One of the major distractions for me around this time (in terms of focusing on studying) is the NBA playoffs. I’m a pretty big Laker fan so whenever they’re playing I always have to watch the game – and all the other teams for that matter. The regualr season is fine. I didn’t watch too much of it. But this is the playoffs, and I just have to watch the game when it’s on. I can’t even be distracted while watching. If my wife asks me a question, I don’t even hear her. Tonight I had my Cisco book on my lap hoping to squeeze in some light review while watching the game but I never got the chance to even read one sentence. I was so involved with the game that I was getting too emotionally attached to it. It was almost as if I was in there playing too.

Where am I getting at here? I really want to do well on my studies. I want to transfer to a new job where I can use my new found knowledge in networking. I dream about working for a major service provider or ISP and working on high end Cisco equipment, configuring and implementing, etc. I reallyh want to be good at it. I know what I need to do. In able for me to do what I have to, I need to make some sacrifices. That means I can’t just be wasting 2-3 hours at a time without being productive (productivity to me doesn’t just mean studying. It can also be precious time spent with my wife and young child).  But tonight, I spent three and half hours watching the game. When they play next time, I’ll be doing the same again.

Does that mean I don’t want this bad enough? Does the fact that I can focus all of my attention to a basketball game for 3 straight hours and I can’t even sit in front of my book for more than 30 minutes without taking an email break or a tv break mean that this journey is not for me? Am i bound for failure? I have visions of being a CCIE someday in the future but I wonder sometimes that if I can’t get myself to be atttentive, with laser focus, on my studies now, that I may not have the qualities necessary to be successful in pursuing a CCIE. 

On the flip side, before I went to work this morning, I wrote on my dry-erase board a reminder: “Today: Configure lab for Chapter 11 examples”. After watching the game feeling exhausted, I came into my room and saw the big reminder in front of me and somehow the guilt I was feeling for not having done it earlier gave me the push to finish the lab. Well, the configuration at least. And what do you know! I actually spent from 10:30pm-12:30am learning the topology, learning the configuration, and applying the configuration. I felt pretty good about that. In total I spent about 4 hours today (including this morning) labbing and reviewing.  And tomorrow, I should have more time to spend configuring routing protocols, verifying, troubleshooting, and familiarizing myself with the output of various sh commands.

Maybe I’ll be alright after all.