Last weekend I learned the difference between working as a group and working as a team, in an unforgettable experience with the Outdoor Adventure Education program (OAE) at school. We ventured to Huaraz (a state of Peru) into the Andean mountain range to hike some massive snow-covered mountains. Within six days, we spend more that 20 hours of intense hiking at 4,300 to 5,300 meters above sea level, with temperatures that reached below 0 degrees celsius and air that lacked so much oxygen, your heart raced even when you were sleeping. Oh, and for several hikes you had to carry a 10-15 kg backpack, that dragged your shoulders down like if someone were pulling ropes to hold you back. Such was the rigour of the trip, that there was one condition put by the teachers and the guides; that we all had to work as a TEAM in order to achieve our goal.
Believe me or not, if we would have worked as a group and not as a team we wouldn't have gotten anywhere in this trip. Usually, when we are put with people we don't know, we perform what’s called group work. It’s great for getting things done because several people collaborate for the completion of one specific task, but everybody does it because in the end there must be a personal reward for each member. Take for example, school group presentations where everybody gets a separate grade. Here, everyone is working on their own task and they don't care how well each other member is doing because the grades are individual. Everyone is focused on their own part, and not on crafting one great entire presentation. Working as a team is one step further than working as a group. It’s the collaboration of two or more individuals to achieve a common goal while discarding or undervaluing any personal benefits. Nothing stands between the team and the goal. You develop empathy and trust for your teammates and actually care how they are doing because the entire team needs them. You put others before you and every decision is made for the greater good. You are all in it together. During the trip, there was one instance that truly marked the need of teamwork within the group. It was the day before leaving for the base camp that would lead to the summit of the mountain. We were still on the refuge and the guides asked to check our sleeping bags and mats to see if they were warm enough to resist the cold temperatures up at the camp. Well, it turned out that several of our equipment, including mine, weren't warm enough to resist those extreme temperatures and they told us that we couldn’t go if we didn't have the equipment. It was shocking that all of a sudden several of us wouldn't be able to go to the most anticipated part of the trip and that would really hinder the dynamics of the team. But then, Javier Ducassi made what I consider to be, a heroic act. He came to me and said: “Hey Nico, I’ve been thinking about it, and considering that I have been sick these days, I don’t think my body will push much further. I think my equipment will be of better use with you. Take it.” That was an excellent example of teamwork, when one is willing to sacrifice himself for the team. This habit of teamwork stayed with us through the rest of the trip. When we had to pack our food before leaving, people didn’t pack what they themselves would eat, but instead what the entire team would eat. When we cooked in the portable stove, we cooked for everybody. We let the girls eat first so that they could go to sleep earlier. When we were hiking at 5,300 meters, I was not feeling very well and my fingers were starting to freeze, one of my teammates did me the favour of accompanying me back to the camp. Teamwork will always outweigh group work in every single way shape or form, but it’s not easy to achieve. It requires commitment, empathy, honesty, and it absolutely CANNOT contain a single drop of greed because it will poison the entire system and spread amongst each member. This system can simply not tolerate any act of selfishness. Work as a team in a sports club, in a relationship, in a group project, and you’ll see you’ll be more efficient and effective with the time and quality of your work. Myself, I will try harder to work as a team in my IA class project, as I don’t feel I have giving my full on support to each area of the project. Give it a shot and trust me. How will you find a way to work as a team?
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The teenage years are one of the most important stages in life. For our bodies, it’s a time for brain development, body growth and puberty. For our minds, it’s a time for learning, new experiences and reflecting. For our emotions, it’s a time of seeking acceptance, self awareness, insecurities and stress. On top of all that, most decisions you make actually start to have significant importance: your career choice, with whom you hung out, how you spend your time. But the most important thing about the teenage years is that it marks the end of one's childhood, or as I like to call it: the point where innocence became ignorance.
It is always nostalgic and even a bit sad when I think back to my childhood because I remember the time where nothing really mattered. There was nothing to be stressed about, nothing to make you truly worry, the opinions of others about you meant absolutely nothing and you would make decisions based on how fun the idea sounded. When you are so young no one really expects something from you, therefore when you make a dumb mistake or when you don't know something obvious, everything is just excused because “you are just an innocent kid”. But then, suddenly around the time of middle school, things completely change. You have grown more, you have more knowledge about the world and your surroundings, you become more aware of who you are, what you like, who you like and people start to expect things from you, but you are still an immature little kid. It’s this confrontation between being immature and people's expectations that ignites the teenage struggle. From now on innocence isn’t an excuse and is otherwise seen as ignorance. The first time the school said something like “You should already know this, this and this and you should be getting these grades or else you’ll fail…” I felt so overwhelmed that I wanted to timeout and think “Since when do I have to do all this!” That was the first time I felt the horrible feeling of stress. As long as one is still immature during the presence of expectations, he or she will never grow and develop to fulfill these very expectations. This is why, mostly in the beginning, teenagers are so rebellious, because their immature way of being would rather omit having to fulfill their duties and focus on less stressful matters like hanging out with friends. And it is precisely in these moments where you start to miss being an innocent young child. Eventually, around 8th or 9th grade we start to mature and with it we accept the conditions of our current reality, where things won’t be as easy as when we were kids and we have to do something about it. You start to meet people's expectations and you finally think to yourself “this is doable”. Although the stress is never really gone, you now know the way around things. Stress is not good for you, but in the case you might feel it, think of it as your body’s way of telling you to push yourself even more on that one. Time goes on and you eventually get the scariest thought of all, that work never stops and it will always get harder. When I mentioned this to my grandfather, he gave me a brilliant answer: “Nico, the day life goes easy on you and no one expects more things from you, you’ll start to create expectations for yourself”. It has recently come to my attention the phrase “think long term benefit”. I’ve heard it lots of times throughout my life but I have never put a lot thought to its meanings and implications. But now, through some great anecdotes of my father I have been able to understand its implications in a personal scale and in a company scale. When you think of long term benefit, you are investing/sacrificing something in your current moment that will give you an even greater reward in the future. This might sound very easy to do, but the problem is that we tend to act based on our current emotions to have instant satisfaction, therefore we almost always (even unconsciously) think of short term benefit. It's just like leaving a homework for later just so you could play right now. But you have already heard of procrastination and there is nothing new about it, therefore I would like to share two great examples of long term thinking in a company scale, where there are much more people in play than just yourself. Both examples will be of Tottus hypermarket because I used my father as a primary source. The first scenario took place about 9 months ago during the Copa America soccer championship. The Copa America is the biggest soccer championship in South America that started back in 1916 and takes place every four years. Soccer is the number one sport in South America, therefore this championship is HUGE for latinos. What does Tottus have to do with this? Well, right before the championship started, Tottus made an offer. The offer said that if you buy a television in Tottus within a specific date and Peru wins the championship, then the TV you bought is completely free. Sounds like a great offer right? Well, people didn't take it that way. Instead of thinking that Tottus wanted the best for its clients, people took it offensively. Like in every bet, there is a bigger reward if the probability of an event happening is lower. For example, Tottus was not going to bet for Argentina to win the championship because there is a much higher probability that Argentina wins. In other words, people inferred that Tottus thought that Peru’s team was so bad that there was no chance for it to win the championship. There was A LOT of hate towards Tottus and it’s image suddenly started to break. After Chile won the tournament, people started to say that is was all “part of their evil plan” and social media pages of anti Tottus started to emerge. So, the company could either continue its way with the money they made with the sold TV’s (short term benefit) or it could fix its almost broken image (long term benefit). Tottus decided to fix its reputation by giving back the money to the people who bought TV’s even though Peru didn’t win. It was about 1 million soles worth of TV’s. The image that shared this big news got more than 50 thousand likes and made the company’s reputation better than ever. The second scenario took place last week when a violent 10 day long protest in Pucallpa created a mini inflation in the city. Things were so dangerous that small markets couldn't supply themselves with more food and the demand for such basic needs were kept the same, therefore the price of food became very high. There is a Tottus store in Pucallpa going through the same problems as all the other markets, but they have tackled the problem differently. Instead of rising the price for most products, they decided to freeze the prices. Nothing goes higher, nothing goes lower. But now there is another problem. How are they going to keep up the supply if the supply was already low? For the first time ever Tottus is sending their products by airplane to Pucallpa to quickly supply the store with fresh food. It is now the only store in Pucallpa to offer fresh food at the same price as before; all so that people could still access their basic needs. Of course Tottus is losing lots of money doing this, but it is a long term investment. As a funny side note I just realized I sound like I am getting paid to promote my dad's company, but please believe me I’m not. I just thought these scenarios were worth sharing because I’m sure that the takeaway is clear and self explanatory. Remember to think long term benefit, but try not to get too caught up with the future; after all it is the current moment the thing we should enjoy the most. *Less of a theoretical/takeaway and more of an analytical blog*
Let's take a time to consider the presidential candidates for Peru’s 2016 elections. It’s March already and elections are on April through June so politics is in everyone's minds right now. Though I’m still under age and can’t vote I still like to somewhat follow peruvian politics (especially in these times) just to be aware of everything that’s going on and to more importantly understand how the world of politics works. Apparently, this year is as messed up as all the other previous election years. So lets start and take a very brief look at the top candidates right now. First we have Keiko Fujimori, you either hate her or you love her. Though she does have a good educational background, people really just love her because of what her father (Alberto Fujimori) did, which was stop the terrorism in Peru. The other lot that hates her, feels that way mostly because of what his father did to stop terrorism, which was becoming almost a dictator and use death squads to kill terrorists, and amongst them, thousands of innocent people. Next candidate is a newcomer, Julio Guzman. This person’s communication and emotional skills are so on point that he managed to gain 16.6% of votes in just 6 months of his first presidential run. A very smart person at first glance, but after after a while you realize he is no more than a contradicting insecure and unclear of himself. Lastly, I definitely want to mention Cesar Acuña, the greatest failure this world has ever produced. He plagiarized his entire master's degree thesis and plagiarized the entire book he wrote on education. Apart from offering “plata como cancha” (money like popcorn) to all his congressmen, it seems that this chemical engineer doesn't even know what being a chemical engineer actually means. After being asked in an interview what a chemical engineer is, he responded with this brilliant answer: “Ingeniería química es todo lo que significa como profesional como productos naturales con la cuestión de insumos en temas de todo lo que es” which translates to: Chemical engineering is everything that means, as a professional, like natural products in terms of things of everything that is. It’s amazing how a presidential candidate can be more ignorant than a chihuahua. Our best hopes lie in PPK (Pedro Pablo Kuczynski), the only decent candidate there is, but people don’t vote for him because he is both too white and too old. People prefer to vote for candidates that they can relate to for their skin color and culture, such as Acuña, rather than someone that will actually help Peru, such as PPK. Now, I’m not trying to make this blog an information article, it’s not, you see when I was in this mixture of several thoughts I started to think about things that would make a great government and I remembered about the peruvian aristocratic republic of 1895-1919. A time governed by a wealthy and well educated oligarchic group that produced a time of economic prosper and commercial growth in Peru, but there was something very controversial about it, that only people that could read and write could vote. Is that the solution? Should only people with education vote in 2016? This would indeed increase the probability of a great president being elected, but it’s simply not fair. It was right here where I simply had to connect this concept, once again, to the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. Only a few concepts are needed to make a great government. Imagine a government with a level 5 president, someone who Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. First who, then what; imagine having the right people in the bus, a great minister, vice president and congressmen, all powered by their own professional will. Confronting the brutal facts; a government that accepts the conditions of their current reality and acts towards them in a realistic way. Hedgehog concept; simplicity behind the three circles of your economic engine, what you can be the best in the world at and what you are passionate about. Apply these concepts and you will make a great government. We have got to stop relying in mediocre and corrupt presidents. Peru is in an everlasting fight to pick itself up from the ashes of the Pacific War and terrorism, yet it is still failing miserably because it is blinded by the misery of ignorance and abominable corruption. “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity” -Martin Luther King. About two weeks ago I got the terrible news that my grandfather is very sick and that he is currently in the hospital. This shocked me a lot, even more than what I thought it would. And the worst part is that my grandfather had been sick way before anyone told me. In my mind everything was okay until one day they come to me with the sudden unfortunate news. They probably thought that it would be too distressing if I knew so early on, but I realize it was the complete opposite. By not creating an environment where the truth is heard, it became much more difficult to confront the brutal facts.
That is precisely what I want to talk about, the simple yet powerful concept of confronting the brutal facts. It’s a concept that recently came to my attention ever since reading the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. Though in the book it applies the concept as an ingredient towards companies that become great, I have been able to quickly relate to it in my personal life. In order to understand it easily, I have divided this concept into three parts that each build into each other. The order of the parts goes like this: creating an environment where the truth is heard → digesting the brutal facts → confronting the brutal facts (Stockdale Paradox). Essentially, the purpose of confronting the brutal facts, according to Jim Collins, gives direction to companies by forcing them to see the overwhelming conditions of their current reality, whatever they may be. But right here there is another problem, that brutal facts don’t motivate people. So how do you motivate people with brutal facts without making them lose hope? According to Collins, by simply creating an environment where the truth is heard. Though he explains it in much more detail, he essentially tries to explain how the truth is much more effective than bringing false hopes. Just like it happened to me, when people don't know the conditions of their current reality, they cannot act toward change and eventually the truth will be leaked out and trust me that the sudden truth will hit hard. In my case I was hit with the truth really hard, but at least now I can't ignore it. And that is the next part to take into account in this concept: confronting the brutal facts (Stockdale Paradox). The first part to it is to maturely accept your current reality and get the elephant out of the room. Eventually you can't ignore the fact that there is a huge problem in your life that you simply can’t keep ignoring. That part wasn’t mentioned in the book but I think it was important to mention. The next, even harder step is dealing with the problem. There is no formula to solve all problems in life because they are all different, but Collins does have a great way to tackle most of these problems and he calls it the Stockdale Paradox. It refers to the highest- ranking US military officer called Jim Stockdale. He was a prisoner of war for eight years during the Vietnam War. With no prisoner rights and tortured over twenty times he never knew if he would ever make it out alive. He did great things for the other prisoners as well such as devising a system of secret communication between them, but most importantly he never lost faith that he would get out. At that moment during their conversation, Collins asked Stockdale "Who didn’t make it out?" and Stockdale replied “The optimists”. Confused, Collins asked why and Stockdale responded “The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We're going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.” This paradox completely defies what I ever thought of confronting problems. Now, this paradox doesn’t say to be pessimistic, no, it simply tells you to be realistic and that’s the beauty about it. Regarding my grandfather, I guess that is just how life is. We age with the passage of time and along with it our minds and bodies weaken until death comes to us. That will always be one of life's most brutal facts. I don’t know when or how, but my grandfather is going to die and I will enjoy every second I am with him until such event comes to be. Several years ago, when I was still a very young and childish creature, I was walking along side my father in a Tottus store (he was and still is CEO of the company) and I suddenly took for granted, as immature as I was, that I was better or more special than anyone else in the store just because I was walking with the CEO of the company. To my father, he was just another person in the store, so I asked him: “Dad, why don’t you just tell someone to bring you the things you want and why can’t we just cut the line to pay, I mean, you're the CEO”, and he answered, “Nico, you need to understand that it doesn’t matter that I am CEO of anything. It doesn’t mean that we deserve more than anyone else here. We all have the same rights and I don't consider myself more important than others. People don’t need to know that I am CEO, I’m just another person in this store”. It was so weird to me, at that time, how he could be so naive and put the benefit of the company before his own ego. All my life I have been surrounded by people, either in school and specially in television, who put their egos before everything else, that I didn’t understand why my father was different. Today I finally understand that behaviour that my father showed so much time ago and it's all thanks to the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. In this book, Jim Collins talks about how to take a good company and make it a sustained great one. He conducted a 5 year long research with an amazing team in order to unravel the mysteries of companies that become great. Though there are so many important ideas and concepts to talk about, one has truly captured my attention in the first chapters and it the Level 5 Leadership. This is a very important concept and a crucial one for making a great company. Using Collins words, a Level 5 leader is that who “Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will”. In contrast to other leaders, Level 5 leaders are those who don't seek for fame or being in the cover of a big magazine, instead they are humble leaders who seek for a company of greatness and no personal recognition. Level 5 leaders take the entire responsibility to themselves and do not blame others in case of failure, they accept the fact that they could have done better. And in the case of a success, they thank others before crediting themselves. Most leaders set up others for failure so that they can be seen as exceptionally great, that’s why their companies don't last long. Eventually, this concept becomes pretty logical why it works and why it is so effective, but it seems that very few people are able to understand it. Just in about 30 minutes of cruising the web and watching tv I was able to find countless people who overcredit themselves and label themselves as “kings”. These are some YouTube and Vine users I found: Scumperjumper KING, King Bach, Mannyking, KingKunta. In tv I always see people like Conor Mcgregor, Floyd Mayweather, Ronda Rousey, Kanye West and Dj Khaled who always say they are the best at what they do. So, who really is the king or best in something if they all call themselves that? Well, that's not important, what is important is that this made me understand that it is very rare to find a Level 5 leader behaviour and therefore there are few people that make great things. But, why would it interest me right now as a teenager to learn about leadership? Well, in one aspect I feel that these concepts will stick with me and serve me when older, but right now I have another duty to serve and that’s to lead our Innovation Academy magazine project as CEO. My greatest concern right now is if I have what it takes to lead this project and more importantly, if I’m a Level 5 leader. Well, I know neither of those and honestly I know almost nothing about leading a project like this! Although I think I do have the will to organize, understand my peers and lead a role of example, I feel that I have so many classmates that could do the job even better than me. I must admit it did feel very uncomfortable to see my name at the top of the board as CEO and I am not very used to demanding things from people. That's another thing I am worried about, that people will expect or depend too much on me. A couple of weeks ago, after one of the last IA classes of the semester, Valeria Wu came up to me and told me “Hey Nico I didn't see you standing up and leading the class today” and that's exactly my point, I don't want to limit people from going to the board and writing down what they think is important just because that should be my job. What I am trying to say is that although I will be the best leader I can be, if someone can do something better than me then go ahead and do it! There is always the right person for the right job and I can’t do all the jobs.There are so many things that will be new to me that it’s scary, but also extremely exciting because I think it will be a great opportunity to learn. The great thing is that I will have several guides during the process like the book Good to Great itself, Nicolas Woods who was the last years CEO and my father. The book is just filled with exceptional ideas and concepts that will be critical for me. Nicolas Woods was in the same position I'm in and I could ask him for some advice. Finally my father is a person who I truly admire and the person closest to a Level 5 leader that I know. In order to more precisely measure my role as a leader, I will compare myself to this sort of rubric of a Level 5 leader taken from the book: In the end I will still try to keep a good dose of being independent, figure things out by myself and try to make my work unique. We have all been there, in the typical “don’t tell anybody” situation, where person A tells person B a secret and specifies to not tell anybody, but person B doesn’t care and tells person C the secret and also specifies to not tell anybody and the chain keeps on going. I find it so ironic that people share information that they have been told not to share and when they do so they even tell the other person not to share the information. This has happened to be so many times that it’s come to the point where it’s funny. I have noticed through time that there are actually very few people I can truly trust and this has made me think; why is trust so important? Why do people share things they are told not to share?
Trust is the basis of all types of relationships and it is something that we all seek, even unconsciously. For example, when we were younger, our best friends are nothing less than the people that we most trust. It’s as simple as that. It’s that powerful trust between best friends that forms the strongest relationships, the happiest ones and the ones you have the most fun with. There is a saying that goes “You may not always trust the person you love, but you can always love the person you trust” and that's exactly the importance of trust. Many people confuse the meaning of trust and think it’s just a status where you can share your secret with someone and know it will be kept safe, but no, trust is much more complex and profound than just that. It’s when you can lower your guard, be vulnerable, open yourself, share and accept your weaknesses with another individual and you know that they will maturely respect you. Like everything in this world, there are times when this may or may not apply. For example, imagine that you meet a new person at school (or work) that will only stay there for a month and then he/she will go to another country. In situations like this one, when you meet someone that you know you will never see again in your life, then sometimes, we may not care to be vulnerable with them and share your weaknesses because they will soon disappear and you may not care what they think about you when they are gone. But what happens in another scenario, where this new person will stay there for life. Would you open to them so easily? Would you share your weaknesses? Once a person takes an important role in your life, it is more difficult to trust them because they know everything about you, they know your friends and family and you build a certain reputation with them. This is why, just sometimes, it is harder to trust the people closest to you. People are egocentric, that’s why they cannot keep things in private. When they know something that no one else does, they feel special and important and revealing things to other people brings them attention and self esteem. It’s what in Peru we call “chisme”, or gossip in english. As humans we need trust in order to grow as individuals, to mutually help each other through difficult times and, thus, form a better future. We need trust, and therefore we must each find the people that also trust us, be it your parents, brothers, friends, there must always be someone. Let's say that you are put in a physical resistance test which is measured by the amount of laps you can run around a track. Whatever the amount of laps you ran, you must then create a cardio plan for a month that will increase your physical resistance (amount of laps you are able to run) and you must then make a reflection about how your plan helped you increase your physical resistance. Sounds easy and simple, right? Not so fast, what if I also told you that you will be graded on your improvement and justification for such improvement? A very important element has now been added to the table, and although some people will interpret this in a straightforward and honest way, some others will "play the game", meaning, that the "honest" people will put all their best effort in the first physical test and then run the chance that they do worse in their final test, while the people who "play the game" will put very little effort in the first test and a lot of effort in the final test to guarantee a show of improvement and a successful plan. One might now think that it is very smart to play the game, because you put less effort and ensure successful results, but are you actually getting smarter?
Naturally, when we are given a heads up to what's coming in the near future, we prepare ourselves and analyse everything that must be done so that when that day comes, it goes by as smooth as possible. We prepare the conditions so that the end result comes to our convenience, and it is alright to do so, because it makes us have control over situations and be present in the moment. But what is not alright, is to prepare the conditions to where the take away is not the learning, but the grade or other reward. So yeah, it might be a "smart" move to play the game, but you are definitely NOT getting smarter. We have all played the game at least once. Not so long ago I found myself playing the game in different situations. The first example of the physical test was an actual legitimate example were I played the game. In design technology class I've also played the game by making errors to my first prototype in order to show how I have modified my final prototype in my evaluation. Playing the game can go from cleaning up your room just before your mom checks it, to doing community and service just for the credits. No matter the situation, I have come to realise that playing the game makes us nothing but fake. It's a bunch of lies we make ourselves which represent someone's forced actions, someone who isn't even yourself. It's the act that goes against being principled and honest, not only to others, but to yourself. At the end of the day, we can choose to play the game no matter the situation and it is up to us to think critically and ask ourselves: "Am I doing this for the learning or for a reward like a grade or to please someone?" If you are unsure of what you want, then just remember that learning stays with you for ever and a grade or someone's reaction is temporary. There are no shortcuts in life. It was Friday afternoon when I got the message: "Nicolas 2nd Absence warning: At 3 you will be removed form TSA". It shocked me. I had just realised that I had missed the weekly TSA meeting at lunch, and now if I missed another one, I would be removed from the club I had to do an exam, interview and essay in order to get in. I didn't do it on purpose, I had just completely forgotten that there was a meeting. These types of situations occur to me very frequently and they also occur to me outside of school with easy tasks, like forgetting to pick up a friend or forgetting to tell my mom I'm going out, and now I've realised I must change this, and do it NOW!
This has been one of my worst qualities since I was very little and It has really started to affect me, not only because I miss appointments or deadlines, but because my image gets affected. People might think that I am not very considerate of others, or that I give more importance to other things than what people ask me to do, and most importantly, I become a less trustworthy person because people know they can't depend on me or think I can't get a job done. It really frustrates me because these are the least of my intentions or what I want people to think of me, yet that's what I prove, and I don't like to give excuses to justify my errors. Now that it's clear to me how it affects me, I have come to conclude the reason why this happens, and it all boils down to one word: oblivious. By definition, oblivious means: not aware of or not concerned about what is happening around one. This couldn't more clearly describe me, as it is pure awareness of my surroundings that I'm lacking, but, why does it happen? Well, there are two main factors that come into play here. The first one is simply due to genetics, I believe, because the same happens to most of my brothers and my mother. The second reason, which is the one I am most concerned about, is because of high school. In high school, there is lots of work to do, as well as pressure to do well, therefore I have been forced to prioritise my school work and give less time to think about other things, which makes makes me forget specific thoughts. When I constantly carry different thoughts in my mind, the most vulnerable I am to forgetting things. In order to change this inability of mine, I am going to try to organize myself through calendars and cellphone remainders. In addition I will talk to my family, which has members with the same problems as I do, and brainstorm ideas to see what we can do to mutually cooperate and solve this problem as a group. This way, I hope to become less oblivious, and more present in the moment. Throughout school and life itself, I would consider that my general knowledge has increased tremendously, and also, how much I think I know. My school, my classes, my clubs and my grades have all being indicators and motives for me to belief that I’m “smart”, which is in part true, but not entirely. You see, I have recently had the privilege of being part of the 2015 iGEM competition, which is organised by MIT and takes place once a year in Boston. It is a world wide synthetic biology competition that has the purpose of finding solutions to global issues by using synthetic biology as the solution. After watching incredible presentations of universities like Harvard, Oxford, MIT, Brown and others, it wouldn't be enough for me to say that I have learned a lot and that my entire sense of what I think I know about the world has changed. The best way that I could describe it, is through the words that a wise man once said: “I only know that I know nothing”- Socrates.
From projects that have engineered E.coli bacteria in order to cure cancer, to bioplastics that are sensitive to heat and humidity and fold in their presence in order to occupy less space in outer space explorations, all these projects take the world of biology, chemistry and physics to a level where there is no limit. The world is going to change, and it is going to change sooner than what we might think. There are so many things to explore, learn and discover that it begs the question: “Would it be possible to know everything there is to know”, “could there be a point so far into the future where one might have nothing else to discover?”. NO. I think that, although it’s the year 2015 and we have about 7 billion people, it will never be a concluding/ feasible goal. This is for two main reasons, the first is that time and the amount of knowledge we have right now is way too little in comparison to what the universe has to offer, as I clearly saw at iGEM. The second reason is that we would start to deal with much more ethical issues by which we might not all agree. In fact, there are already millions of people that are in disagreement with our projects in synthetic biology right now! People start to question things like: “Are they playing “god” by engineering living organisms?” “Is it morally correct to modify the human genome in order to prevent diseases?” I can’t give a direct answer because it’ll be biased, and I hope these thoughts don’t come from pure ignorance either. It is all very confusing, but there are two things that are clear to me. One, If the universe were a 10 story building library, we couldn't even fill the first shelf with books of what we know about it, and two, everybody is entitled to contributing to that library. |
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