The Joy of Discovering and Creating New Things

This post is labeled under Personal Development


With so many distractions available today, sometimes we may lost focus on the important things we want to do in our lives. Life indeed is stressful. As some psychologists theorized, the more we are stressed the more we need to fill in the void. Unfortunately, we often opted to use distractions.

Our world is full of consumers. Those who are willing to produce new things are often rewarded with a meaningful life. Instead of spending your leisure time in watching endless dvd movies/popular tv season series, playing new psp games/network games, malling, why don’t we go back to those simple things we often enjoy and do. Living on a hi-tech world sometimes gives us smile when suddenly we remember how things were simply done once.

NEU Computer Science Students’ Circuit Design In Action

I have nothing against with new technologies. In fact, I believe technologies we have now should supplement to create greater things. We are bound to contribute something to live fully.

You need not be a rocket scientist to build new things. Giving a new twist on how old ways once done is often enough to blow others’ mind away. You ought to be expert on something, aren’t you?

Discovery leads to Creativity

Would you believe that my 65-year old mom was the first person who reminded me to check the opportunity offered by blogging? Of course I knew blogging especially when I read some of it done by my students, other teenagers which are full of angst and slum book info. Call it twist of fate, I happened to check and bought a book about blogging on a local bookstore. After finishing the book, I felt sorry for not knowing the impact blogging it has now on the Internet.

As an educator and an IT practitioner, I look ways to inspire my students who are often lazy to read and rely solely on teachers’ input. After checking professional blogs on-line, I discovered also Scribd and how to embed YouTube videos on blogs. Then I started to have a blog of my own. I reformatted some of my lecture materials and uploaded it at Scribd; giving life to once forgotten materials.

I gained respect to those who are on video editing profession. I learned to cut/edit my own videos and experienced how hard to fit a maximum 10-minute video set by YouTube. Skills I never thought possible that I will gain from blogging.

I started to ask my students to visit my blog and get related materials they need on our subject. I was struck with its results. My students are able to do their assignments/experiments on their own with the expected output. The power of repeating same resource material many times over really made the difference.

To date, I uploaded 7 documents in Scribd. With almost 2,000 views from these documents, 600 were actually downloaded. One document made it on the hotlist of Scribd; another one received 50% downloads from total views. Indeed my audience has become bigger and my developed materials long sitting on my hard disk are now getting attention never before.

Discovering new things is one; connecting the dots is another. The opportunity to see how blogging becomes an ally on my teaching was far off my mind. One thing leads to another. The experience is truly rewarding.


Knowing thy Self is the Beginning

It does not need to be blogging. And you don’t need to do it alone. Have someone who shares the same interest and start from there. I know most women accomplish even more when they are in groups compared to men who often choose to work alone.

Beyond recognition, discovering self and what you are capable of are but a few of priceless rewards one can get from creating great things. It beats stress and boredom. It is a new way on answering why you need to get up excited every morning.