When we solve puzzles we envisage forward and backward to look at all the options.
Life to some extent does that to us, it creates such puzzles for us to solve.
Hence it helps to solve puzzles and keep ourselves agile mentally & psychologically.
Days to remember…
Hard days become the most memorable days from the past.
Those are the days when you applied yourself and came out successful.
Those are the days when you got support from loved ones and gave them support.
Those are the days when you thought, why it is? why me? And got answered.
Those are the days when you learned most about yourself.
Those are the days that gave you confidence, I have done it and I can do it again.
Those are the days that created history.
Those are the days to remember…
Will the scene change?
If you are expecting the scene to change, it will not happen by itself.
We need to do it ourselves, keep doing it, and keep working on it, someday it will change. You never know how closer or farther you are.
It’s like digging a hole in the ground for water, keep digging, keep digging till you get it, in the interim we can guess that water is coming, but in the end, you will get it, when you get it.
So keep working and the scene will change…
Being Rational…
Being Rational is one of the most important qualities to making good/long-term decisions in life.
So how to drive ourselves to be more rational, here are some of the pointers from “The laws of human nature” book:
• Know yourself thoroughly – Your emotion thrive on being ignorant, so know yourself, and look inward.
• Examine your emotions to their roots – Whatever emotion anger, fear, greed, envy, etc., let it settle within. Dig below any trigger points to see where they started. Record in a journal if possible.
• Increase your reaction time – This comes thru practice, don’t snap immediate reactions, wait, and physically remove yourself from the place. Sleep on it for a day or two, and let it subside.
• Accept people as facts – We continually judge people, wishing they were something that they are not. We want to change them according to the way we think and act. Make acceptance of human nature as radical as possible.
• Find the optimal balance of thinking and emotion – It’s like the horse and the rider. The horse is our emotional nature continually urging us to move, but without the rider, it cannot be guided.
• Love the rational – Let’s not see the path to rationality as painful and ascetic. Let’s see more as mastering your self in a deep way.
By taming the emotional self and being rational you are less consumed by petty conflicts and considerations. Your actions are more effective, which leads to less turmoil. You have more mental space to be creative. You feel more in control.
Don’t Outrun Your Headlights…
You can increase your headlights but cannot outrun them. Even if you try there are high chances you will meet an accident.
Thru knowledge, thru mistakes, and thru experiences, you can increase the range of the headlights and take a calculated risk of your path ahead. Which is what most successful people try and achieve.
So don’t outrun your headlights but try to increase the range.
Out of the ego…
We do many things to satisfy our ego.
If we can reduce even half of it we will get the time to solve real problems. Moreover, we get to solve our problems not borrowed problems because of ego.
Whenever you say too busy to try something new or do something; think twice you might be busy massaging your ego, whereas real problems and real life is running away.
So get out of the ego and come to the real world.
The myth of being wealthy…
Today being wealthy means different things to different people.
For someone being wealthy means can buy what they want (PS: not “need” but want)
For someone being wealthy means showing off things to neighbors.
For someone being wealthy means the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want.
For someone being wealthy means freedom of expression.
So being wealthy is a relative term. And there will always be someone who will be wealthier than you and there will always be someone lesser wealthier than you.
Thinking to the gut…
Why do you think our parents or older folks have better health conditions than ours?
Because they don’t overthink, their thinking is straightforward, it’s more like black-and-white thinking, rather than grey thinking. With all these social media, and communication channels (SMS, Emails, and Digital Media) today we cannot think in black and white, there are always grey areas.
And this overthinking gets to the gut. If we constantly keep ourselves in a state of stress and anxiety, it leads to poor gut and mental health.
So please don’t take your thinking to the gut, simplify your thinking and ignore whatever is not in your control.
System Design Interview Process…
System Design Interview Process:
1. Ask Questions to understand requirements:
- Functional Requirements
- Non-Functional Requirements
2. Handle Data
- What’s the size of the data right now?
- At what rate is the data expected to grow over time?
- How will the data be consumed by other subsystems or end users?
- Is the data read-heavy or write-heavy?
- Do we need strict consistency of data, or will eventual consistency work?
- What’s the durability target of the data?
- What privacy and regulatory requirements do we require for storing or transmitting user data?
3. Divide and Conquer – Discuss the components and trade-offs
- Different components have different pros and cons. We’ll need to carefully weigh what works for us.
- Different choices have different costs in terms of money and technical complexity. We need to efficiently utilize our resources.
- Every design has its weaknesses. As designers, we should be aware of all of them, and we should have a follow-up plan to tackle them.
What not to do in an interview
Here are a few things that we should avoid doing in a system design interview:
1. Don’t write code in a system design interview.
2. Don’t start building without a plan.
3. Don’t work in silence.
4. Don’t describe numbers without reason. We have to frame it.
5. If we don’t know something, we don’t paper over it, and we don’t pretend to know it.
Add to the work…
Culture grows when we “Add to the work” our historians did for us, and we in turn are doing it for future generations.
The only way to “Add to the work” is to be creative. AI will replace copying and pattern-matching work, but it will not replace creative work.
The biggest difference between the copy and the original will be a flaw or a mistake of human nature, which generally breaks the pattern and hence cannot be copied.
So to “Add to the work” we should and sometimes deliberately make mistakes.