You will never, ever be able to see your own face.

(Unless you’ve mastered astral projection, I guess.)

You can see a reflection of your face. You can see a reflection of a reflection of your face and see how you look to other people. You can see a photograph of your face. But your own eyes can’t perceive themselves. All they can do is get a glimpse of part of your nose, if it’s big enough. We can never truly see ourselves as others see us—or as we see others.

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When I saw my house for the first time, I didn’t notice the condition of the floors.

I was so enamored with the many windows and the cute little bedrooms and the ancient but charming kitchen that I didn’t realize that the hardwoods in the living room were a treacherous expanse likely to give you a splinter when you dared to traverse them. Even with socks on. In fact, this didn’t occur to me until months later when I got my first splinter (with socks on).

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Watching over the shoulders of gamer friends and relatives as they choose their avatars for the journey ahead, I’ve learned about the tradeoffs involved.

You can have strength, agility, stamina, or cunning — but not all four to the same degree. Each option has its vulnerabilities and advantages. You’ve got to make decisions about what will be most useful to you, based on your own unique playing style and preferences.

Kinda like life, right? Except in life, some of us get the idea somewhere that we’re supposed to be good at everything and that there shouldn’t be any tradeoffs.

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In his now-classic book that inspired a generation of digital nomads, Tim Ferriss points out that an unreasonable or unrealistic goal is easier to achieve than a reasonable or realistic one.

Meanwhile, Cal Newport, in his book How to be a High School Superstar, shares the value of doing things that are fairly easy but sound impressive. Why compete with dozens of others to be valedictorian when you can put your energy into fundraising for your very own nonprofit?

And in another of Newport’s books, the author suggests that leveraging skills you’re already good at to become even better is the path to a fulfilling career.

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School rewards good penmanship, strong language skills, facility with numbers, social ease, and athletic ability. Bonus points if you are well organized and approval-seeking.

Forgive me for broadly generalizing here: Engineers are often good at numbers. But their other strengths — such as spatial ability, innovation, making unusual connections, finding shortcuts, tolerance for failure, skill at manipulating inanimate objects, and asking challenging questions — can be virtually invisible in a typical liberal arts-based K - 12 curriculum. 

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