Hello, Codeforces! , this is a reflection on my problem-solving journey. I wasn't an active problem solver before joining the Codeforces community; however, I used to have the basic skills to solve a problem. Now, I have become Pupil, and since this is my first semester at the university I think this is a good achievement. I won't talk about my progress in my technical skills like fast calculations, high ability to imagine scenarios, etc. I realized that I have acquired a valuable skill which is accepting being wrong. we as humans find it hard to accept being wrong which is the nature of humans. In my first contests, I was creating excuses all the time... There is a problem in the question, I think my solution is right, why I got wrong? and if I got TLE, oh GOD! it's Python again python, which is a slow language compared to C++, and these excuses lasted for a good period. Notice that I didn't assume that the problem is in my solution. After a few weeks, my mentality started changing when I got WA I asked myself the question: what have I done wrong? is my approach wrong? Are my assumptions wrong too?
Accepting being wrong developed these questions in my mind when I think about solutions :
- I try to find a test case with which my approach will not work. In normal life, I could be wrong. assume this and that.
- maybe you assumed something wrong in the first place, and the problem isn't in the solution but in the assumption itself. in real life, we could have wrong thoughts that prevent us from changing, achieving more, and doing the right thing. We must always check them and remember that our beliefs(assumptions) could be wrong.
Now, I am very doubtful about myself and my goals in life; hopefully, this will make me open to change and let me have a flexible mindset. Thanks, CodeForces and CP!
After 365.25 days of CP, Loading...:)
