Impurity

I think we're all familiar with the concept of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation. If not, this is a post that discusses the difference as well as I ever could (among other topics). Let me be the first to say that in my perfect world, we'd all be intrinsically motivated to the highest degree. However, life has an irritating habit of messing around with such ideals. We meet other brilliant people. We learn from them, but occasionally we are also a little bit intimidated by them. So here's my interim solution - it isn't perfect, but it's the best I've got.

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Recently, chess has once again piqued my interested. I've shown up at a few tournaments, performed at least reasonably well, and had a good time learning from my mistakes.

It's inevitable, I suppose, that these adventures evoke memories of when I was a sixth grader. I was one of the top chess players in the area. I crushed adults, and the high school players all talked about how they wanted to avoid me. If ever I have been proud of myself, it was then. I was, in my small community, the best.

Of course, it's never that easy. I quit chess soon after, and the people I was once on par with sprinted past me. When I rejoined the scene in part 3 years later, my "peers" had fought their way upwards with great success, and I was once more a mediocre fish in a big, big pond.

I think to some degree, everyone wants to be special. I hope I'm not just projecting my own desires onto other people here, but posts like this give me reason to think that I'm not. Unfortunately, we can't all be the best at whatever we're doing. There's also something that makes being the worst at what we do unacceptable to us (thankfully). So being "special" in these two ways is really not an option to the vast majority of us.

When you read about or come across someone who is our age and has output 3 research papers, or played in Carnegie Hall, or gotten a full-time job at Google, congratulate them. Marvel at their brilliance, and be inspired by their perseverance. But don't stop there. Take it upon yourself to reach their level of dedication and achievement. I feel like the moment you do that ... that's when you become special.