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- KenshoVsDetermination . . . May 10, 2018, at 01:48 PM by quanticle: Page moved to Main.KenshoVsDetermination
- Determination . . . May 10, 2018, at 01:45 PM by quanticle: (:markdown:) Today, I almost missed my flight. I woke up 110 minutes late. But, thanks to some heroics by my Uber driver, preparation on my part, and having the correct mindset, I was still able to make it on time. That mindset, however, was *not* Kensho, and, in fact, I think that having a Kensho mindset would have been actively counterproductive in my situation. Along the way, I'll try to outline a more productive mindset for use in situations like this one. As far as I understand it, Kensho is derived from the Buddhist concept of *enlightenment*. To me, enlightenment means to be at peace and to have acceptace of the world as it is, and to understand that some things are fundamentally out of one's control. For example, when Valentine went to meet his *sensei* in New York, he left without knowing whether his teacher would actually be present. He knowingly left it to the winds of fate to determine whether he got to meet his teacher or not. While it seems like I did exactly the same thing (god, waking up 110 minutes late, what were you thinking?!) I think I held a different mindset. My mindset was **not** one of acceptance. It was one of problem solving. I tried to put myself in the same mindset of one of my personal heroes, James Lovell. I took my one impossible problem (get to the boarding gate by at least 10 minutes before the flight departs) and broke it down into smaller problems, which, while they seemed equally impossible, at least offered the hints of solution. I thought to myself, "In order to get to the gate, I need to get to the airport. In order to get to the airport, I need to get out of my apartment. In order to get out of my apartment, I need to get dressed." And then, at every stage, I consciously worked to shave time and maximize my odds, while knowing viscerally that the odds were very much against my making it to the plane on time. Moreover, while I failed critically in the task of waking up on time, I had prepared in other ways, and that preparation became even more crucial in this crisis situation. I did the work of making sure I had finished packing the night before. I had printed out my boarding passes and written the departure gate down on them, ensuring that I didn't have to stop once I got into the airport to find out where the flight was leaving from. I had signed up for TSA Pre-Check allowing me to use the priority lines at the security checkpoints. While normally a convenience, Pre-Check was absolutely crucial in this instance. Another form of preparation was creating a checklist. Even though I was not able to complete all of the items on the checklist, the mere act of *having* a checklist ensure that I was able to be intentional about the steps that I was skipping, ensuring that nothing truly important (like grabbing my wallet and keys) got skipped. The checklist also allowed me to be confident in my preparation - I was able to tell, at a glance, that everything important had already been taken care of, and that the only thing I really needed to do was get dressed, grab my gear, and run out the door. This stands in utter contrast to the way that Valentine lacksadaiscally hopped on a plane, without doing any kind of advance preparation to see if his teacher would even be in town when he arrived.