Ask Rey (ongoing indefinitely aka till death)

What is a Life Lesson I Learned?

So what is something you've learned from living life that you would want to tell someone?

There are many things I have learned; however, I think one thing is the most important and sums up just about everything I have and currently am learning. There is one single thing more powerful than any country's government or computer network.

What is it? Two words: your brain. Your whole body, behavior, beliefs and emotions can be affected by a single thought that your brain accepts as true. Your brain is full of neural circuits that rewire themselves in your sleep! A computer is no where near as complex as the mind and is only able to store and possibly gather knowledge. The human brain on the other hand can create it's own reality based on what you accept to be true! Everyone has the same size brain with similar structure and the same potential. Meaning everyone has the most powerful tool on Earth but not many use it. Of course, some people do have a disadvantage due to mental illness.  

I did not always enjoy math. In fact, my favorite subjects in elementary were History and Music. I know what you are thinking:

Aren't you majoring in Engineering? Yes.

Don't all Engineers start out loving math at a young age? Nope.

I initially choose Engineering to learn how to develop the mind of an Engineer. Glad I got my Associates of General Engineering; more about that later. 

Now as a tutor, I change the mindset of students that hate math and Physics while I tutor them. I use different techniques the most important thing is I encourage them and help them prove to themselves that they can eventually do the math without my help. One reason that anyone can do math is that math is full of patterns and your brain is a pattern recognition machine. I helped many students learn to enjoy or at least realize that math is manageable. 

I have a best friend who got in a motorcycle accident one semester. He was taking Calculus 2. In the hospital, he would be doped up on morphine and still do his homework. Furthermore, he would call the tutors at my work asking for help. As if that was not enough, he also wrote his note and problems upside down right to left! I don't know about you but in America we are taught to write upright and left to right. So he was doing exactly opposite of what he was taught for years and was doing advance math problems! In addition, he returned to campus within a week of the accident! 

When I asked about his notes he showed me the proof of his writing upside down and right to left. I joked with him saying: "Why did you do that? I am a tutor and you are making me look bad." He told me: "Man, I was not going to take Calculus 2 again!" This statement shows exactly what he was thinking when in that hospital bed. He told himself that he had to do everything he could to make sure he passed.

The semester I received my associates I made a similar choice. At the start of the final 7 weeks I sprained my back muscles. It lasted 6 of the 7 weeks. I was prescribed 500 mg pain killers and some muscle relaxers. I didn't let that excuse me from doing my homework or going to class. I often did not take the muscle relaxer so I could get up for class and work. I went to class with any where from 500 - 1000 mg of painkillers in my system and still took notes, did labs, quizzes, and exams for Chemistry for Engineers, Electromagnetic Physics, and Engineering Statics. Needless to say those were not my best grades. 

The important thing is what was I thinking. I knew I had to pass all my classes to get my associates. One of the most amazing thing that happened was my Statics grade went from the very edge of a C and D to a B!