crystalized intelligence in the domain you're trying to problem solve in then you aren't going to get very far.

It's very much a combination of the two.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#286

Post by firstplacelast »

rvn1045 wrote: post #86

The internet has made everyone feel inadequate as it's easy to compare yourself to people you see on the internet. Couple of things to keep in mind if your comparing yourself: 1. There aren't as many uber successful people out there as the internet makes it seem. It's far fewer than you think. Lets take a simple example of dudes who go to the gym and are strong. Instagram makes it seem like all dudes bench press 400…

Maybe it's because of how you grew up, but I've found myself in several different groups/scenarios throughout the years that blew my mind how many people (young people who hadn't worked a day in their lives) had trust funds.

I always thought that was crazy Gossip Girl shit, yet I got into a good university and was in certain clubs and social circles where I met a ton of people with trust funds (1M-30M).

That's when I decided to change the approach to my career. I'm not even a social person, so the number of people I was meeting wasn't astronomical, and I wasn't at an elite university, just a very good one.

I still see it today living in a large city. The number of people who have trust funds or parents willing to give them 200k-1M to put down on a house absolutely astounds me! I know it's a small % of people, but a small % of people is still a ton of people!

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#287

Post by vagab0nd »

rvn1045 wrote: post #86

The internet has made everyone feel inadequate as it's easy to compare yourself to people you see on the internet. Couple of things to keep in mind if your comparing yourself: 1. There aren't as many uber successful people out there as the internet makes it seem. It's far fewer than you think. Lets take a simple example of dudes who go to the gym and are strong. Instagram makes it seem like all dudes bench press 400…

Also, it's not a zero-sum game. More extraordinary people out there is actually good for you. It means the world is likely a better place and you can learn from more people.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#288

Post by JohnBooty »

selimthegrim wrote: post #282
JohnBooty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your examples: those two games were amazing to play and very inspirational to me personally, for the reasons you articulated so well. I once heard another example of a man who'd washed out of both medical school and art school, lacking the apitude and/or drive to really make it in either field. He wound up finding a very successful career as an illustrator of medical textbooks, as the number of people versed i…

My aunt trained in medical illustration at the Cleveland Institute of Art. She switched to primary education years ago and could never get a gig in her original field.

That's interesting to hear and, more importantly, I'm sorry to hear that.

Perhaps the man in the radio broadcast was able to succeed because he had the luxury of a (full? partial?) medical education as well.

(It's also worth noting that only a tiny fraction of the populace would be able to afford such an amount of education - he must've had soooooome trust fund, or indulgent parents, or something)

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#290

Post by JohnBooty »

tonymet wrote: post #151
JohnBooty wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not 100% sure you're being literal but I agree with this statement when taken at face value. Being "extraordinary" often means you're just making somebody else richer. There are some objectively extraordinary folks working at e.g. Facebook, but what does that really gain them? What has that given the world? It's a mixed bag, to put it mildly. Probably the only real reason to strive for being "extraordinary" at yo…

I think it's unfair that "mediocre" is seen as a bad word. We have so many things to do, I think it's perfectly good to be mediocre in many ways. We're competing on a global scale, it's impossible to be exceptional on many dimensions. I'd like to encourage more people to be happy being mediocre.

It's also true that even a "mediocre" engineer is elite in many ways - they are "mediocre" compared to all the other folks who managed to carve out a sustained engineering career. However, even somebody in the middle of that group has elite engineering skill relative to the population at large.

This is true of many careers, of course!

I always feel bad for the professional athletes who "suck." It's kind of hilarious -- even the "worst" professional athlete in a given professional sports league is actually an extremely elite specimen, with only a tiny fraction of all athletes even being able to make it into such a league.

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