I don’t dabble much with ancient languages. But I was recently drawn to a couple of Latin phrases, one of which I’ve decided to set as a personal motto to add on to my creed. The first phrase is:
Natura non facit saltus
It translates to ‘Nature does not take leaps’ and appears to be the axiom of infinitesimal calculus and a basic principle of many physical laws as well as some classical economic theory (Alfred Marshall’s in particular). My application of it to life is the idea that things in our lives do not change overnight. Good or bad things don’t just happen suddenly – they are usually building up in the background only to give you the impact at the end. And that being said, any sort of success or achievement is not a single big undertaking but a collection of tiny decisions made from time to time. It is the discipline to brush our teeth every day and night that blesses us with oral hygiene and the lack of trouble with dentists. Likewise, it is consistent revision and studying that keeps us on track and help us do well in exams eventually.
Big changes always start with small steps. So if there’s something in your life you wish to change, think from the tiniest decisions you are making every single day. In particular, I owe my super low resting pulse rate of 39 beats per minute to the 4.5km run I’ve been doing practically everyday as well as the long marathon training I made myself do back in the army. And it was when I was looking up ‘ASICS’, the brand of my running shoes, that I discovered the latin phrase ‘anima sano in corpore sano’. I never knew ‘ASICS’ was an acronym for this phrase, which meant ‘A healthy soul in a healthy body’. It was a beautiful phrase. But I went a step further and realised it is an adaptation of yet another latin phrase, ‘mens sano in corpore sano’. It struck me as an extremely powerful personal development, self-improvement motto though MSICS obviously don’t appear to be a nice nor pronounceable acronym.
And so here comes the update on some motivational cornerstones for my personal development:
Vib’s Motto
Mens sano in corpore sano – A sound mind in a healthy body or the ASICS advertising version ‘Sound mind, Sound body’.
And not forgetting my creed, which has been modified slightly; this version has been titled as ‘A Little Man’s Creed’ (as inspired by the title of the poem ‘The Little Chap Who Follows Me‘) by me, and I’ve been printing it and giving out to people as gifts.
Vib’s Creed
Goodness is the enemy of greatness. Never be satisfied with just being good.
Never be overwhelmed by gloom and doom. Distant from those who are.
Be motivated by the virtues of work and life and not deterred by the fear of punishment.
Courage is not having no fears. Courage is having fears but doing it anyways.
Be lazy but work hard to slack later. Work harder so as to slack even more.
Take breaks. Break from learning by working and break from working by learning.
Show contempt for procrastinators, slackers and poorly motivated individuals.
Fear the status quo. Embrace change.
And as John Wooden said, ‘Never cease to be the best you can be’. Remember, natura non facit saltus and so it is this ceaseless-ness in practising those ideas that brings out mens sano in corpore sano.
There is actually a field which is the study of ‘lighthouses’ – Pharology. Amazing.
I was working on the quiz for Management Accounting set by the Accounting Department in LSE. Apparently, there is quite a couple of cool companies that do interesting stuff in the minds of these tutors:
- There’s a express courier service company known as Peter Pan Worldwide. Their small parcels division has budgeted that each parcel delivery should on average take 5 minutes of labour time. Peter Pan indeed.
- Sultan plc and Wasir Ltd both produces flying carpets. What’s with the Arabic sounding names?
- Weavers are Sultan plc and Wasir Ltd has got good lives because they periodically threaten to join the rival company and their wages will be systematically raised by 10% from the standard rate. Economically unconvincing because the employers could likewise claim that the weavers from the other side are keen on replacing the ones in the existing firm.
- Mumkin Enterprises produces wands that require 2 hours to make each and they use a process-costing system.
Now you know that accountants can be pretty imaginative…
Keynes appeared to be one of the most perceptive economist and I found what he said about being an economist and the study of economics in general really true:
“The study of economics does not seem to require any specialised gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy and pure science? Yet good, or even competent, economists are the rarest of birds. An easy subject, at which very few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher—in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician.” – John Maynard Keynes
In a sense, an economist is really a master of nothing. My interest economics is really a result of the fatigue after going through being excited about every other field I encounter and realising I can’t quite make up my mind what I can ever be good at. And to remind everyone again, this is exactly what I mentioned in my personal statement when applying to LSE:
“I was attracted to every discipline I was exposed to, whether it was Socrates’ Moral Philosophy, Newtonian Physics and its implications on Determinism or the wonders of Quantum Tunneling. Yet Economics, with its all-pervading nature grounded upon questions of morals and justice, intertwined with the rigour of logical computations and equilibrium derivations stands out as a subject that seeks answers to the wide array of questions I have about the world.”
The Spring break is almost exactly halfway through today and over the weeks I managed to do quite some stuff (useful and useless) including going for a Spring Internship, doing some revision, grabbing Ben & Jerry’s free cone for the first time in my life (queues in London and way shorter and not so off-putting), bringing Bing Yuan around in London, lots of grocery shopping, lots of cooking and lots of eating.
In particular, I ate 5 South African Sweet Gala apples within the past 24 hours. Not to mention breakfasts that consisted usually of a home-made burger, a bowl of cereal, a fruit bar and an omelette. I have to make a trip to the supermarket practically every 2 days to replenish my supplies. In particular, studying really makes one hungry and you start munching away unknowingly. Bad news then, for those who are already horizontally domineering.
On another note, Project Work Season is here in JCs, for those reading who might be interested, ERPZ has a piece on PW which might be really useful. I’ve to get back to work.
”You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
I’d like to add that if you know you’ll hit almost 100% of the shots you take, you stop bothering to aim. And I guess “Mr Wang” correctly identify the root of the recent outcry in the Singapore politics.
My writing bug got re-activated by the LSE100 essay I was writing and given that this is the final week of the term and all materials in my first year of LSE has been covered, I’m going back to writing. I still have exams to clear, lots of writing to do and my French written exam is coming up! Je ne peux pas parler français! Comment?
I wished I had been more active with writing through my course here in London but work has been a tad bit too overwhelming and I think through the course I’ve worked a little too much. This blog will probably be rich with anecdotes by now.
