Beware of finding what you're looking for._x000D_ _x000D_ A favorite aphorism he often used.
Interpretation
This quote warns against the pursuit of a singular goal, as it may lead to unintended consequences.
Richard Hamming's quote suggests that when individuals become too focused on a specific outcome or goal, they may overlook broader possibilities or the complexities of their desires. It serves as a reminder that the journey and the learning that occurs along the way can be as valuable, if not more so, than reaching a predetermined destination. Focusing solely on what one seeks may lead to missing out on other opportunities and insights.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth, I might say, 'Beware of finding what you're looking for.'
When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did [Claude Elwood] Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you.
Science is composed of laws which were originally based on a small, carefully selected set of observations, often not very accurately measured originally; but the laws have later been found to apply over much wider ranges of observations and much more accurately than the original data justified.
Does anyone believe that the difference between the Lebesgue and Riemann integrals can have physical significance, and that whether say, an airplane would or would not fly could depend on this difference? If such were claimed, I should not care to fly in that plane.
If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work.
One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to.
Put glibly:_x000D_ _x000D_ In science if you know what you are doing you should not be doing it._x000D_ _x000D_ In engineering if you do not know what you are doing you should not be doing it._x000D_ _x000D_ Of course, you seldom, if ever, see either pure state.
The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics.
The man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances.
No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing.
When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.
I have always tried to make room for anything that wanted to come to me from within.
We have to embrace the good over the bad. That has to be one's personal project.
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