Almost everyone I know is reflecting on the year ending today. Most of them think it wasn’t good.
I beg to differ. Not because I had a fantastic year, that’s not true. I had my share of stress and bad days. I just don’t measure my year this way.
“I view myself as a piece of software, today’s version must be better than yesterday’s version, because there is a cliche life is too short why live the same day twice, and tomorrow’s version has to be better than today’s.
Even though I make mistakes, the mistakes are important opportunity to learn. So you can imagine the software will have more ‘if statements’, so that when similar situations happen, you will avoid those.” – Qi Lu, Ex-Microsoft veteran and the current Baidu COO
That last statement by Qi is how I measure my year.
Most of the people I know are not happy by the year’s results because they look at individual events, rather than looking at the number of learnings or the number of added ‘if statements’.
Another point people miss when evaluating the year is the fact that most success in life comes from compounding. That’s why one year is both too long and too short. It takes time to see the results of today’s investments. Be patient.
Now, look at this ending year and ask yourself “How many ‘if statements’ did I add?”. It is more than you think.
Happy New Year!