We were all once babies.

You know those people who appear to be naturally good. You could wake them up at midnight and they will know their stuff. Sometimes it seems that no matter how hard you work you'll never be good enough. You probably know that its not true, but the world we now live in subconsciously tells us otherwise . Effort seems to be underestimated these days. Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook we call him a computer nerd, Kenyans run so fast, we say its in the food they eat. Good students perform well we say they are born smart. Talent is equated to magic and if you don't have it, look elsewhere or you are doomed.


I have to admit that I have fallen to this trap sometimes, passing on opportunities because I thought I wasn't born with it. Upon reading Malcom Gladwell's Outliers you may say I'm less intimidated. Malcom speaks of the 10000 hour rule, where he emphasizes that you need at least 10000 hours to be an expert at something, anything. Almost all outliers have put in at least these hours, whether they had natural talent or not. Perhaps talent makes it easier to dedicate that much time but in many cases, dedication is enough to defeat natural talent.

Since 2008 Usain Bolt has been breaking his own record, earning the title of the fastest human alive.
He obviously trains a lot but  articles such as this have been written , coming up with contradictory facts about how much height and "twitch muscles" are the reasons for his success. This video clearly shows how much time he is dedicating to self improvement.

I understand where these claims are coming from. We humans are inherently insecure, we try to make for what we don't have by attributing it to something that is beyond our control. Its understandable but we have to be mindful of how we are belittling other people. We were all once babies, at some point we all knew nothing, the stars we have today just put in more hours to their craft.

 The secret? Shut your ears and eyes an look at your plate because in the end its what really matters, literally.  Practice a craft you are not comfortable with until it becomes second nature. Stop listening to opinions and start putting in those hours because sometimes we look up to other people so much that we forget to look into ourselves. Have a productive week ahead.

Allow yourself to be happy.

A lot of people equate happiness to laziness. That is if you are happy then you will be too content with what you have hence you won't be the ambition for more.  We have glorified self-torture so much that among others hustling has become a positive word and sleeping for less than healthy hours is praised particularly among the youth. We even go as far as diminishing our achievements, depriving ourselves so that we are not too comfortable. I don't know to what extent this will work but I know that this approach ultimately breaks in the long run. 

Success is built from effort, but effort is not the same as torture. Effort is meaningful work done for the love of it or to achieve a particular goal. Effort is not sleep deprivation so that you look busy or to please other people. Effort comes naturally.

I have to admit that I also fell into the trap, in high school the school manager , a clergy, used to give us a motivating speech every Monday about we should work hard to like him, to achieve our dreams. Recreation was considered taboo back then.What he didn't emphasize though was what motivated him, see he was making a huge difference in society and he enjoys it. He was in his zone, he was living with purpose and everything else was just a necessary evil. Getting there doesn't happen automatically, we don't all wake up knowing our talent, passion and purpose.  We have to try different things, fail at some or many to get to that zone. 

Relaxing is not laziness, it is sometimes necessary

The law of the secret states that like attracts like. Discontent attracts more discontent and  peace attracts more peace. Working for  something you love and enjoy is not self deprivation because it is rewarding in itself and it attracts more success. The vice versa is also true. This is the secret with history makers of all times. They don't just work aimlessly. 

Moral story: There is nothing wrong with being happy and content. 

The Big Lie

We have all been lied to. This lie has been deeply ingrained in us that it has become true.  Its the reason why we always feel like we are competing against each other. This lie has been perpetrated to motivate us to aim higher. Its the reason we all get surprised when a college dropout or worse a high school dropout becomes a billionaire, its the reason we'll never understand why top level CEO's resign to be family men and women. We are all victims of the Big fat lie and its difficult to see as that because the people who perpetuate it are perhaps the most important people in our lives. They are parents, teachers and well meaning mentors whom we  have given permission to guide our lives.

So  the big fat lie we are told is that there is one hierarchy, the higher up you are, the better you'll be and only hard work will get you there. Work as hard as possible to reach the top and everyone will die to be in your place. Get that dream job, dream car , dream house and dream spouse and you will be perfect. You literally won't need anything else because everything will be in your reach. People make millions selling dreams like these because they know nothing is as influential as peer pressure . 

'The hierarchy' myth starts in elementary school where there is no better system to reward students than test marks. We start defining ourselves from our position in class and then this lie is further ingrained when you're told that those grades determine what college you will go to and how successful you'll be. You grow up, get the freedom to pursue what you want and realize that it was all a lie, but its too late. A few realize this early enough and are honest with it but the rest will perpetuate this lie upon the next generation and the cycle continues.

Truth is there is no hierarchy. We are fundamentally different; for a start we have different backgrounds, not to mention our fundamental genetic difference. As much as hard work counts , a lot contributes to one's success; innate abilities, working environment among the many. Some thrive in strict conditions while others will flourish with proper support. One might define having many friends or being famous as success but for some of  us in our tiny introvert worlds, reading a book over a cup of tea means heaven. Some find satisfaction in flashy cars while others find true happiness in creative outlets. What is within your reach is probably someone else dream. There is no way one single hierarchy can capture all that. We might have interests in mutual things, and probably mini-hierarchies but one single hierarchy is just ridiculous.  

Here is a video of a 13 year old who is a bit wiser than the rest of the world.

Moral of the story: You are not half human if you don't have most of what your friends brag about on facebook. You are just different. Embrace it. Have a great week ahead!

Hello World!

Let me take this opportunity to apologize for my lack of online presence, I know it has been a long time since I posted amazing stories. This blog went to the bottom of my priority list since my course load this semester was heavier than usual (8 courses - almost double the previous semesters'). I also took the time to live (you know without having to think about the next blog post) .  So for the second time, hello world.

Honestly, I have been pondering a lot about this post but no one article can summarize how much I have learnt this semester, both mentally and technically. Today I'm  gonna talk about resilience.

 Resilience is not dismissing important things in our lives because of disappointments. Its about facing them , learning from them and being able to take it from there. Its not easy to believe in ourselves when everyone seems to have it figured it out. If there is anything I have learnt from reading the book  Never Eat Alone is that we are never alone, we all go through the same things, some of us are just better at hiding it. A good consolation would be to remember that Abraham Lincoln lost 8 elections, suffered 2 nervous breakdowns and failed twice in business but he didn't quit. Sometimes resilience makes all the difference. With that said, have a wonderful weekend and week ahead.


NB: There will be a few changes around, this blog wont be updated as often as I used to because I have a learnt rad stuff about tech and I will be  dedicating  my time to www.technofunology.blogspot.com .

Everyone has ego .. and that's good!!

You've probably ever wondered why everyone just doesn't get it? I mean why don't see life the way you do, why they don't appreciate what you do or why they won't understand how you conquer your circumstances. Its simple, they simply don't care , maybe they care a little but they also have ego and that's not a problem because you have it too.

See it doesn't matter how important or hardworking or smart you are, people will always put themselves and their interests first. Now we all know that Albert Einstein was a smart person, probably the smartest to walk on this planet, but he also spent two frustrating years upon graduation looking for a teaching post. How could the universities he applied not see that? They were simply protecting their interests and none of those interests involved hiring a recent grad without fancy recommendation letters. Little did they know they were missing out on the greatest scientist in history.

See everyone has ego and sometimes we are convinced that if we didn't have it then the world would be a better place , well, not entirely true. Imagine if everyone cared about everyone and everything else. We would be nice, but we wouldn't have any progress. We only need to care about a few things to get things done. Besides, we can't expect others to take care of us if we don't take care of ourselves.

Its an unfair request to ask others to give up their ego, because ego is natural and a healthy dose of it is good. Major contributions including discoveries and innovations were made to humanity because people put their pride in their work and their ego on the line for it. So ego is not entirely an enemy, we could however work around it. Moral of the story: Stop playing victim and start listening, maybe then the world will start to care. Once you realize this, life is a lot more amazing.

What better way is there to live?

Marie Curie was a legend, she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win two Nobel Prize in two different sciences, She together with her husband discovered radioactivity, a concept that helped study the structure of the atom, and radium which is central to cancer treatment. That was the mark she left in the world and that's the headline that will go down in history. What this introduction doesn't tell you is how many failures and adversities she had to endure before achieving the role model status. Well, lots of it, in fact following the most unconventional route possible she had to earn whatever she accomplished. (Hint: it was the 19th century, women were not allowed to study let alone in the sciences and a Pole when Russia controlled Poland).

Here are some anecdotes history won't tell you about. She couldn't afford university education, so she made an agreement with her sister where each would for the other. So, she worked to pay for her sister's education, who would return the favor once she graduated. In college, she had to work for her up keep, sometimes fainting due to hunger or the cold. She and her husband were invited to a conference in London but she wasn't allowed to speak  because she was a woman. She wasn't dominated for the Noble Prize by the committee in the first place, her husband was, it was the Swedish mathematician Goester who proposed her , after he was nominated. She had to conduct her research in her backyard because she couldn't get a lab. In short Marie suffered it all , yet she conquered all.

She could have taken the easier route, become a house wife and live happily ever after, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't her definition of happy. I quote her own words, "Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that?We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that thing must be attained. That thing must be attained even if our achievements are lost to history."  This is as inspiring as it gets. When it feels like its all tumbling down, don't quit , instead,  ask yourself, what better is there to live? 

Forget balance , try focus.

 

I'm gonna talk about diamonds and waterfalls today. They may be completely different things but they both illustrate one common and very important lesson; the power of concentration. Diamond is made of Carbon, the same stuff that makes charcoal and pencils, but we don't see anyone singing about the latter and there is a reason; concentration. Diamond is made from Graphite under very intense pressure and temperature, another synonym for concentration. Same applies to waterfalls, ordinary water has nothing special, we use it without even noticing, focus it to pour a cliff and governments will make a fortune out of tourists. 

So much for just one word? Not exactly. We live in a society that upholds normal even though we can't clearly define normal is, we resonate with words like balanced, well rounded, versatile , multitasking among others. Which is a good thing if all these other things contribute to one final goal, otherwise it is of no significant value. The main and probably only reason Leonardo da Vinci is still popular is because he did it all. He did engineering, architecture, painting , biology, mathematics, physics, geology and more, probably all the professions of the 21st century. He did it all, but he didn't do it all at once. Actually , he was primarily a painter, then pursued other fields later in life. 

There is no shortcut to mastery, its focus. It is through focus that priorities are made, that willpower is efficiently used and everything falls into place. It may sound like getting lazy but it actually gives you energy to do even more. 

Have an amazing week ahead!