Start With Why.

you are confused with who you are, and you just go with the flow...

Photo by Gilberto Olimpio on Unsplash

Recently I started to contemplate a bit more about why am i doing certain things. Instead of the fact that I’m trying to affirm myself or hoping it may win some resonance from others, I start to believe that it’s more about reconnecting with my “why”.

So why did you want to pursue this area of interest? Why did you put in so much time and mental energy into working on these things? What is it that you have high hope for to achieve? I think this are what give meaning to all endeavours and keep one grounded to their vision and not sway by the external temptations or other successes to deviate from what really resonate with us. And this “why” is the one to help you with all crucial decision.

I have a friend who has always been an admirable entrepreneur who has been working towards achieving social good objective. He has been building a mathematics learning app for a year or more, he even took off studies to give full energy to the process. As a fellow friend who had glimpses of his involvement and dedication in this startup, I was really very inspired and it lit the fire in me to seek out my own niche and passion. Through him, it definitely dawned on me the amount of hard work and perseverance attitude are the backbone behind every success being. But at the same time I also saw how this entire process was eating him up and sucking his mental wellness bits and bits — it’s a lonely journey (to some extent). He was the sole developer on the team with a few other members working under him but still it can get isolating eventually, with the disconnection from friends, the weight of responsibilities and the expectations from others.

But what really impressed me was not just all these (although it would have sufficed), it was his resolution to his “why”. His insistence towards the very original vision of joining the project. He left the organisation and it was a clean cut off — sold all shares; no string attached. I don’t know how he just did it. It’s like leaving a huge part of your life behind, or a piece of your flesh cutting off you. The resolutution to leave it all, with no lingering feelings (or perhaps not). His reason being that the direction and purpose of the organisation have deviated a lot from his personal agenda. And he felt that what’s the point of focusing so much on academics excellence anymore when elitism is just yet another issue. And the cruel reality is that, if you are already poor, how beneficial is it to become “smart” when the first thing to worry about is survival.

I think many call this idealistic. But at the same time I think I can understand his point of view. One can have an idealistic vision to do good but humans are not ideal or rather this world is not an utopia. In our world, many rules play out in such a way that it disadvantages the poor and leaves little space for them to thrive. Times has changed to the grave truth that we are facing little demand and over supply because humans are greedy yet selfish. Still, nothing was really better than the past, except everything seems to be better — the industrialisation, the higher standard of living and globalisation. On the other end, we have all the things that we compromise on — our environment, privacy...

The world will always be flawed in all the days the human reside. And with the social structure currently that promotes capitalism, it can feel that any intention of keeping a product purely for social good is impossible — it requires a lot of persistence and a lot of capital. If we don’t keep it affordable then how is it going to benefit those who are already poor. But if we don’t profit from it then how are we going to sustain such a business especially during rough times like now?

It’s conflicting but it ain’t complex. To do good, we need to play by the rules as well. It’s the balance between reality and the persistence of our “why”.

Quoting my mum,

“to give back to the society, you need to be rich first”.

To beat the rules of the game, you need to win the game first. Poor analogy here, but you get what I mean.

In any case, do your best to navigate in this imperfect world. I believe amidst its imperfection lies the golden balance we can keep to stick to the rules yet at the same time embrace our “why” and make it a reality.

"Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change.” — Jim Rohn

We are the epitome to our own vision, make people see it. Keep dreaming, keep working!