Throughout my childhood (0-12), for some strange doctrinal reasons, we never had a TV in our home.

For all the downsides (e.g., social awkwardness among peers socialized in a different setting), there were nevertheless, serendipitous benefits. For one, when I was around 10, my Dad bought a computer system with only one interesting app: Mavis Beacon, which featured typing lessons and games. Some of you will be familiar with the app.

I was utterly fascinated by those typing games. However, there was one particular game that left a lasting impact on me regarding the power of optimizing one’s decisions and actions towards achieving a specific goal. I can’t remember the name of the game, but I can recall some details central to the idea I’m trying to convey. Here’s how the game worked:

Immediately upon pressing “PLAY,” you would see floating bars of different colors (blue, green, red, purple, yellow) pop up with words that would disappear after five seconds or so, whether you succeeded in typing them or not. If you typed fast and accurately enough, the words on a particular color bar would earn you that color bar, and another word would appear on the bar randomly, or it would change color.

Now, the color is significant as it ultimately determines the end product of the game.

BLUE = LION

RED = WHALE

GREEN = EAGLE

Thus, if throughout the game you solely concentrated on typing the words that appeared on the BLUE floating bar, at the end of the exercise, you’d get a LION.

If you concentrated solely on the RED floating bar, you’d get a WHALE.

If you concentrated solely on the GREEN, you’d get an EAGLE.

As you can infer, each color was matched to a specific animal.

Now, what happens when you decide to ignore the color coding and type impulsively and carelessly, without thinking about having a recognizable animal in the end—mixing the RED with the BLUE and the GREEN—simply because it was easy, stressless, fun, and convenient?

Well, wait for it:

You’ll get an animal with a WHALE’s head, a LION’s mane, and probably an EAGLE’s wings. Good luck naming it.

Yes, the animal you’d optimized for with your impulsive, carefree, mindless, convenient, fun actions will be one that’s incoherent, indescribable, funny-looking, unserious, and yes, certainly, easily forgotten.

Those characterizations above are exactly what you get when, as a student, you choose to jump on every meme, blog post, gossip, hot take, and comment, instead of intensely sticking to the color codes and blueprint that brings your desired academic story to fruition.

Yet you wonder why you always end up with a GPA that has a lion’s mane (1A), a tilapia’s body (4Cs) and three chicken legs (3Fs) —an academic result that’s all over the place?

Chest it! It’s the gift you optimized your life for.

This post is a wake-up call for you to do better.

What is that academic story you want to tell someday? Ask yourself if your current lifestyle, decisions, actions, and even environment (physical and social) are optimized correctly to create that story? If not, what are you waiting for?

If there was anything that game taught me, it was this:

“James, you can never create a lion of an academic story on mindless principles—you need to define what you want and then be intentional, every step of the way, no matter the distractions that will inevitably pop up.”

Other colors might be beautiful, but they’re just not for you or the story you’re striving to create.

This is your time to create your lion of an academic story. ZERO IN ON YOUR COLOR AND SHUT OUT THE NOISE.