I once heard Steve Jobs recite the following quote by Pablo Picasso when explaining why Apple is so good at innovating:

Good artists copy; great artists steal.

At the time, I had only a general idea of what this means: copying differs from stealing in that copying leads to unoriginality whereas stealing means to take something and make it yours. However, I didn't yet have the concrete experience to solidify my certainty and ingrain it into my psyche. So, it was just a useful but purely intellectual concept.

However, this past semester, I've gained a real sense of what this quote means as I've revived my love for dancing (popping, to be specific). This semester I've attended every single practice, each of which is taught by dancers much more experienced than I am. I feel so privileged to have the opportunity to learn from the best, and it is quite humbling to say the least. Dancing, I've learned, is a form of art that is closely tied to Picasso's quote.

Recently, I came across a motivational pregame speech that Jimbo Fisher, the head football coach of the Florida State Seminoles, delivered to his team right before facing Georgia Tech in the playoffs. Although I attend the University of Florida (UF) and place the Gators on a higher pedestal than the Seminoles, I highly respect Jimbo as a head coach as he led the Seminoles to an impressive 29-game winning streak. As a Jimbo fan, one part of his speech really stood out to me:

Don't try to be the hero. Heroes are guys who do their job consistently every day. They do the right thing over and over.

I highlight this line because overestimating oneself's ability is all too common, and its consequences are devastating. Inconsistency leads to poor planning, hinders effective teamwork, and ultimately leads to poor execution. In the context of football, Jimbo is emphasizing that consistent, well-planned plays almost always trump sporadic, risky plays (i.e. "hero" plays). While this principle certainly applies to football, I believe it can be extrapolated to other aspects of life. Let me give you an example.

Psychologists have known for years that people judge risk based on a sophisticated balance of emotion and deduction. Often the former trumps the latter.

This is a quote that I read in an online article that I believe is fairly relevant to an epiphany I had at a national conference this past semester in Philadelphia hosted by the Society of Asian Scientists & Engineers (SASE). It was a tremendous experience as I formed invaluable connections, attended workshops by industry experts, met Nina Davuluri (Miss America 2014), and explored Philadelphia with close friends.

One speaker that particularly stood out to me, however, was Tom Shieh, a best-selling author and entrepreneur. Knowing that pursuing the entrepreneurial path is daunting to most of us college students, he polled the room for reasons as to why we may not want to become entrepreneurs. Common responses included: "I may be too shy," "I may not be creative enough," and "I may fail to make enough money."

I love this statement from Richard Feynman when reflecting upon his job offer from the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies:

They expected me to be wonderful to offer me a job like this, and I wasn't wonderful, and therefore I realized a new principle: "I'm not responsible for what other people think I am able to do. I don't have to be good because they think I'm going to be good." And somehow or another I could relax about this. I thought to myself, "I haven't done anything important, and I'm never going to do anything important, but I used to enjoy physics and mathematical things. It was never very important, but I used to do things for the fun of it." So, I decided I'm going to do things only for the fun of it.

This is my argument on why Bernard Williams' criticisms toward utilitarianism are too strong for the utilitarian to overcome.

Utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics that defines a morally right action to be one that maximizes happiness. In Utilitarianism and Integrity, Bernard Williams criticizes utilitarianism by introducing scenarios and speculating what utilitarianism might say about them, what we might say about utilitarianism, and what would be implied by certain ways of thinking about the scenarios. I will argue that the utilitarian cannot overcome Williams’ criticisms, because the utilitarian is unable to understand integrity and cannot coherently describe the relations between one’s values and one’s actions.