Take a good long look at the ChE mirror
Bathala ng ChE matematika, common sense at stamina, saniban mo ako! |
As
someone studying in chemical engineering, balancing is one of the
things that we in our field are expected to be good at. “Give me
a fully defined system, and a set of significant relationships and
we’ll make sure that the net rate of the in-going and outgoing
streams of resources (e.g. materials, money, heat and work) will all
equate to zero.” That’s basically one of the highlights of
being in chemical engineering, you get to know where everything comes
and goes, and how a change in a certain aspect can affect the
system’s entirety including the important streams affected by the
change. The result can come as a spectrum of two simple outcomes:
Will it lead to an improvement, or will it lead to a catastrophe (and
a lot of resources down the drain)?
Accountability.
Balance. Consistency. If there are any words that stuck
to my head the greatest while answering problem after problem in
Chemical Engineering calculations, it’s these three.
My bff (Perry's ChE Handbook), right beside my main life source (coffee) |
Yet
a bit of self-reflection dawned on me lately, and I took a break from
thinking about the many ways on how to attack problems for a
bit. Accountability, balance and consistency –
these concepts that I’ve mentioned should not only play as
protagonists in our calculation sheets and pen-defiled scratch
papers. You don’t only need these three when looking for an unknown
quantity, you actually do still need these concepts in maintaining
our sanity and relationships inside and outside the four walls of the
classroom (or office).
Accountability.
“The
sum of the entering streams must be equal to the sum of the outgoing
streams.” In balancing systems, the Law of Conservation of Mass and
Energy, or the basic mathematical and physical laws still apply and
under no circumstances are they to be broken, unless you want to be
given the stinky eye by one of your professors (Haha. Hello stalking
ma’ams and sirs).
To
be accountable, means to know where these resources are heading in
and heading out. I assume that all of us have goals, right? In
achieving those goals, we have a list of things that we need to do to
achieve them: habits we need to break, bad behavior we need to fix,
and a lot of discipline to hustle and not be negligent. But
sometimes, we get so caught up in the middle of doing the things
we’re doing that we sometimes forget the reason why we are doing
these things in the first place. What do you want to improve on?
Which parts of yourself are holding you back? Pick up a pen and list
them down. Prioritize what is important and cut off the
non-essentials.
Be
accountable in your habits. Like a person who wants to lose
weight to be healthier, we need to keep reprimanding ourselves
whenever we lose sight of the goal. If losing weight means to lay off
the junk food, not eat too much rice, to not indulge too much in soft
drinks and beer, then do so.
Be
accountable in your behavior. We’re humans, we make mistakes,
but sometimes, other people get hurt by those mistakes. In this case, acknowledge what you did and apologize. You cannot change what happened but
you can change that behavior so that it won't happen again.
Balance.
Life
is really just one huge balancing act. An ass hat becomes an ass hat
if he or she continues to stay rigid in his or her ways and not make
room to unlearn things that are not serving them anymore. One’s
happiness and inner peace should be a priority, not something one should put off in the name of chasing after money, or a better future, because it's not worth it if it comes at the expense of
your own physical and mental health.
Balance
work and play. You are not here in this world just to pay
bills and die. While I know that it’s a lot easier said than done,
take time to breathe and treat yourself, and to do this, you don't have to spend thousands of dollars. You can always jog, get
some sun, do some stretches, take a walk in the park or take some
time off from being a slave to the system.
Acknowledge that you are human and that you need rest, and that your self-worth is not based on how useful you are to society.
I’m not saying that people should just abandon their duties in the name of living their lives. I’m just saying that people ought to start mastering the art of balance.
Acknowledge that you are human and that you need rest, and that your self-worth is not based on how useful you are to society.
I’m not saying that people should just abandon their duties in the name of living their lives. I’m just saying that people ought to start mastering the art of balance.
Balance
pleasure and pain. While I’m all up for hustling in
the name of financial stability and a brighter future, I do not
promote Masochism. I’m sure some parts of being a masochist has its
own faulty advantages.
Maybe
people are masochists because they use their own discomfort to
rationalize their feelings of guilt. They derive pleasure in knowing
that they are in pain, and they’re less likely to guilt-trip
themselves of being ineffective at something because they are in
pain (I’ve been studying non-stop for more than 48 hours
without rest, if I do rest, it might mean that I am a lazy person).
Sometimes people even use this for their own sense of
entitlement (Hello? I’ve been studying for more than 48
hours, you go do that, I know that’s supposed to be my job but I’m
tired and I don’t want to do that for you). There’s a thin
line between burning yourself out, and using that burn-out to be an emotionally manipulative jerk.
Nobody asked you to do that thing 48 hours straight without taking health breaks, Kaitlyn (P. S. Don’t be a Kaitlyn).
Nobody asked you to do that thing 48 hours straight without taking health breaks, Kaitlyn (P. S. Don’t be a Kaitlyn).
Consistency.
“The
units of the left side of the equation should match the right side of
the equation.” I cannot elaborate how often I’ve applied this
rule in solving many engineering mathematical problems. You’d know
something is fishy when the left side in your equation is in lbf –
ft while on the right side, it’s in psi.
I
used to be really annoyed when I couldn’t get past the consistency
of units during my early college days, and my grades couldn’t get
around it due to the meticulousness of our professors at that time.
Now I look back, and I’m thankful for our profs’ meticulousness.
You know who you guys are. Bahala na ug hapit ma-tres ang
grado sa eksam basta naay nakat-unan (Doesn’t matter if my
grade in the exam is nearing a 3.0 as long as I learned something).
Like
how consistent I, as an engineering student, should be in the units I
use, I should be as consistent or even more so, in real life. How
though? By matching what I say with what I do. In other words, I need
to walk my talk. (You call yourself a queen, Roxanne Marie? Then act
like it).
Consistency
is attractive. In fact, it’s often considered a turn-on. I
mean who would want to be with anyone whose actions don’t match
their words, right? You don’t have to be knighted by a monarch just
to be a decent person or a man/woman of honor. You just really have
to stick to your values and as much as possible, not waiver in them.
Now
all of this is really way too easy to say and hard to do, but all of
us need to start somewhere. Starting is the hard part, but it gets
easier.
“Everyday, it gets easier... but we gotta do it everyday. That’s the hard part.”
- Bojack Horseman S02, E01
One
precaution though. When dealing with people or life in general, do
take what I say with a grain of salt. A realization that I’ve come
up is that you cannot use the same algorithm, the same set of
equations, or the same approach in dealing with people (or in dealing
with life, in general). Based on experience, dealing with people are
far trickier than all the problem-solving exercises I’ve answered
in ChE, and it’s because people are not directly governed by any
rigid set of rules, thus dealing with them isn’t as simple as
following the GRSA protocol (Given – Required – Solution –
Answer).
That’s
not how people work. Heck, that’s not how life works, but good luck
to all of us.
Let's all keep holding on to the faith, okay?
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