10,000 Hours to Fermat’s Theorem
Posted by yader84 on July 29, 2008
By my estimate I’ve put in about 150 hours. Only 9,850 to go.
At the end of the internship at WWU the entire staff and intern group sat down for a few hours. We affirmed each other and encouraged one another. James Junior, who’s been a mentor to me spiritually and athletically, commented that life might be a bit difficult for me. You see, James and I play racquetball nearly every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 7am. He beats me every single time (nearly without exception). We’ve been doing this for close to 6 months now, and I’ve won 3 times. That’s right, 3 times. Doing the math we’ll say we play 8 times per month, multiplied by 6 months says we’ve played 48 times. Each time we play 3 games. So out of 144 games, I’ve won 3. Do you know what the percentage is that I win? 2.08%. Time after time though I come back for more. Brutal. And it’s not that I’m getting slaughtered, although that happens every now and then. The scores are usually around 10-15. I can play, and play well, but James eeks out those extra few points.
Life for me is a bit like racquetball. Try try and try again. Every so often I win.
Well, I came across this video today and it gave me hope. The lecture states that with 10,000 hours you can do just about anything. For me this includes beating James at racquetball. By my estimate I’ve put in about 150 hours. Only 9,850 to go.
james said
keep on truckin Yeadon. Never give up. I know I won’t! The challenging part about the idea that you can do just about anything in 10,000 hours when talking about playing racquetball is that if you are playing the same opponent and you are improving/adapting your opponent might be improving/adapting as well. And it depends on which of the two players is improving/adapting more than the other in ways that counteract the improvement of the other player. At this point we can say that you have been improving faster than me because your score has consistently gotten higher over the months. And part of what drives me is one of the three wins you got. One of them was really ugly. I wasn’t even having a bad game but I don’t think I scored more than 4 points. That is motivation to never see that again.
The moral of the story is that in life you have to try try and try again. And the point is to always adapt. So when times get tough at Eastern. Don’t give up just keep truckin. Adapt. And you know what the Lord has to do with it all. Sometimes we ask for success and he gives us failure so that we recognize our need for Him. Sometimes we ask for strength and he gives us weakness so that we find our strength in Him. He is tricky like that. He works with all of us in this way. For He might be using racquetball for me He might be using song writing.
Anyways, see you Thursday