How To Remain Optimistic in a Pessimistic Environment

Introduction

I recently came across an article that talked about the frustrations of readers having to get generic advice and sometimes irrelevant or obvious advice like “how to brush your teeth”. This article also addressed issues that I have been thinking about for a long time where writers give very questionable advice about writing like “you should write every day”…

It’s not just in writing where people push this kind of advice. I am a visual artist and civil engineer when am not writing, playing basketball, guitar, piano, or coding. But I always hear this kind of advice too in all my areas of work. Artists are told to draw every day and as an engineer, you are falling behind if you aren’t innovating fast enough. I’m not against this kind of advice but am also not for it 100%. Balance works for me but I won’t get into that now. Let’s get back to the article that started all this.

The writer of this article went ahead to make an absolute statement about writers and writing. She said…

“…if you aren’t writing to a publishable standard by the time you’re a teenager, you’re never going to….”

This statement hit hard for me because this is not the first time I have heard someone say this.

My Story

In 2011, I was neither an engineer nor a visual artist. Writing, playing basketball, guitar, piano, or coding..? I had none of that perfect or any good either. I was just some 18-year-old struggling to go through high school. This was also the year I got my first expulsion from school because of poor performance. So I wasn’t good in academics either.

I had done physics, chemistry, mathematics, and Technical drawing (PCM/TD) for short in school, and according to my school, I had failed because I was 7 points short of the pass mark. Not gonna lie those were a lot of points and I am not going to explain myself out of this… I failed…. I failed really hard.

To make matters worse, I was a student prefect. This meant that everyone in school knew who I was. Not a great place to be when you are introverted. I figured I would speak to my spiritual director who also worked as my counselor about the possibility of considering my incremental performance since that was above the pass mark. Basically, I was trying to talk my way into getting promoted based on my previous grades.

He told me that I did not have the IQ to do these subjects(PCM) and that is why I failed. He also told me that as long as I tried to do these subjects, I would be wasting my life away because I wasn’t bright enough to do science subjects. I had the right to listen to him because he knew what he was talking about.

This guy was a natural scientist. He was among the best in the country in physics and math. He had a lot of science awards from extremely prestigious institutions in my country. He was so good in physics that he turned his 1993 Toyota sedan into a self-driving vehicle all by himself (no youtube tutorials)in 2009 among several other experiments that I think were a work of genius. He was and still is a genius. He is also the guy who told me that I could not succeed doing (PCM) because my brain was not strong enough to handle science subjects.

I felt humiliated, embarrassed, and defeated and really wanted to believe him. He had the experience to back what he was talking about. I was just some 18-year-old kid who had failed to pass A-level physics, chemistry, and math. But I couldn’t keep my mind settled knowing that I had been defeated by physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Believe me, I wanted to follow this guy's advice but I couldn’t.

He, therefore, gave me an ultimatum. He told me that if I could not accept that I wasn’t bright enough for PCM and therefore should do History, Economics, and Geography (HEG), I was going to be expelled from school. And so I secured my first expulsion from school. This was how I left the seminary.

When I left the seminary, I was embarrassed and spent most of my time depressed in my room at home. Neighbors were gossiping, so were some relatives. A few reached out to me to ask where I was going to go next… For some unknown reason, I kept telling them a school which was by far one of the best schools in the country. Far better than the seminary.

To give you some context, Imagine you were in a random community college. You get expelled from there on academic grounds and when people ask where you are going next, you tell them, Harvard. Yes. I was crazy like that.

Some people thought that leaving the seminary and going to one of the top 5 schools in my country was just my way of coping with my grief. Others thought it was depression. Many told me to be realistic and realistic I was.

I cut out all other options. I had no “safe” schools. I only doubled down on my school and I added two more conditions.

1. I was going to do PCM while there.
2. I was going to go abroad and study civil engineering when the time for my university education came.

This was in December of 2011. I don’t know whether it’s depression and denial that fueled this crazy behavior but I know that there was some light of hope back of all those decisions.

With my hope and singly focussed decisions, I decided to go to this top school to ask for admission. I met a lot of resistance. I was 6'1" far above the average height at the time, I had a huge afro, and my natural expression was that of a soldier.

The headmaster in this school looked at my application and with a red pen just wrote,… “NOT CONSIDERED”. Yes, it was in capital letters with a red pen.

He hadn’t even seen me. So I made provisions of my own to make sure he sees me. I kindly requested the secretary to schedule a meeting... She looked at me like I was the dumbest human on earth. A random kid with poor grades trying to meet the headmaster to her was an insult in itself. I had been called dumb and expelled from school so I didn’t care about this. I was going to own it so that it can move me forward.

The headmaster came out of his office 3 hours later and told me that he couldn’t give me a place in his school. I considered giving up. I’m not gonna lie but I made sure that I followed my “dumb” intuition. There was no turning back. I waited till he finished his lunch and when he returned, he must have taken just enough pity on me or it’s something I must have said that made him schedule a meeting with me 4 hours later.

When I entered his office, I was taller than him. This must-have intimated him. I was a failed student. He told me that his school was not the type that takes in rejects. He also told me that I looked like the type of student who was going to wrestle his teachers. It was also his first year as headteacher there so he should have played it safe by taking in the bright students in order to guarantee high approval from the school board.

Anyway, I calmly presented my case and I gave him conditions of my own that made him feel safe. I told him that if he admitted me to his school there were two conditions that I was supposed to meet, failure of which, he was free to expel me immediately.

1. If I ever fought with anyone or disrespected anyone, he was free to expel me.
2. If I got even just one point below the pass mark at any point in my studies, he was free to expel me as well.

Somehow these conditions softened his decision and he took a chance on me. He told me to go home and come back with my parents so that they could bear witness to and accept our terms…

After that, I was admitted to that school and did PCM till the end.

My dad was retired and I didn’t know how he was going to afford college abroad given that even on his job, he only earned $12000/year. This is the good income of the middle class in my country. He worked as an accountant in the central bank by the way. But he was now retired and he was only earning a pension of about $3000/year.

My schools however that I wanted to go to had about $8000/year in India and $20,000/year in the UK. I applied anyway. I applied and got into two schools. Warwick University in the UK and Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) in India. Both were civil engineering programs although Warwick University had given me a dual degree.

I chose VIT because it was cheaper and my dad figured I would go with my sister and it would make it cheaper~($16000/year in India Vs $40,000/year in the UK). Also, Warwick took a long to respond and by the time they did, I had already started school in VIT.

While studying engineering at VIT, I got depressed and picked up art as therapy. I was 24 at the time when I started to draw. Another artist on the internet who had been drawing ever since they were like 4 years old gave advice saying that you can never learn how to draw if you didn’t learn that before 10 years old. This was not very good advice and it reminded me of the physics genius who told me I was too dumb for sciences. I applied the same approach to art as I did to sciences and I can now say I’m good at it.

I don’t mention my life challenges to feel good about myself. My biggest motivation is my desire for human advancement and I’m so against any person or effort that hinders such progress.

Imagination and Creativity Are For All

My life as an artist and engineer doesn’t stop there. It sips into so many other areas such as graphic design, motion graphics, programming and computer science, basketball, and many more still in development.

I love seeing people succeed at doing things. But I also know that this is not possible when hope is taken away from them.

People who have accomplished much often dish out absolute ideas when it comes to advice on what is and isn’t possible in their areas of expertise. Sometimes this advice however meaningful is really hurtful to the progress of those at the beginning stages of their journeys.

Being crazy, or naive is most often what makes us move and test out new frontiers in our pursuits. We tend to move blindly and figure out what to do along the way. Sometimes we find guides who have been there before us and they can offer great insights on how to take on the challenges that lie ahead. But when people who are supposed to serve as guides are acting as hindrances themselves through the advice they give, they not only hinder there our advancement but also their own.

The physics genius teacher who told me I will never have brains for physics and math is still just that. A physics genius teacher. I on the other hand have moved on to engineering and other physics applications in my work. I think both of us have noble professions but I feel awkward going back to him to help me work on some innovative idea I have been working on for a long time that requires a lot of physics. I know he has the answers but he is my last option and I really never look beyond my first option as you may have already noticed. I’m not saying that he is missing out or anything. I am just trying to illustrate the motivations behind my actions and why they aren’t so good for the other person’s advancement.

If you are a published author and don’t have any useful criticism to give to new writers rather than destructive criticism of telling them to give up on what they do, then maybe don't..?. Most of us cannot point to a single reason why we write. Others have been born in abject poverty and they can only begin learning how to write now in their 30s and 40s+ after pulling themselves out of those conditions.

Imagination and creativity are not gifts that some people have and others don’t. We all have them and they develop by using them. Creative writing and other pursuits of a creative nature are only activities that we can engage in when we are interested. Where that interest comes from, I can’t tell.

Sometimes it’s the money, sometimes it’s clout, other times it’s the desire for self-actualization and so on for countless reasons but none of that matters. We are all writers on a journey.

I doubt whether J.K Rowlings was writing at publishable standards when she was a teen... But I know I have enjoyed reading her books. I haven’t yet watched the movies but people say they are even more interesting.

Writers like Tolkien who started writing at 4 years old and invented languages in their teens would laugh at the accomplishments of a writer who got their break in their teens. But they don’t. Writing is creative and the creative journey doesn’t have an expiry date.

Build Curiosity to Remain Hopeful

Instead of telling people why their success is impossible, teach them and let their zeal carry them further. We all have different interests but I also believe they are routed somewhere in the depths of our curiosity rather than some pre-determined potential that we are born with.

My interests as an artist and engineer did not all come at the same time. I was not born with either of them and frankly, I don’t know what my interests were as a kid apart from watching cartoon-network and eating soil. Over time, however, my curiosity has helped me develop talents in music, art, design, sports, and academics that I never thought possible.

I let my curiosity guide me and my hope fuel me towards realizing these interests. But my path is my own and am sure that everyone has their own path.

I can’t give you curiosity but I can give you hope. Stay the course. I promise you. Whether you don’t know English and yet you want to write a New York best-seller, you got this as long as you are curious enough to let your hope fuel you. You will find the answers you need to move you towards your goal and your only task then is to continuously take action towards your inspired ideas and see how things work out for you. Over the years, I’ve kept my hope by remaining curious. I have to keep building my curiosity or else I lose my hope or it becomes blind hope.

A Few Ways I Build Curiosity and Keep My Hope

These are the ways I have tried to build up my curiosity and hope. Through this, I have been able to acquire skills in different disciplines at various ages of my life.

Listening to my intuition

Unlike logic, intuition rarely offers a full picture of what the journey is like. For me, intuition has therefore been one of the reasons why I remain curious. Intuition only offers one step at a time and things keep working out as I take the steps given.

Logic on the other hand gives you a precise path and expected outcome of your pursuits which leaves little for curiosity. Intuition gives you just enough information to help you move forward and the rest is revealed as you progress.

When I first started relying a lot on my intuition to push me forward, I often made mistakes in recognizing and distinguishing between intuitive ideas and those that weren’t. I still do to this day but my mistakes are less frequent now. I got better at separating those ideas the more I stuck to listening to my intuition.

In my experiences, Intuition developed the more I used it. It becomes easier and clear with practice. There are many people who rely on it better than I do but I can’t complain in regards to how far it had led me and I know that there is still a lot of progress to be made because I still remain curious ever since I started using it more often.

Separating my secular rewards from my advancement

Things like money, fame, and so on are great. They give us feedback that what we are doing is being done right. Most times, however, we get caught up in looking for these things instead of focussing on our growth which then makes us slow our progress, kill our curiosity, or fail entirely.

In high school, I failed and ultimately got expelled because I was only fascinated with the idea of being a science student. This was because it was cool to be a science student and I wanted to be a part of that. What I didn’t do however was the work that needed to keep me there.

So my wake-up call came as an expulsion that forced me to re-evaluate why I really did sciences in the first place. Luckily, my desires of making contributions through engineering were the original motivation behind my choice and I stuck to it although this time I focussed on understanding the subject material rather than looking cool in school and this built my curiosity and eventual overcoming of the idea that I was not bright enough to do sciences.

It’s great to have money, fame, and all these worldly rewards but we should focus on growth so that we can grow and keep our curiosity.

Amazon has remained the biggest online retailer for more than 20 years because its founder has maintained his customer obsession since the early days of the company. This keeps them focused on satisfying the customer and therefore they have to push their curiosity to try out new things that may or may not be profitable for the company in order to make their customers happy.

I’m not saying that Amazon has it all right, they have their faults but we can see how remaining curious has kept them ahead of their competitors for decades.

I now use my curiosity to push me forward in my advancement and let the money and fame just come in as a result of that progress.

Questioning my beliefs and those of others about me

Based on where I was born and the conditions that surrounded my growth, I should have been a failure in society. Many of my friends and relatives never made it to where I am today. It’s not because they couldn’t. They could and still can. But unlike me, they decided to buy into beliefs that society taught them and those that other people had about them.

This resulted in many of them getting involved in non-developmental practices like witchcraft, theft, polygamy, and so on. I have always questioned the beliefs that I hold about myself and those that others hold about me before they lead me astray.

When I question the beliefs I have, for those that I find beneficial, I try to find ways to improve them, and for those that aren’t beneficial, I try to eliminate them slowly through engaging more constructive beliefs about myself. I don’t accept any beliefs that are limiting in nature however well-intended they may seem. For me, I struggle with getting rid of an accepted belief that isn’t beneficial much more than I do when accepting a beneficial belief.

I take on and take off beliefs that are beneficial through a number of ways like constructive dialogue, self-examination, and so on but by far the most effective method I found is through reading books with constructive beliefs and truths.

Many people don’t like the bible and other scriptural or religious books of its kind and rightly so. Most of these books are misinterpreted and create so many contradictions. I find it beneficial however to explore my spirituality through new thought authors and books like The Kybalion, Impersonal, The Book of Mirdird, Rumi’s teachings, and several others.

I have read more than 100 books of this kind through their audio versions and they have helped me address most of my limiting beliefs about myself and those of other people about me.

I Don’t limit any person’s development

We are human. Based on our environments, we may be susceptible to anger, jealousy may other destructive tendencies but that’s alright. Acting them out and imposing them onto other people is a problem I try and avoid.

It takes too much mental creativity for me to hinder someone’s efforts that in the process, I end up hindering my own development. I also expose myself to other destructive energies that may cause physical complications for me.

My curiosity and creativity however grow by supporting other people’s development. I become better through helping others become better rather than bring them down.

That’s why I teach what I learn about art and design on my youtube channel, or share my music on my Instagram and teach people who are interested. That is why I chose to study master's in structural engineering. I don’t limit anyone’s potential so I naturally have none of my own potentials. I take one step at a time because I know that if that step is in the direction of my interests, then nothing along the way will stop me from getting ahead.

Conclusion

We need hope to keep us curious enough to move ahead. What we don’t need is anything that takes that power away from us. If you are a talented individual in your area, try to help other people achieve the same without imposing limits on them. Let them face the limits they already have and with your help dissolve them to move forward.