Assignment
Dreams are not to be likened to the unregulated sounds that rise from a musical instrument struck by the blow of some external force instead of by a player's hand, they are not meaningless; they are not absurd. On the contrary, they are psychical [mental] phenomena of complete validity-fulfillments of wishes.
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1969 [1899]. Quoted in Critical Thinking: The Art of Argument. Rainbolt, George and Sandra Dwyer, Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2012, p. 28.
When the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990, the general public and scientists in the aerospace field both held high hopes. . . . But blurry images caused by a flawed mirror sent those hopes crashing to Earth. The U.S. Congress demanded an explanation for the failure. . . . Stress and health problems afflicted many NASA engineers. "It was traumatic," says the former director of NASA's astrophysics division, Charles Pellerin, who oversaw the launch of the Hubble. Nobody could see how to fix the problem.
Well, nobody except Pellerin. He not only had insight on how to solve the problem but found the funding and resources to repair the telescope, for which he received NASA's Outstanding Leadership Medal. But his real reward came over the next decade when the telescope provided spectacular images and important discoveries about stars, galaxies and other cosmic phenomena.
What was the secret of Pellerin's success? Dozens of other people at NASA had high IQs and world-class technical knowledge-they were, after all, rocket scientists. So what gave Pellerin the edge? What made him persist until the telescope was fixed when others felt overwhelmed by the challenge? His mind perceived reality differently. He reframed the situation as an unfinished project, not a failed one. He never lost sight of the potential for a positive outcome-a space telescope that worked. He saw how that positive future could happen as the result of technical solutions-corrective optics-package repairs performed by a crew of astronauts-that were possible with a rearrangement of funding and resources that already existed within NASA. By reassessing the situation, recognizing the potential and envisioning the repaired telescope, he was able to help orchestrate the unfolding of events that changed the future.
Thatchenkery, Tojo, and Carol Metzker, "The secret to highly successful people." Ode, Issue 34, June 2006. www.odemagazine.com (accessed November 2006)
Some people think that the law should require that all political poll results be made public. Otherwise, the possessors of poll results can use the information to their own advantage. They can act on the information, release only selected parts of it, or time the release for best effect. A candidate's organization replies that they are paying for the poll in order to gain information for their own use, not to amuse the public.
Moore, David S., Statistics, 5th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2000, p. 123.