Life Lessons for Undergraduates

1. Making the most of where you are, who you are with
The first course that I taught at Emory was Economics 305. It was a seminar and writing
requirement. It was lots of fun because we studied unconventional topics in economics (e.g.,
crime, sports, family, and sexuality) and the students were really motivated. I started teaching
Economics 201 during my second year. At the time, I knew that it would be a challenge. 201, a
requirement for majors, was a lecture-oriented course covering standard topics in microeconomic
theory. I was excited to take what I had learned from 305 and put my own twist on 201. It was
also a good chance to begin interacting with students earlier in their college careers, since most
would be sophomores and juniors. But to be honest, I didn't enjoy teaching 201 as much as 305,
and in my heart, I relegated it to secondary status. All of this changed in early 2010 when my
department chair informed me that the department did not plan on offering 305 in either the
2010-2011 or 2011-2012 academic years, because they were short on staff and needed me to
teach 201 exclusively. I initially felt upset and frustrated as if something that I loved was taken
from me. Then I realized that the problem was actually my attitude toward 201! Indeed, losing
305 was necessary for me to gain 201, that is, to truly put my heart in the course. And thats
exactly what I did. This story illustrates something important: make the most of where you are,
who you are with. Make your seemingly imperfect surroundings special! There is a lot of
potential, a lot of things to learn in apparently mundane spaces.
2. Importance of listening
Part of my job is teaching and part of it is research. The research process is rewarding but
frustrating. I write research papers and submit them to journals. About six months after
submitting a paper to a journal, authors receive 2 or 3 reports by anonymous reviewers, which
provide suggestions for how to improve your paper. I used to think of these reports as too
critical, negative, and intrusive. Then I started to learn about the importance of listening,
listening to constructive feedback, other perspectives, other ideas. General importance of
listening in relationships, work, school. Also, I learned that I don't own my research papers. In
a very real sense, they arent mine. I am working to contribute to something bigger than
myself. If I am listening and incorporating feedback, the end product is a combination of my
ideas and other peoples ideas, which together make the most valuable contribution.
3. Self-esteem & success
For many years, I built my identity on being smart. School performance was my main source
of happiness. This didnt happen intentionally or overnight. It happened over a long period of
time. And I didnt even know it. My identity required lots of effort to maintain and rested on
fragile ground. Everything was generally OK until I reached graduate school (University of
Chicago). I had a personal crisis during my first year. I was no longer the best in the class or
even close to being the best! I felt depressed and wanted to quit. It took me several years to
rebuild my self-esteem, diversify my sources of happiness, and reorient my identity around
things that were more solid, more long-lasting, and less comparative. I can't tell you what those

things are for you, but some examples may include: being a good friend, spouse, sibling,
son/daughter; contributing your best to an industry, nation, community, and so on
4. Dealing with stress, especially stress related to school or work
Healthy stress is OK. It can motivate. I'm talking about unhealthy stress. As a kid, my solution
was to "try your best." This worked for a while, but at some point in high school it didn't work
because I was trying hard but still feeling inadequate. I later came up with three approaches that
work pretty well for me. The first is to realize that it's often unhelpful to compare yourself to
others. It's more constructive for you to compare yourself only to yourself. The second is to deemphasize the "game day", that is, competitions, performances, and exams. Truly, the real work
happens day to day, outside of the spotlight. Small, humble victories add up and naturally build
into preparation for seemingly "big days." This is a key theme in athletics. But I learned it in
high school marching band. =) Third, it helps me immensely to reflect on the following: You
have already accomplished a lot. What you do now is just icing on the cake. This allows me to
relax and have fun!
5. Treating people with dignity
Story of former 201 student: he needed 2 credits to graduate so I asked him to write an "exit
essay" in which he would reflect on his time at Emory. I didnt give him any other instructions.
He ended up writing about himself. He was a shy, slightly overweight guy who experienced
exclusion and bullying in high school. He was hoping that it would end in college. However, it
didn't. At Emory it was more subtle and psychological. His fraternity friends didn't always treat
him with dignity and made fun of him. Fear of further exclusion and being alone was what kept
him from quitting. He felt he and other shy people in the group were taken advantage of. He got
tremendous joy from helping one of the younger brothers who was being exploited by some of
the older brothers. What are some general lessons?
(a) Treat your friends and others in your life with dignity and kindness. Sometimes this is hardest
with people we are most intimate with, e.g., siblings, good friends, spouse, because we tend to
redefine the rules of kindness. "I show my kindness in a way only we understand." Relativism is
possible but not the only explanation. It could be that you are unintentionally hurting the very
one you say you care about! (b) One way to counter our own tendency to bully is to preemptively
demonstrate vulnerability. Often people put up emotional walls and we aren't completely
honest/intimate. Those walls protect us partially from bullying but create distance between us.
(c) Share when you are hurt by a friend or someone else. You should communicate your feelings
in a mature manner. Sometimes we don't know that we have hurt someone. The one who is hurt
has a responsibility to share.
6. Avoiding seeing where we are as merely a "pit stop"
Often we tend to see where we are as just a "pit stop," an imperfect place where we are
temporarily until we get to where we are really going at which time life will begin. I used to
think this way during many stages in my life: high school, college (studying, limited social life),
grad school (studying, living super cheaply, eating spaghetti every meal, not having much fun,
could have done more to invest in friendships, community service), early years at Emory (habits
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from grad school continued, e.g., no furniture, "I'll really start living when I get married"). I
suppose for some people this continues in work life: "I'll start to live when I get this promotion,
when I become an attending physician, when I become a manager"... It's fine to dream of the
future; imagining better times can help us get through tough times. However, there are some
unintended consequences of this pit stop mentality: not taking advantage of opportunities to
make friends, learn, contribute to your community and immediate social context; not fully
appreciating life now; not being emotionally present even when you are physically present.
Example of former 201 student who didn't want to be at Emory and her bad attitude manifested
in her first year grades. Real life is now! Time is precious, and you already have a complete life.
Make the most of where you are, who you are with. Invest in yourself, invest in friendships.
Make special your seemingly imperfect and mundane surroundings, as we discussed in #1.
7. Being OK with making "mistakes", viewing them as a natural part of the iterative
process of learning and growing
We all find out early in our lives that "correct" is good and "incorrect" is bad. There is "right" to
be achieved, and there is "wrong" to be avoided. This view of things is solidified as early as
elementary school (maybe earlier). When we are able to replicate what our teachers show us, we
are rewarded with good grades; when we are unable or unwilling to do so, we are punished with
poor grades. This way of seeing our primary school performance colors the way we see our work
in college and work after college. But it's not always helpful. Often (A) it is myopic; (B) creates
discouragement and shame; and (C) establishes a false dichotomy between "correct" and
"incorrect." It is myopic because in many real contexts, learning and doing are an iterative
process = try, get feedback, listen/revise, try again, get feedback again, and so on. Both apparent
mistakes and apparent successes are vital to learning through experience which occurs over time.
Short-term success can easily be over-glorified and short-term failure can be easily vilified.
Perhaps worse, if we don't see "mistakes" as opportunities to grow and learn, they become marks
of shame. They discourage people from trying, which cuts short the process of
discovery/learning. Furthermore, in many situations, "correct" and "incorrect" aren't helpful
terms to describe reality, even though we pretend like they exist. Nowhere is this more evident
than at the frontier of science. Newton made huge contributions to physics. Einstein, the father of
modern physics, was able to show that some of Newton's ideas weren't exactly correct. But
today, physicists are discovering that some of Einstein's ideas weren't exactly correct. "Correct"
and "incorrect" are unhelpful words, because unambiguously both Newton and Einstein
significantly advanced knowledge. They were not striving to make "correct" ideas but make
valuable contributions. In summary, be OK with making "mistakes", viewing them as a natural
part of the iterative process of learning and growing. To do otherwise may be myopic, create
unnecessary discouragement/shame, and propagate an unhelpful dichotomy.
8. Living a "simple life" is rewarding; simplicity amid the chaos of life is something worth
attaining
In several ways, I grew up in an environment of simplicity. What do I mean by this: not a lot of
stuff, not a lot of friends, not a lot of activities. My parents were minimalist and super frugal. My
Mom had what I would interpret as an irrational, or at least unfounded, aversion to technology.
For example, when my brother and I were young, she didn't want a microwave or cable TV or
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computer or VCR. We had a rotary phone! (When it finally broke, she asked my grandmother for
hers.) This wasn't easy to explain. She seemed to prefer to do things slower, she preferred less
variety in what she watched on TV, what she cooked, what she did with her time. My parents
didn't have a large number of friends and neither did my brother and I. We mostly spent time
with one another until high school. Indicative of our life was what we played with as kids. My
parents didn't buy us a lot of toys from the store. My Dad used to bring scrap paper home from
work. Paul and I made toys with the paper. We called them Paper Toys. At first, we replicated
what we saw in cartoons, but later we began to make up our own characters. Our twodimensional toys became three-dimensional as we crafted houses, castles, and fortresses all out
of paper. Things were rather simple then. But as life went on, especially when I became an adult,
my life got busy with people, activities, and things! Time became scarce and I became forced to
rush from one thing to another and split my time thinly among friends and family. What recently
reminded me that things had gone too far was the Ice Storm of January 2011. I had about one day
of work with me at home. That ran out on Tuesday and I felt trapped at home. My usual busy
routine was severely disrupted and that left me distraught. I decided to walk 3 miles to campus in
the ice. It took an hour. I was exhausted and couldn't do anything. The ice storm exposed my
dependence on my car, work, and activities that filled my life. It forced me to slow down. So this
is what I have learned about maintaining simplicity. (A) Do things slowly. Enjoy the journey,
even if it takes more time and is less efficient. (B) Devote yourself to a small number of friends,
work projects, and activities. Don't be shy about saying "no" to additional commitments,
additional activities. Saying "no" allows you the opportunity to concentrate on the most
important things. (C) Notice and relish the details in nature/people. When you are able to slow
down and to focus, you are in a better position to appreciate beauty and peace of life.
9. Helping/encouraging others is important; it happens in the context of relationships, e.g.,
friendship/mentorship/family
In theory, many of us want to help the world. It's a glorious idea. We often tend to romanticize
the part that we play; we also romanticize the part that the beneficiaries of our efforts play. But if
this is our only view of things, we are going to miss out on a lot of opportunities to encourage
and be encouraged. Many of these opportunities arise in our daily lives in the context of personal
relationships that are built over time. Let me illustrate this with a story. For the past two and a
half years, I have been going to Clarkston to work with a group of adult refugees from Bhutan, a
small mountainous country near Nepal. We have been working on basic English and life skills.
As I got to know these adults, I also got to know their children and realized their children needed
help in school. Thus, I began to work alongside a small group of Emory students to help these
kids with math and reading. Lin, one of these volunteers (and former 201 student) has had a
particularly rewarding experience doing this. She has been working with a 12 year old girl,
Ranjita. They have really formed a bond. It turns out they have a lot in common. Both have
immigrant parents. Both know what it's like to come to America, attend elementary school, and
at first not understand any English. Both love Harry Potter. It's touching to see how they are
growing because of the experience. Ranjita has an improved attitude toward school, and she is
excelling at math. Lin is learning that success is a process and is getting some perspective on life.
Perhaps more importantly, they enjoy their friendship. Helping/encouraging others is important.
But it's mutual, takes time, happens in the context of the mundane, and happens nearly always in
the context of relationships.
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10. "Getting things done" vs. success

Getting things done and success are different concepts. I have more concrete ideas about the
first, "getting things done." It's relevant to all of us because we are constantly in contexts where
we have to perform. Here are some tips that have helped me.
(A) Rely on "to do" lists. Both daily, weekly, and long-term lists are helpful to me. They are vital
if you are in a job with any independence, and you don't have people telling you exactly what
you should be doing. They give a sense of direction and sense of accomplishment; they allow
you to smooth work across time, so that you aren't rushing at the last minute; and they make you
realistic about the time it takes to accomplish certain tasks.
(B) Use realistic, though artificial, short-term deadlines to motivate yourself. You may already
have real deadlines in your context, but if you don't, this could be helpful. Even though I like to
work ahead and spread effort across time, I still need short-term deadlines to give me a reason to
focus and work harder. I believe in the value of a healthy work-life balance. But to make this
happen, you have to make the most of the time you are at work.
(C) Take feedback from others to heart and engage in honest self-reflection. We've previously
talked about the importance of listening, and that's what I'm referring to here. Don't blindly
follow feedback about your work habits and performance but do take feedback seriously. Most
of it is provided to help, not undercut, you. It takes humility to listen, but it's worth it in the end.
(D) View "getting things done" as an iterative process. We have already talked about being OK
with making "mistakes", viewing them as a natural part of the process of learning and growing.
That's worth reminding you now. Big accomplishments are made up of many small
accomplishments, one built on the other.
(E) Tap into the power of working with others. Foster open dialog among people with different
viewpoints and values in order to work together toward an objective. Two keywords are "open"
and "different." It takes time to create an environment where "open" is possible; relationshipbuilding and trust are obviously huge. It is challenging but rewarding to have different ideas and
different perspectives. That is where real accomplishment begins.
...BUT don't confuse "getting things done" with "success." It's vital to see success not as
something to achieve but as something to participate in. Let me offer one possible definition of
success: using your time and talents to contribute to something bigger than yourself. Keep in
mind that success is hard to measure. It often includes things that are intangible, hard to
articulate, happen out of sight, or happen much later. Keep in mind that success is not truly
attributable to an individual. Yes, individual accomplishments are related to success, but they
build upon and result from innumerable influences both direct and indirect. We are all connected.
We all play a part in success, even if it isn't apparent to us.