I’ve been trying to read this summer. Not just read several pages at random intervals or skim several pages of a book. It’s been a while since I actually sat down and read for a good half an hour – and textbooks don’t count.

I have been reading about reading, and about writing. I am currently reading “On Writing Well”, written by William Zinsser. It’s a great book about writing with a great message. The book centers around the argument that most writing is unnecessarily complicated.

The life-changing message of ‘On Writing Well’ is: simplify your language and thereby find your humanity.

Especially in law, business, and some academic fields, writing is full of jargon and paragraphs are convoluted.

I can’t agree with his point more. My writing used to be complex, and full of large and overly grandiose words. Looking back now, I would say my writing was poor. Writing is a tool to communicate ideas. There is no need to be unnecessarily dense with language and if something can be said in one sentence, use one sentence.

I’m glad I happened to find this book. It’s given me a lot of new insights and thoughts about writing. Definitely one of the best, if not the best, books on writing that I’ve read.

It’s really tough to figure out your true calling. I think most people don’t have a clear idea of what they want to do. And if they do, figuring out how to get there is a tremendous obstacle.

I’ve had a lot of trouble with this myself. I grew up thinking that I wanted to be a police officer. “Catching bad guys” was my thing. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with football. It was amazing – the camaraderie, the thrill I felt after a big hit, and the pride I felt when we won. It was a tough sport, but the constant workouts were worth it. Unfortunately, I could not keep up with academics, sports, and extracurriculars. I realized that if I did not devote all my focus to football, there was no way I could reach the professionals or even play Division 1 ball.

I put all my focus on academics and extracurricular activities. I flirted with medicine. Then, I thought I wanted to pursue a career in finance. And now, I still don’t really know what I want to do. There are many things I enjoy, and I feel like I’m a lot closer to the answer now.

This summer, I’m in Boston working in management consulting in their legal analytics department. It’s a new experience and I hope this guides me further along my journey.

Hey all, to commemorate my first official blog post, here’s an article that I read a while back that I found really insightful.

It’s tough to keep everything in mind sometimes, but not impossible!

Here’s the post: It was posted on MIT’s admissions blog and it was quite popular a while back.

50 Things