Revenge IS like a poison, or, The necessity of awareness.

I’m not someone who’s ever been into revenge. It never solves the problem, it’s never as satisfying as the movies and Shakespeare make it out to be, and it’s more than a small waste of time. All of this, plus the fact that my problems don’t get better by making someone else feel worse, means that I’m one of those who believes that the best “revenge” is living well.

And then I got rejected from touring a consulting company’s headquarters.

Disclaimer: If you’re a recruiter and you’re reading this: 1) Thanks for reading. 2) This is one of those stories with a happy ending that hopefully still includes you hiring me. Also, as I’ve now spoiled the ending of this post for you, the least you can do is read ‘till the end.

That’s a lot to italicize.

Anyway, normally, this rejection wouldn’t be a big deal. I’ve applied for more scholarships than I can remember, and I’ve only ever won a handful. This wasn’t even an application that required a lot of effort-they just wanted a resume and transcript. By all accounts, this one should’ve slid off my back like the others. Sure it’d add to the dry streak I’ve been on for wins lately, but hey, those happen.

And then this firm decided to come to my school to run a case competition.

For you non-business readers (you’re great too!), a case competition is an event where you and a team are given a package of information about a real-life problem a company is facing. In this competition, we would have four hours to come up with a solution and present it to a panel of professors and company representatives.

A normal person would have perceived this as “Oh, cool, a case competition”. But in my weird, glory-deprived state of mind, I thought of it as “You come to my territory, to challenge me to present?” Presenting is the thing I do best, and I made it a personal mission to show this firm what they had missed out on.

And here’s the problem: I became so focused on winning that I failed to learn very much from the competition. Think about how much time I wasted-instead of learning to think more like a consultant, I was strategizing the best way to deliver an “oh, by the way, you rejected me” at the winners’ lunch.

Consider how often you’ve gone into a situation with a negative attitude-a club meeting, a lecture, even a date. I was looking for any excuse to call out the firm and show them how awesome a candidate they were missing out on. These were actions I didn’t take, but in hindsight, actions that would have only validated their rejection of me.

The best I can do is tell you to be more aware, as I know I’ll be. You might not be able to control how you feel, but you can at least know you’re being affected and compensate.

Sure, there’ll be other case competitions, just like how you might have that lecture every Tuesday. But that date could be once-in-a-lifetime. Be aware enough to be at your best.

Editor’s note: If you have a topic idea, I’d love to hear from you! Suggestions can be made in the comments section or on Twitter @JeremyDeMello. Also, if you understand the reference in my title, you’re wonderful.

It’s not terrible, or, Why we need to judge with our own eyes.

Have you ever read awful reviews about a movie that you wanted to see? What about terrible Yelp ratings for a restaurant you wanted to try? Did you end up seeing that movie, or ordering-in from that place?

For better or worse, when we base our perceptions of objects or events off of the feelings of others, we often make different decisions.

Have you ever asked yourself just how deep this tendency runs in you? What important decisions have you made that were very much influenced by the input of others?

Did you choose a school without visiting? What about judging someone before talking to them?

For me, this extended to one of my favourite interests: philosophy. Now before you decide to stop reading, just remember that philosophy, translated from Greek, means “love of wisdom”. If that doesn’t keep you hanging around, then go see that movie you decided against and read the rest of this later.

You still here? Cool.

In the political branch of philosophy, there is a book by a woman named Ayn Rand called Atlas Shrugged. It’s a fiction book that weaves in her philosophy, which is called objectivism. In a nutshell, the book discusses individualism, economics, and the virtues of selfishness.

Atlas Shrugged has made a tremendous impact on modern politics, especially in the United States, where many of those against a larger government or higher taxes often refer to Rand’s work. These people tend to be on the more extreme side of the political spectrum, and since extreme policies tend to be over-simplified and incorrect, I don’t often care to listen to them.

Here’s how this ties back to that movie you never saw: based on the policies created in her name and the kinds of people putting them forward, I never actually read Rand’s work. I just assumed her books would border on propaganda, since they are pretty much treated that way. I thought I knew what I’d find, and I thought that I wouldn’t care for it.

Besides, Atlas Shrugged is 1079 pages long and written in the smallest font you’ve ever seen.

Then a scholarship which gave out substantial prizes for reading and writing an essay about Rand’s work came to my attention. Since my tuition recently quadrupled, I decided to tear open that sucker and see how far I could make. I expected the worst.

My review of Atlas Shrugged? One of the best fiction books I have ever read. It was engrossing, it was incredibly well-written, and it conveyed her ideas eloquently and in a context where you could imagine them being correct, valid, and even just. That’s right: I read over a thousand pages of a philosophy I didn’t particularly like just because it was a great story. Considering I have never read even close to that much of philosophies I do support, I take-away a valuable lesson about storytelling, in addition to another perspective on morality and government.

But I wouldn’t have learned anything if I hadn’t turned to page one.

Editor’s note: If you have a topic idea, I’d love to hear from you! Suggestions can be made in the comments section or on Twitter @JeremyDeMello.

We’re their success, or, Honouring our teachers.

This past week, two good friends of mine lost teachers who were tremendously influential on whom they have become today. Those friends are good, kind people. This post is written in respect to their grief, and as a reminder to the rest of us to be grateful for those who have made us who we are.

I talked a couple of posts ago about standards of greatness. How to define greatness is a question that has bothered me for a long time. I know I want to be great, but I’m not entirely sure what exactly greatness means.

Greatness could mean wealth, or fame, or power. Let’s go deeper though; rather than asking what greatness is or how to get it, let’s ask why we want it. Some will immediately say they want greatness in order to be happy. Not every great person is happy, and depending on your definition, not every happy person is great.

I would say the vast majority of us want greatness for the same reason: we want to be remembered. We want to leave a legacy. The danger with not defining greatness is that we open ourselves up to pursuing any avenue towards this end goal of being remembered.

Teachers have no such problem.

Teachers, whether they instruct inside or outside the classroom, know their standard of greatness; while it does not exclude wealth or fame or power, it does settle for these things either. The teachers I’ve been lucky enough to have have been successful in music, architecture, masonry, archaeology, and business; these are all fields my teachers pursued and left. They wanted to leave a legacy, and found these were not the field in which they could make this happen.

Teachers leave a legacy through their students. Teachers define greatness as creating better people. Teachers are not often remembered around the world or in the annals of history. Yet they and their lessons live on in their students, and in the people their students teach, and so on. Our teachers are great. Our teachers leave both the smallest and largest legacies imaginable.

To my friends who have lost two of their most formidable instructors, you honour their memory every day. You were privileged to have role models like them, and I’m sure they thought equally of you as students.

And to the rest of us who still have our teachers to talk to, what’s a quick email or phone call to say thanks? Teachers love to create better people, and showing gratitude is a hallmark of the best people.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some emails to send.

Editor’s note: If you have a topic idea, I’d love to hear from you! Suggestions can be made in the comments section or on Twitter @JeremyDeMello.