All of these are so important…and determine the quality of your life!

Knowing your worth will change every decision in your life…because it changes one critical thing:

What you feel you deserve.

Think about it. How does what you feel you deserve, change *your* life?

It will change:

• What Treatment You Expect From a Partner - When you don’t feel good about yourself and have low self-worth, you will put up with a lot of terrible things when you deserve better.
• Who You Date/Marry - Who you spend your time with *every day* certainly can make life amazing, mediocre, or horrific. People who feel badly about themselves often “settle” for people who don’t treat them well, are not kind, or just aren’t as interested in them as they should be.
• What Kind of Jobs You Go For & Feel Capable to Do (and often leading to your income) - Not feeling good about yourself can keep you from reaching your potential - doing lower level jobs than you are capable of. It keeps you professionally stuck, and your income level stuck. People who aren’t confident won’t take the chance to put themselves out there, apply to new jobs regularly, or take chances in their career. They won’t allow themselves to be ambitious & may feel it’s only “other people” who get ahead - when that other person could be you.
• How You Take Care of Yourself - It can definitely impact your overall health when you don’t feel worth it. You don’t see doctors when you know you should, or feel it’s even worth it to do…you might not quit smoking if you don’t care about yourself, or even take care of conditions you know you have (like diabetes, etc.). This all impacts how you feel every single day in your mental & physical health!

All of these are so important…and determine the quality of your life!

Your mindset will guide the choices you make…and those choices determine the world you live in.

So while it can seem so superficial or silly to some to focus on “self-worth, confidence, or self-esteem,” it is - by far - one of the most important areas you can focus on. I hope this explains why!

What are your thoughts on how these have influenced your own life?

-Julie Gurner

Dedicated Focus & Extensive Prioritization

I was able to crack JEE with school in my first attempt due to two reasons: dedicated focus and extensive prioritization.

I was extremely focused on clearing JEE during the last two years of my school life - so much so that I could not even imagine a life without clearing JEE. I used to attend my coaching classes sincerely, and go through my preparation material multiple times. In fact, I read each module at least seven times for the JEE preparation. I took each mock JEE exam as seriously as I would take the actual JEE exam, and closely analyzed my performance after each mock exam. I remember I had severe fever on the day of one of my mocks, but I still traveled to the exam center to take the exam, even though it would not have mattered a bit had I skipped that mock.

While others in my class were busy partying, I was immersed in the preparation. While my friends went on trips to celebrate the end of school days, I was busy revising my material for the hundredth time. During those two years, I did not attend a single family function, hardly saw any movies, and did not go out with my friends. Those two years of my life were completely dedicated to JEE preparation.

I also ensured extensive prioritization during those two years to manage my time. I attended school only once a week, and that too so that I could appear for the weekly tests that happened every Monday. I ensured I appeared for the school tests and exams, so that I would not lose out on any marks, while focusing the rest of the time on JEE preparation. I knew that if I prepared well for JEE, the school exams and the CBSE Board exams would be a cakewalk, but it would not be true the other way round. As a result, I ended up scoring 94.2% in my Board exams in class 12th, even though I had attended school only once a week!

The two years of dedication resulted in the coveted All India Rank 279 in IIT-JEE (now called JEE Advanced), and All India Rank 94 in AIEEE (now called JEE Mains).

JEE had become such an integral part of my life for those two years that I never considered JEE just as an exam. It was a part and parcel of my life.

In fact, to be frank - for those two years, JEE was actually my whole life.

-Rohan Jain,CSE IITK'15, IIMA Batch of 2015-17

Is it true that the best data scientists are self-taught?

It’s true that the best data scientists are self-taught. They just happen to have advanced degrees as well. Most of them anyway.

While a master’s degree or PhD is almost always relevant to data science, it’s just an added bonus. But data scientists are curious and knowledge-hungry people, and most of them have at least a master’s degree.

The thing is, you can’t learn everything you need to know as a data scientist in a graduate program. You can’t even learn everything on the job. Some form of self-study is imperative.

You’ll see this with the best software engineers as well. They’re so dedicated to their profession that they’ve learned most of what they know through self-study, regardless of whether or not they have a degree.

                   -Håkon Hapnes

1. Give everything your all. Life is too short to leave things undone.
2. Say “Yes” to things that scare you. It’s beyond fear you will find the greatest experiences.
3. Leave Social Media Behind. Unless it is for work.
4. Act. It’s the only way to truly get anywhere.
5. Keep the bigger picture in mind. Meaning; Don’t stress about the details.
6. Learn to let go. So you can keep your eyes focused on what’s ahead.
7. Don’t try to please others. This is your life and you have to be okay with it.
8. Do what is necessary. It’s not always easy and not always fun. Do it anyway.
9. Push yourself a little each day. If you improve by just 0.1% a day, within 10 years you’ll be 38 times as good.
10. Control your time. The difference between those who reached success and those who haven’t is how they spend their time.
11. Keep a personal hobby. Something that can truly relax you.
12. Invest in Yourself. Books, Skills, Coaches, Knowledge & Personal Power > Entertainment, Luxury, Material Things & Fleeting Joy.
13. Stay around amazing people. If you were the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with, who would you want to spend your time being around?
14. Fall Deeply in Love. You may get hurt, but it’s always worth it.
15. Be grateful. You have more than you think you do.
16. Keep a sense of humor about everything. If you can laugh about it eventually you can laugh about it now.
17. Put yourself to your practices every day. If you do not do it daily then do not do it at all.
18. Follow the Highest Priority. Never replace something of a higher priority for something with a lesser priority.
19. Focus on how to add more positives. Instead of trying to limit the negatives, trying to save yourself and trying to protect what you have, create so many amazing, positive things that should something fall off it won’t matter. Stack the good stuff!
20. Accept yourself. You are who you are, like what you like, and want what you want. A desire to be more or change does not disqualify that.
21. Chase your Passion. If you do not know it yet, then chase figuring it out!
22. Become your own best friend. Be the person who does not let you get away with lies to yourself and who pushes you the most to do better.
23. Start Today. There is no more perfect time than now.
24. Meditate daily. It adds so much for such little effort.
25. Don’t try to figure out everything. Life is a mess and a mystery. What you do is more important than what you know.
26. Stand behind your Choice. Own up to what you chose to do. It may not always turn out great, but it was made with the best intentions.
27. Remember there is no ‘Easy’ button. Hard and smart work, not easy work, leads to success.
28. Define your Success. Do not idly chase someone else’s dream. Define your own. Chase it with all you’ve got.
29. Live a life worth living. If you do not do what you love, what’s the point to all of this? It’s your life after all, right? So live your own life.  -Lukas Schwekendiek

How can I train myself and make it a habit of studying for 7-8 hours daily?

Here are some habits that you need to be following to get as much study time in as possible:

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Listen to your body. You need enough sleep and you need enough healthy foods, water and fun throughout your day.

There are countless people that have tried to go without sleep and have gone insane, people that only ate unhealthy foods and became completely apathetic and people who tried to study all day who became depressed instantly.

You need a balanced day. Listen to your body!

When you feel like you are missing something, feel a headache coming on, or feel like you did not get enough sleep then it is your body telling you that you are already too late to handle it and it is now getting into the danger zone.

To solve this, and have your body fight alongside you not against you, get enough sleep, drink enough and have some scheduled fun time!

• 7 hours of sleep.
• 3 Liters of Water.
• 2 hours of fun time.

This should be the least you do in these categories on a daily basis.

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Start early in the day. Not only early in the year to study but also early in the day.

I’ve once heard that the first 30 minutes of your day will determine the rest of it, and no matter how often I tried to go against it… it is so true.

If you wake up to a cell phone game, your entire day will be concerned with how to get more gaming time in. If you wake up and exercise, your entire day will be coming from a confident standpoint as you already worked out hard. Etc.

So, if you want to study effectively then before you do ANYTHING else you should grab your notes and study for 30 minutes.

I know you are tired, probably need to use the bathroom and want to grab a coffee first, and I am not saying you cannot do it at all, but just wait 30 minutes before you do and use this time to study.

It will change your entire day.

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Learn more about yourself every day. Different people have different affinities for studying in different ways.

We are all different and have different “talents” and abilities. Do not try to conform to what everyone else is doing, but instead work on it the way that works best for you.

Here are some criteria to watch out for:

• Are you a time learner or an amount learner? Does it stress you more thinking about how much you have to study or how long you have to study? If you are always looking at the time, and you set yourself a certain length to study, maybe try instead to focus on how much you should get done that day and that you will not quit however long it takes. And vice versa.
• Do you do better in the morning and in the evening? Most people, even though they do not like to hear it, work better in the morning. Whatever you believe you are, try out both just to make sure. Work one day for 2 hours in the morning, the next for 2 hours in the evening and be honest with yourself on which works better.
• Can you concentrate more with long or short breaks? Do you work concentrated for 4 hours, taking a 2 hour break and then hitting it for another 4? Or are you the person that does best without a break at all because you will fall into distractions? Or are you the kind that needs 5 minutes every 15 minutes to get enough done?
  Again, try them all and then see which works best. Do not believe which works best for you know it. Otherwise you will only pick the one you like the best.

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Schedule your work time as best as you can. No matter how much you said you would do, and how good your intentions are, if you do not know how you spend your time you will not be able to get better at it.

How many Sundays do you have left until your exam or until that big event/project is due? If you cannot answer this you are not scheduling your time effectively and therefore not using it to its full potential.

Yes, it is a lot of work to put up and follow a schedule, but if you want to be effective you need to really know how you are using your time. That means tracking it, calculating it and scheduling it.

Grab yourself a schedule and at least organize the week ahead, putting in enough time for fun activities as well but also enough to finish everything you set out to do.

Even if you still have 5 months left until the exam, start now and plan at least twice as much time to study for it as you think it would take.

Most people misjudge how long things take and how much effort is required, but if you can find out exactly how much you need by keeping track of your progress, then you will have a much more relaxed time studying

-Lukas Schwekendiek

Why Shall I explain in math paper what I am doing? Cant I just solve it?

If you do not know how to explain what you are doing, then you are useless.
 

I know that sounds like a harsh statement, but bear in mind that when it comes to mathematics, literally the only thing that makes you better than a computer is your ability to understand what all of these numbers and symbols mean, and therefore use some creativity, logic, and proper judgement to get out appropriate conclusions. In every other aspect, computers are better than you: they are faster, they never make mistakes, they never file for worker compensation, they never generate complaints with human resources, they never take sick days, etc., etc. If your only mathematical skill is to be able to take in some inputs and run some algorithms that you know to get out an answer, then there is no point in having you—a computer would do that job literally hundreds of times better than you can ever hope to do it.
 

If this is your only skill, you aren’t just obsolete; you are a liability. I offer two case studies toward this point: Verizon Doesn’t Know How To Count and Apparently, Calculus Was Invented In 1994. The first story is from 2006, when Verizon representatives misquoted their data plan as being 0.002¢/kilobyte when it should have been $0.002/kilobyte. This then generated a massive amount of negative publicity when their customer service representatives could not figure out what was wrong—listening to the transcript of the call, it is obvious that they were simply plugging numbers into a calculator, without any understanding of what those numbers mean. The second story is thematically similar, but with a very different setting: a biologist published a paper in 1994 explaining her method of computing the area under the curve. The only problem is that her method was just the Trapezoid Rule, known to mathematicians since the 17th century at the very latest.

 Considering that biologists generally do have to take a calculus course, it is clear that she learned how to crunch formulas and write down integrals, but what it all meant never actually sunk in. (Even more frustratingly, this same paper has since been cited by other biologists, who refer to it as “Tai’s method.”)
 

As such, it is crucial that teachers be able to assess not just that you are able to push symbols around, but that you actually have an understanding of what it all means. Furthermore, the skill of being able to explain your reasoning is supremely valuable—in the business world, it will help you tremendously if your boss ever asks you to explain why your proposed solution is the right way to go. In academia, if you do not understand how to explain your reasoning, you will not get published. If nobody gets what you are doing, they are more likely to conclude that you are crank than that you are an inscrutable genius. (With good reason. Inscrutable geniuses are only a few a generation, while cranks are as abundant as stars in the sky.) One of my best friends in graduate school wrote a paper, and then his adviser forced him to edit and rewrite that paper for a year before he finally concluded that it was in a fit state to be published. I have known many a budding mathematician who was very clever and very bright, but was absolutely awful at expressing their thoughts—this is something that has to be outgrown.

-Senia Sheydvasser

Psychological.....

Mental illness does not grow by the same physical mechanisms as cancer, but it often does spread into new areas when left untreated. We see this in its simple form with a phobia.

Most phobias are unconscious attempts to contain and redirect the anxiety that we feel about something in our life that feels far more realistically dangerous than the phobia.

Let me give you an example to show how this works.

Example—Sherry and her fear of crossing bridges

Sherry lives in New Jersey and I practice psychotherapy in New York City. To get to my office, Sherry drives across the George Washington Bridge. Sherry is an excellent driver.

Sherry entered therapy because she has been married for five years to Jerry, a verbally abusive and controlling man ten years her senior. Sherry knew Jerry was controlling, but in the beginning of the relationship she found this appealing.

Sherry’s father had died when she was a toddler, and she used Jerry as a father substitute. She didn’t mind being told what to do because she saw that as a form of being parented—-something she had longed for from a man. But when Jerry turned nasty and devaluing, she began to rethink the relationship. When Jerry threatened to smack her in the middle of a fight and threw a mug of coffee at her, that was the last straw for Sherry.

• Sherry was afraid to be alone

When Jerry refused to go to couple counseling, Sherry came to therapy to find the strength to leave him. We began to work on her early abandonment issues and her fears about not being able to cope with life without a man to “protect” her.

• Sherry develops a phobia

Just when Sherry had gotten to the point of hiring a divorce lawyer and telling Jerry that she was leaving, she suddenly developed a phobia about driving over bridges when she was alone in her car. She felt highly anxious and started having panic attacks when she tried to drive cross the George Washington Bridge.

Of course, her real panic was about leaving Jerry. All her anxiety about that was now hidden in the form of a bridge phobia. I suggested that we stop to work on her bridge phobia, but Sherry did not see it as important. After all, she reasoned, there were other routes she could take to my office.

• Sherry’s phobia spreads to tunnels

So, the next time Sherry came to my office, she drove miles out of her way to avoid having to cross the bridge. She used the Lincoln Tunnel instead. This worked for a few sessions, but soon Sherry’s anxiety spread to tunnels as well.

I was not surprised by this because I knew from the start that her fear was about leaving Jerry, not bridges or tunnels. Her panic attacks were real, although they were misdirected and attached to an emotionally safer target than leaving Jerry.

• Sherry still wants to leave Jerry

I explained my view of what was going on and the real fears about abandonment that her bridge and tunnel fears were masking. She agreed this made sense, and Sherry expressed her determination to continue with her plans to leave Jerry.

• Sherry develops agoraphobia

Unfortunately, part of Sherry was determined to sabotage her plan to leave. Her inner child did not want to leave her “Daddy Jerry.” Adult Sherry no longer wanted to stay with her husband, but her inner needy child part was even more determined to stay.

When we worked in therapy on this conflict and started to make progress again, Sherry suddenly developed agorophobia and got panicky at the idea of leaving her house by herself.

This left her more dependent on Jerry than ever. Now she would not leave her house without him. When she was with him, her anxiety diminished. This diminishment of her anxiety when she stayed close to Jerry confirmed that the real basis for her panic attacks was her fear of leaving him.

• Phobias generalize

When you start letting phobias stop you from doing what you want and try to work around them, your life starts to get smaller. Unfortunately, the phobia gets larger and spreads out to things that metaphorically connect to it.

It went from the George Washington Bridge to all bridges and tunnels. By analogy, it spread to all things that connected two different places. Sherry also became afraid to take subways, elevators, and escalators. Then Sherry could not leave her house without her husband.

• Phone Sessions

At this point, Sherry could only come to therapy if her husband Jerry drove her or we did phone sessions. Her fears about leaving Jerry had ironically tied her even closer to him.

I suggested that she needed to work on her phobias and reclaim her ability to drive, cross bridges, take elevators, etc. it was also obvious that she had to do more work on her fears about having to take care of herself by herself.

What had started out as a seemingly simple therapy, now showed its complex and deep seated origins. Its symptoms were spreading out like kudzu vines from one central deep wound—the loss of Sherry’s father at an early age and its psychological repercussions.

Ultimately, for the therapy to succeed, Sherry needed to temporarily shelve her plan to leave her husband and focus on this early trauma.

Punchline: There is a different underlying mechanism between the spread of cancer and the spread of mental illness. But…like invasive cancers, many mental illnesses will expand and take over more and more of your life, if you try and accommodate them instead of successfully addressing their source.

Elinor Greenberg, PhD, CGP

Study for the knowledge, not for the exams: I had a bunch of classmates who just mugged up all the answers without understanding them. They were experts at memorising things and producing them on the answer sheet and hence scored well at the exams. However in terms of practical knowledge and application they were terrible. Even though they were performers at the exams, the didn’t do that well in their careers. Most colleges and institutions prioritise memorisation over understanding which can prove disastrous. Hence always make it a point to understand things rather than focusing on just memorising them. Spend more time and effort on actual “Learning” than just mugging things up, you might end up scoring less in exams but it will all be worth it in your professional life.

Working out: Join a gym, workout regularly. If you cant afford to buy a membership then simply walk/run every day. Exercising regularly improves your cognitive function and will help you study better. Plus it’s better to form a habit of working out at an early age, it will prove beneficial in the long run.

Read a ton: Read any books you can get your hands on, if your college has a library just pick any book that you might find interesting even if that is not related to your branch. If you are in IT and yet microbiology interests you then go ahead and read that, you might be able to build an interesting web app that involves both domains. Reading never goes to waste, whatever good content you consume always proves to be beneficial in one way or another. Read about business, economics, science or whatever topic that might interest you.

Say no to porn, alcohol & drugs: They are just a means to escape your reality. Sometimes when life becomes hard its easy to turn towards things which take you away from your reality and make you feel better for a while. However it is extremely unhealthy to use these things to escape. There are better things and activities that can do the same for you but require some additional effort, like exercising, socialising, reading or any other hobby of your choice which can make you feel good. The reason why people turn towards alcohol and porn and not towards reading or running is because the former are not because they are perverts, but because these things are easy to do and require no or less effort. You can get the same amount of high by doing an intense workout or indulging in a productive hobby.      

Pick good friends: The kind of friends you have makes a huge deal of a difference as they have a lot of influence on your thoughts and actions. If you hangout with a bunch of drunkards there is a chance that you will soon turn into a drukard, if you hang out with fitness freaks you will be influenced to some healthy habits. Make friends who have similar goals as you do.

You still have plenty of time for relationships: Its never a good choice to be in a relationship when you are working on your career, especially if you are a sensitive person. Relationships are a huge deal, if everything goes well then its all fine but if they do not go well while you are in the midst of building your career then it will have a drastic impact on your performance. Always prioritise your career over relationships.

Start making money: Find some creative ideas to make some money. Maybe start a small service based business while still in college. You don’t have to aim to build the next million dollar startup, even if you are able to make a couple thousand rupees every month it would be good. It will not only fetch you a couple of bucks but will also make you a bit financially aware. Also if your business goes well, maybe you could be earning a good amount of cash from it as well

-Saurav Sharma

There is nothing surprising about the hatred against....

There is nothing surprising about the hatred against intellectuals or thinkers.

They had been prosecuted since ages all over the world.

Socrates was forced to drink poison for awakening the masses.

Jesus Christ was crucified for spreading the message of love and humanity.

Galileo was put under house arrest by Church for giving the heliocentric theory (Earth revolves around sun) instead of geocentric theory (everything revolves around earth).

When Galileo was punished for speaking the truth, he rightly said, "And yet it moves".

Today the whole world know the truth that Earth revolves around sun and not other way round.

Truth can’t be changed though temporarily suppressed.

Most people are not only ignorant, but also stupid enough to believe the false propaganda as truth.

Instead of punishing the one who is spreading the lies, they often punish the one who is speaking the truth.

You can educate a person who is ignorant, but can’t help a person who posseses false knowledge and consider it to be THE truth.

George Bernard Shaw said it wisely, “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance”.

-Awdhesh Singh

Narcissists want in a relationship

They think they want to be loved. But no matter what you do or how much you love them through kindness patience and understanding, it’s never enough. All the love and adulation cannot satisfy them cause they are an empty shell of a human being. Ultimately even they don’t know what they want in a relationship and how to be in one, as they feel nothing for anyone but themselves. Even the pseudo empathy they try to feel for people around them is always related to their projections and needs. These people have no idea how to relate to themselves, so how will they relate to anybody?

Like others have mentioned, and it’s textbook accurate when they say - narcissists need a relationship as a game, someone to use as a punching bag, someone to offload their rage and anger, someone to make them feel good when they want attention. Even with all this, they get bored and create drama and will keep a stand by relationship to create a triangulation, whether real or imaginary.
A relationship for them is a playground to act out their fantasies, a means to an end, nothing more nothing less.

 -Mayura Kutappa

I Understand the material but cant solve Problems

Ah, you’ve fallen for the understanding trap.

 

You attend all the lectures. You probably leave each lecture thinking “Yeah, good, I understood that.” That feeling is a seductive lie.

 

You study all the material. For most people, that means you reread the material to make sure you understand it. You probably walk out of your study sessions thinking “Yeah, good, I understood that.” That feeling is a seductive lie.

 

Applying knowledge is a skill, like basketball or carpentry or card magic. The only way to get better at a skill is by practicing that skill. You can watch Gordon Ramsay all day long, but you won’t learn how to cook unless you actually go into the kitchen, break a few pots, serve mediocre food to people, hear and learn from their criticism, go back in the kitchen, break fewer pots, make better food, and so on. The only way to learn to do the thing is by doing the thing.

 

So if you want to be better at applying your STEM knowledge, you have to apply your STEM knowledge. To get better at solving problems, you have to solve problems. To get better at taking exams, you have to practice the skills that the tests ask you to demonstrate. That’s hard work, not just because the subject itself is hard, but because you have to battle your own self-image. (That frustrated feeling that you’ll never be able to do this is also a seductive lie!)

 

So. Find a bunch of problems to solve. (You can often find them in your textbook, or in your instructor’s homework assignments.) Close the book, turn off the internet, find some blank paper, write one problem statement at the top of each page, and then start solving. When you get stuck—and you will get stuck— ask your teacher or fellow students or the internet or your textbook for help, but not help solving that specific problem. Rather, ask for help solving that kind of problem. Try to figure out why you’re getting stuck, and work on that cause. Repeat ad nauseam.

 

-Jeff Erickson, Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley (1996)