2DkcTXceO

618 Never ask for or give adviceyounger readers who have yet to notice, our ability to make ourselves faster,higher and stronger, not to mention smarter and deeper, is rather limited. Yes,it would be great to win a Gold Medal at the Olympics, or a Nobel Prize or aFields Medal, or even to win the COPSS Presidents’ Award, but my view isthat for all but a vanishingly small number of us, such goals are unachievable,no matter how much time and effort we put in. This is not to say that thepeople who do achieve these goals can do so without expending considerabletime and effort, for there is plenty of literature (no quotes now) suggestingthat they must. My point is that time and effort are usually not sufficient tobring about dramatic changes in us, that we are what we are.Also when I was young, I read a statement along the following lines:Worldly acclaim is the hallmark of mediocrity. Idon’trememberwhereIsawit, and can’t find it now, but I liked it, and it has stuck in my head. I usedto think of it every time I saw someone else get a prize or receive some otherkind of acclaim. I would think “Don’t feel too bad, Terry. Galois, Van Gogh,Mozart, Harrison, Mendel and many others all had to wait until after theydied to be acclaimed geniuses; your time will come.” Of course I always knewthat I wasn’t in the same class as these geniuses, and, as if to prove that,I came in due course to win some awards. But it still sticks in my mind: thattrue recognition is what comes after we die, and we shouldn’t be too concernedwith what comes in our lifetime. I think we’d all be better off accepting whatwe are, and trying to be a better one of those, than trying to achieve theunachievable. If that means accepting mediocrity, so be it, but then let’s aimto be the best – fill in your name – on the planet. Let’s be ourselves firstand foremost. I think being happy with what we are, while working to makerealistic improvements, is a great start to achieving more than we might initiallythink we can achieve. Unfortunately I can’t leave this theme withoutpointing out that our profession is multidimensional, not one-dimensional, soit is likely that the concept of “best” doesn’t even make sense here. We don’thave competitions and rankings like chess or tennis players; we try to bringall our skill and experience to bear on any given statistical problem, in thehope that we can find a good answer. But we never have to say we’re certain.On the other hand, there may well be a dimension along which you can bethe best.51.4 EnthuseWhy enthuse? Enjoyment of our job is one of the things that distinguish peoplelike us — teachers, researchers, scholars — from the majority of our fellowhuman beings. We can find our work engaging, challenging, stimulating, rewarding,and fulfilling. It can provide opportunities for expressing our creativesides, for harnessing our competitive urges, for exhibiting our altruistic spirits,