Since my latest battle with depression as well as the anxiety caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, I have consciously devoted part of my time to cultivate and maintain my mental health. A web resource I have come to appreciate in this area are the publications by Nick Wignall on his website. In “59 Ideas for Better Mental Health”, my attention was piqued by the statement:
Focus is a subtraction problem.
This statement reminded me of a video I watched in my early twenties where the late Steve Jobs(who I greatly admired) talked about focus being about saying no. You probably may suppose this statement seems logical but I wager you often reason about focus more in the affirmative choice; saying yes exclusively to an object than saying no inclusively to several. Some describe focus as Following One Course Until Sucessful. I personally think this method perhaps effective in certain cases is mentally tedious and somewhat futile. Although we are biologically wired to perform one task we are not designed to do so for an extended duration. I am relearning the power of saying ‘no’ inclusively. Saying ‘no’ was decisive in my choice to pursue a degree outside my home country. In hindsight, that choice evidently served me profitably. The discussion about focus however is not the subject of this post, but I wanted to draw on that statement to highlight my exercise on focus as it relates to my academic study and planning. I was recently confronted with the subtraction problem while signing up for my lectures. To be honest, creating schedules for my inquisitve self is not the easiest of tasks. My interests span quite broadly. It is a major factor that still hampers my decision about the field I would ultimately prefer to pursue a PhD in if I were offered the opportunity. Previous coursemates once jokingly pointed out how I almost always began my queries during a lecture with the phrase,“I just want to know,…”I was totally unaware of this pattern until my attention was drawn to it.
My expansive interest fields coupled with the challenge of two divergent study programs in two universities separated by some 50 kilometers is not the lightest of subtraction tasks. In order to avoid my intrigued self from wandering off into wonderland, I have had to pivot my choices at the very genesis of my new journey. Creating a list of subjects that ultimately do not contribute to my goal and purposely sticking to choices was the goal to optimize.In terms of control engineering thinking, the problem was an optimal control problem where the goal is to minimize the cost of a constrained finite time horizon objective function.
Creating a list of subjects that ultimately do not contribute to my goal and purposely sticking to those choices was the problem to optimize.
Fortunately, I did not have to exert effort in planning my presence at the different locations. That burden is made less since I am not at the very beginning of both study programs. The added flexibility offered by video lecture as opposed to in-person lecture during this pandemic is in retrospect a huge advantage aiding me avoid a stress of commuting. I have been conditioned through my experience hopping between campuses of my primary university due to the structure of my program. I would summarize that experience as being akin to a sprint often dependent on the mostly lacking punctuality of city rail transport system. Having to spare myself this physical and mental effort at this time is priceless. Thankfully, this conundrum of location duality would cease to be a consideration factor after this semester as I would be largely done with studies at my primary university.
Till the semester fully kicks off, I will be spending time refining my art of the subtraction problem. I am also currently giving thought to when I would not be inclined to join members of my bouldering group. I recently adopted bouldering as a sport to further improve my mental and physical health. The restrictions caused by anxiety at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting recommendation to stay at home impacted my innate need to be in motion. I’m not a jogger or for that matter one to take strolls unless it serves the purpose of releasing stress. I love to be outdoors for extended periods for mainly two reasons; capturing photos or hiking along a path. Bouldering is a sport, I would describe, as being most suited to me in my new quest. Interestingly, bouldering reflects the principle of subtraction in focus; deliberately excluding several colored boulders on a wall along a chosen challenge path to reach the summit or the top while strategically using minimal energy and assessing efforts or steps to attain this goal. Although I am quite the agile individual, I am discovering my own physical limitations and progressively striving on developing them with physical training. Building on my discipline to resist certain interests will hopefully count as my superpower trait and continuing guide on my path. Essentially this learned behaviour will serve a greater role than it currently does in dealings and relationships with people in my personal and professional life; especially in handling my email inbox. In time, it will help refine my considerations concerning PhD interests.
Studying two programs at different universities is conclusivley birthed out of the subtraction problem. But it is perhaps a conversation best reserved for another day.
