The Year in Review: Things I've Learned the Hard Way

By Timothy Allinson, P.E.

Murray Company, Long Beach, Calif.

Reflecting on the year 2007 there were a lot of ups and downs. The downs, in particular, generally turn out to be learning experiences, and those are the things you learn the hard way. Perhaps there are some things you can only learn the hard way.

Growing up, learning always came easily for me-most things anyway. Prior to college, I rarely had to study in school, except in those classes where things were learned by pure memorization such as foreign languages and history. Math and science were as intuitive as walking-once I had reached the right age it seemed all I needed to know was somehow stashed between my ears.

When I got to college that same "stash" of pre-wired information got me through my first semester, but in my second semester my grades began to decline. By the first semester of my sophomore year I realized I was headed on a path for failure. Acknowledging that my mother was paying far too much money on my education for me to screw it up, I realized it was time to get down to business. This realization came as I started thermodynamics.

Thermo was the first technical class that was not intuitive for me. I hated it-at first. I was blocked, it made no sense and I wanted to quit. But then something amazing happened. I learned how to learn. I never had to do that before. I never had to push through a cognitive block to get to a higher place of knowledge that I never knew existed. I guess for me, that is what learning represents. For me, true learning, rather than the memorization of foreign words or integrals, is a sudden passage to a new level of thought and understanding. It's like breaking the sound barrier, or hiking out of the clouds and seeing clear mountain peaks above you and a plush layer of clouds below. I read once that learning is hard because it requires change of behavior that is not intuitive. After thermo, I knew what this quote meant. Thermo became my favorite subject in school and the focus of my education, coupled with fluid mechanics.

Getting back to the current year, due to some professional and relational turmoil, I learned the fairly obvious fact that one's behavior generates expectations in others. When you give a lot of yourself to a person, the expectation is that you will continue to do so. Is this fair? I'm not sure. It is human nature, that's for sure, but it is not necessarily fair. People can only be truly as they are, and that does not always match the expectations of others. It's tough stuff, living up to the expectations of others, especially when it matters to you. I learned this lesson the hard way, after I had gravely disappointed a friend, and I didn't mean to.

I have another friend who I recently hurt quite badly, intentionally so, but with hindsight I realized that it definitely wasn't fair. Without getting into the details, I overreacted to reports I was given by six different people about things this "friend" had said and done behind my back and I lashed out in retaliation with a venomous e-mail. When push came to shove the reports of my friend's behavior became less clear and less concrete under scrutiny and the basis of my anger seemed to crumble. The mistake I made was lashing out with e-mail. It is, to be honest, a cowardly way to communicate strong emotion. I should have approached this person face to face, or at least over the phone, allowing them to be heard and present their side of the situation. After all, we all know there are two sides to every story, and my friend's should have been heard rather than dismissed. Today we are friends once again, but our friendship may never be what it once was.

Have you ever overheard someone talking about you when they didn't know you could hear them? It is an interesting experience. It has only happened for me once and I will never forget it. Back in NYC I had a boss whom I admired named Donald Ross. Don had the remarkable ability to assess a person's character immediately and express that assessment with great accuracy in very few words. It is quite a talent. As I passed his office one day I overheard him on the phone. I was not eavesdropping, but in the few seconds it took me to pass his office I overheard him say, "Timothy is very intelligent but he shoots wildly." Now, it is possible that Don was talking about another Timothy, but in my heart, based on his few words, I knew it was me he was discussing. I learned something about myself that day-I learned he was right. One flaw of my character is that I do "shoot wildly" (i.e., rush to conclusions, or speak before thinking things through completely). I have always been guilty of that, still am, and always will be. Sadly, it's my nature, none of us is perfect, and you cannot truly change your nature.

Another lesson I have learned the hard way is that you can't always rely on modern medicine. I have had two medical complaints of significance in recent time, and on both occasions I was told the same thing: We don't know why it happened, it won't get any better, but it probably won't get any worse either. In short, "There's nothing we can do for you." Fortunately for me these issues were not life threatening, just inconveniences, but what if they had been life threatening? Or more tangibly, what if my wife and I had acted on the advice of our genetic counselor when she told us our second unborn son had a genetic defect, and we should seriously consider terminating the pregnancy? Fortunately, we chose not to do so and we were blessed with a perfect, beautiful boy without a trace of genetic abnormality in his blood.

Together with this latter issue, I have learned that despite my belief in science over religion, never under estimate the power of faith, especially the faith of your grandmother-in-law, when she drives an hour each way to church, seven days a week, to pray for the health of your unborn son. I honestly believe I owe the health of my son and the fact that he defied medical belief to the faith of Grandma Shirley.

All of this thought and writing about learning things the hard way-paying your dues-reminded me of a quote from my favorite Hemingway book, The Sun Also Rises. "I paid my way into things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it." Using money as a metaphor for learning and experience, I hope 2007 will prove to have been a rich year.

Hopefully this self-indulgent thought stream with no technical merit provided some entertainment and perhaps even a little insight for those of you who bothered to read it. It was not very uplifting, nor was it in the holiday spirit, but as I have written before, sometimes there are just things you have to write about.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season.

Timothy Allinson is a Senior Professional Engineer with Murray Company, Mechanical Contractors, in Long Beach, Calif. Prior to entering the design-build industry he worked for Popov Engineers, Inc. in Irvine, Calif, and JB&B in New York City. Tim holds a BSME from Tufts University and an MBA from New York University. He is a professional engineer licensed in both mechanical and fire protection engineering in various states, and is a leed Accredited Professional. Tim is a past-president of ASPE, both the New York and Orange County Chapters, and sits on the board of the Society of American Military Engineers, Orange County Post.