Learning the Right Lesson

I finally set a date to take the CCNA.  Actually, it's the part of the CCENT.  So I'm doing the two part CCNA thing.  Anyways, now that I have a date I have a limited time left to learn everything that I could possibly need to pass this thing.

And I'm doing everything different again.

See, success is a bad teacher.  I think I heard that from Bill Gates.

So far, I've had success.  But there were certain places that I had limitations.  Mental gaps in the knowledge.  I should be strong in all the information, not just sections.  But there are sections and specific information that I needed that just wasn't making it into my head in the correct manner.

It's funny.  At one point I was turning my CCENT notes into a book to sell.  That project was abandoned for various reasons.  But the main one being that what did good for the CCENT may not be good for the CCNA.  How can I know?

So I've been using Mnemosyne.  It's a flash card program that allows you to create your own flash cards.  So you end up getting a lot of flash cards that you study.  It seems I heard about flash cards for years, but always avoided them.

I didn't avoid them because they were complicated.

I avoided them because they were work.  I didn't need to work to learn everything.  Until I did.  And the methods I was doing weren't working.  And they didn't work for years.  YEARS.

So now, it's time to quit avoiding work.  Because that's what all this searching has been about.  Avoiding work.  And flash cards are work.

You are what you repeatedly do.

I think Aristotle said that.

Success is a bad teacher.

So if you want success, you must repeatedly do something.  And it's probably going to be work.  And it is going to suck.

And you can either do it now, or spend the rest of your life avoiding the work.

And you will keep ending up in the same scenario: wondering why you only get so far.

You are what you repeatedly do.  Excellence then, is not an act but a habit.
Success is a bad teacher.


Strangeness indeed.