Handbag
I had a long phone conversation with mom this week, during which she reminded me of something that happened when I was a bit younger.
That's when I was still a teenager, and I went shopping for a handbag in Chinatown. If you've ever been there you'd know that there are rows of stalls selling similar merchandise near Canal street, and I was hopping from one to the other. Mom asked me what I was looking for, I couldn't pinpoint it exactly, but I'd point out things and features I liked when I see them. "I'd prefer the shape of the bag to be vertical instead of horizontal." "I like this trapezoidal design." "look, the addition of that extra pocket on the side can be really useful." "Zippers are essential if I don't want little things to fall out." .... so it went on like this for an hour plus, until my mom finally told me to stop being so critical, and just decide on one. She said that it doesn't really matter if I find ALL the things I wanted in one bag, that's just not possible. Unless I custom design a handbag for myself, which then will have carry the perfect shades of brown/gray, and built to my exact specification. But at the price point below $40, that's just not realistic. She told me to consider it from another angle, it'll just be a use and toss bag for a year or two anyways. She does agree with my feature list above, but she said that I will be too exhausted if I lead a life always looking for perfection, not to mention unattainable perfection...
She reminded me of that incident this week, and I had a renewed insight into this. I am wondering if this is now becoming a professional habit, because everything that I build is "virtual", and can be bent and customized anytime. After all, it's just all code, right? I am usually given a spec document, and then I build the code to achieve that. The whole thing is a black box from the beginning to the end, much like the handbag, I design and build it to spec, then the customer is happy because they got everything they asked for (or, yes, hopefully so)... Or we can just delete a certain property and rebuild another module, with improvements.
But real life does not function like this, most of the things we can't simply change at a whim. And even if we can, from the economical analysis point of view, we'd be investing in 80% more resources to reap the last 20% of benefit towards perfection. (mapped out, this would be a plateau contour diagram) Fact of life is, I just can't have everything going the way I want them to be and when I want them to be...
This ties in with another life lesson I learned a while back, "C'est la Vie". Some times we will just have to take what life gives us, deal with the situations, and hope for the best. Even better if we are able to accept with a graceful manner. Here is a famous prayer quoted below:
That's when I was still a teenager, and I went shopping for a handbag in Chinatown. If you've ever been there you'd know that there are rows of stalls selling similar merchandise near Canal street, and I was hopping from one to the other. Mom asked me what I was looking for, I couldn't pinpoint it exactly, but I'd point out things and features I liked when I see them. "I'd prefer the shape of the bag to be vertical instead of horizontal." "I like this trapezoidal design." "look, the addition of that extra pocket on the side can be really useful." "Zippers are essential if I don't want little things to fall out." .... so it went on like this for an hour plus, until my mom finally told me to stop being so critical, and just decide on one. She said that it doesn't really matter if I find ALL the things I wanted in one bag, that's just not possible. Unless I custom design a handbag for myself, which then will have carry the perfect shades of brown/gray, and built to my exact specification. But at the price point below $40, that's just not realistic. She told me to consider it from another angle, it'll just be a use and toss bag for a year or two anyways. She does agree with my feature list above, but she said that I will be too exhausted if I lead a life always looking for perfection, not to mention unattainable perfection...
She reminded me of that incident this week, and I had a renewed insight into this. I am wondering if this is now becoming a professional habit, because everything that I build is "virtual", and can be bent and customized anytime. After all, it's just all code, right? I am usually given a spec document, and then I build the code to achieve that. The whole thing is a black box from the beginning to the end, much like the handbag, I design and build it to spec, then the customer is happy because they got everything they asked for (or, yes, hopefully so)... Or we can just delete a certain property and rebuild another module, with improvements.
But real life does not function like this, most of the things we can't simply change at a whim. And even if we can, from the economical analysis point of view, we'd be investing in 80% more resources to reap the last 20% of benefit towards perfection. (mapped out, this would be a plateau contour diagram) Fact of life is, I just can't have everything going the way I want them to be and when I want them to be...
This ties in with another life lesson I learned a while back, "C'est la Vie". Some times we will just have to take what life gives us, deal with the situations, and hope for the best. Even better if we are able to accept with a graceful manner. Here is a famous prayer quoted below:
"Oh Lord,- 2c
give me the courage to change the things I can,
the strength to accept what I cannot change,
and the wisdom to know the difference."
-- posted by Pooh Bear @
11/02/2006 02:37:00 PM
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