Beliefs and principles developed over time that guide how I approach work, learning, and life.

When you fail to plan, you plan to fail

This is the principle I lean on most — across work, studies, and life. The idea is simple: a little forethought goes a long way in avoiding avoidable failure.

At work, I see the consequences of insufficient planning regularly. Being in QA means I’m most often towards the end of the product or development cycle, making the ripple effects of poor planning particularly visible — edge cases missed, environments not ready, dependencies overlooked. This isn’t specific to QA; it’s an observation about work projects in general. But from where I sit, those gaps are harder to ignore.

OMSCS has reinforced this too. A semester without a plan for assignment deadlines, exam schedules, and project milestones means late nights and last-minute scrambles. On the flip side, mapping out the semester upfront — even roughly — makes the workload manageable and frees up mental energy for actually learning. On a personal level, planning shows up in smaller ways: meal prepping for the week, scheduling downtime intentionally rather than waiting to burn out, setting financial goals. The same pattern holds — a little structure prevents a lot of friction.

There’s an inherent tension between this principle and “Be in the arena” — plan vs. act, deliberate vs. do. The contradiction is real, and I don’t pretend to have resolved it perfectly. What I’ve landed on is: plan enough to avoid preventable failure, then act. A rough plan executed well beats a perfect plan that never ships. The goal isn’t to eliminate uncertainty through over-planning — it’s to build enough of a scaffold that action can happen confidently and adaptively. The cost of planning is time. The cost of not planning is rework, firefighting, and missed deadlines. I’ve found the former is almost always cheaper — as long as you know when to stop planning and start doing.

Everything has a trade-off

Every decision involves opportunity cost. Choosing one path means not choosing another, and being aware of this helps me make more intentional choices.

This is especially relevant when balancing work, OMSCS, and personal projects. Time spent on one thing is time taken from another. The goal isn’t to eliminate trade-offs — it’s to recognize them and decide consciously.

Some examples:

  • A more thorough test suite catches more bugs but takes longer to run and maintain
  • Deep understanding of one framework is valuable, but so is breadth across many tools
  • Automation saves time long-term but costs time upfront to build

When faced with a choice, I try to ask: What am I giving up by choosing this? If I can answer that honestly, the decision is usually clearer.

Be in the arena (The Man in the Arena)

Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech resonates with me: “It is not the critic who counts… the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.” I first came across this through Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, where she uses it as a framework for vulnerability and courage.

I try to favour action over passive observation. It’s easy to critique from the sidelines, to point out flaws without putting skin in the game. But real learning and growth come from trying, failing, iterating, and trying again.

This shows up as:

  • Building side projects even when they’re imperfect — a shipping project teaches more than a perfectly planned one that never ships
  • Volunteering for unfamiliar tasks at work rather than sticking to what I know
  • Writing blog posts and documenting my journey, even when the writing isn’t polished
  • Asking questions in class rather than staying quiet to avoid looking unprepared

The people who try and risk failure are the ones who learn the most. I’d rather be one of them.

Vulnerability is not weakness

I also saw this from Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly and it’s really one of those things where it’s never going to be easy, yet necessary when forging deeper, more meaningful connections.

Vulnerability in practice:

  • Saying “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” instead of faking an answer
  • Sharing early drafts and half-baked ideas for feedback rather than polishing in isolation
  • Owning up to mistakes

The shift in mindset: vulnerability isn’t weakness — it’s the prerequisite for learning and genuine connection. You can’t improve what you pretend is already perfect.

Last updated: May 2026