Perhaps one of the best takeaways from Hadfield’s 'an astronaut's guide to life' is his apology of being a “Zero" and it not necessarily being a bad thing. “In any new situation, whether it involves an elevator or a rocket ship, you will almost certainly be viewed in one of three ways. As a minus one: actively harmful, someone who creates problems. Or as a zero: your impact is neutral and doesn't tip the balance one way or the other. Or you'll be seen as a plus one: someone who actively adds value. Everyone wants to be a plus one, of course. But proclaiming your plus-oneness at the outset almost guarantees you'll be perceived as a minus one, regardless of the skills you bring to the table or how you actually perform.”

As someone aptly put it: When you're green you grow, when you're ripe you rot.

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Remember when a new idea permeated your mind? How it made you feel like an improved version of yourself? The way a new software release puts its earlier versions to shame?

Remember that fleeting feeling of invincibility? the feeling that you could somehow, armed with this new idea, conquer the world?  

A feeling of true exhilaration, of indescribable and pure awe?

The bad news is, as we’re bombarded with information from all sides, it’s becoming increasingly hard to digest and truly realize the immensity of an idea. So much is lost in the noise.

The good news is, it has never been easier to access great ideas. We just have to look in the right places, reach outside our bubbles, meet new people beyond our entourage, take walks, read, travel... “whatever works, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else” -As Jason Silva puts it-.

Bonus.

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com

One of the things you quickly learn from any engineering career is that most things are optimizable. When you are a software engineer, you generally believe that it can only be done through technology. With the ubiquity of smartphones, nobody can argue that tech haven't augmented our reality.  Whether it has brought about more chaos than order into our everyday life depends greatly on who you ask. 

In my quest of optimizing my day-to-day, I’ve done my share of trying out hot, new, slick apps that often promise to change your life forever and other nonsense. I’m after all no exception to Douglas’ law [Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it]. But as it turned out, I’ve come to the simple conclusion that, when dealing with technology, “Less is often more”.

If you’re struggling to find the right tools, know that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Some pen and paper hacks are pretty awesome, maybe they would do the trick for you. Still, there are a three principles I like to share with my friends whenever they ask me how to get the best out of all these apps.

Disclaimer: All examples are for illustrative purposes only. Again, there are no silver bullets.

“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space