I recently read the famous advice from Sam Altman, which resonates with me on the choices to make to become successful. I particularly find myself guilty of a few, which might be a reason why I am not as successful as some of the industry leaders – no regrets still. About the same time, the UK Tech Nation rejected my application.
Through a deeper reflection, I was led to a stage of asking a fundamental existential question: What do I really want? And I am asking you, what do you really want?
To be raised as an African is to live with an acceptance of how things are; not so much change can be effected. And even if changes can happen, they must be carefully done to ensure a balance. Although this has created a very cultured environment, it has also created an environment that misunderstands the concept of time.
As children, we were often asked: “What do you want to be in the future?” As an African and a Nigerian in particular, I now believe we all misinterpret this question.
Now that we are adults each time we are reminded of this question we tend to joke around about how things had not turned out the way we had wanted, how the system itself had not allowed us to be exactly those things, even we blame the innocent JAMB for not giving us the exact score that we needed or a school for offering admission to a course different from what we wanted to study, we blame the economy, we fault the country, we fault the road infrastructure, and even the village people!
I understand that all of these constraints exist as an African, and I would rather see them as distractions away from the obvious truth. We tend to forget that the question was asked by people who were adults when we were children, and were aware of all the things that were happening back then. The question, I believe, is not what we wanted to be, but rather how we want to spend our greatest resource in life: time. And I will continue to prove it to you as you read along.
While we all claim the system to be exactly as bad as we have found it, it is worth noting that there are grass-to-grace stories even right in our very close circles of very underprivileged individuals in this same environment.
There are people that we have witnessed rise to the utmost level, some with unique abilities, most with the same abilities that are generally obtainable, but the only differentiating factor is the amount of time they spent on what got them the results that we celebrate them for which has little to do with the luck, connection, and whatever we attribute their winning strategy to be.
Sam Altman attributed luck to staying long enough till somehow the stars align in our favor, connection is you being at the right place at the right time, skills are just spending enough time doing a graduated task over and over again. All these points point to the concept of giving our attention to a particular thing over a period of time, and asking you again, what do you want?
That nerd is not just a bookie; he would graduate with a first class and get that job you thought was impossible for your background.
That guy who enjoys organizing communities would go on to organize bigger events in the industry.
That guy who ran errands for the lecturers ended up getting the dreaded scholarships, the one who loved to attend events would end up working at top companies with his average grade.
Some of these guys get these things with an understanding of what they want, while people with profound unawareness do all of these as a result of who they are!
At this point, if I ask us What do YOU want WHEN you grow old, I believe I will get an answer similar to what you gave as a child. I want to be called a grandpa, I want to live in a mansion with my grandkids, etc. But that is not the point of the question. Now that you have defined exactly what you want after an X amount of time, would you be willing to pull all your efforts to get you that?
After I got the mail from the UK Immigration office, I reached out to a couple of friends for morale support and to offset my emotions as early as possible. One of the suggestions was knowing what to do next – from my dad, a friend’s suggestion struck me, he said, “If I know this is what I want and I know the things that I need to do to get there, then I will just work on those things instead.”
If better put, I’d spend my time wisely to get what I want!
At some point in a future post, I will explain what work is and how we have misunderstood it. From what he said, I could understand that he means: I will ensure my time is well spent on getting these things done!
This realization is profound for me; it helped me contemplate the question (What do you want to become when you grow older). While I have spent the last few years of my life working as a software engineer, have I worked towards meeting the requirements for the Global Talent visa in particular? Or I was hoping I would cruise through and just arrive at a destination. Same question goes to you, do you think you are doing enough to get those things you are actually hoping for?
It is worth mentioning that while there are physical limits on the individual level, we don’t all have the same IQ, we don’t all have the same stamina, and we don’t all have the same height; we all have different realities. But as an individual with enough time to have figured out themselves – thinking you are as old as me, I am putting this question to you: what do you want to have achieved in 10 years? And I am not asking you to dream or create an illusion, I am asking you, after spending 10 years of your time, what do you intend to get back?
People in developed countries understand the notion of time more deeply. I am always fascinated by the trains in Japan. As a Nigerian, traveling from Lagos to Ibadan by road can take 2 hours (a 150km distance), but with Japan’s HighSpeed trains at 300km/hr, it is a 30-minute journey. Meaning I could have an extra 1.5 hours to do whatever I choose to do. Even with this advantage, they live every minute of their life thoroughly accounted for.
I now believe that we also don’t better understand the statement time is money. We always think of it as the best time spent is that which generates a monetary reward, but it is not.
We spend money with the intention of getting something in return, be it tangible or intangible; no one ever spends money without a reason for a reward, and time is not very different. The major difference between a pro league footballer and a division 2 footballer is where they spend their time, ignoring their physical/mental abilities. The difference between an engineer and a doctor is where they spent their time at school - one studied engineering, the other studied how to become a doctor.
It should become captivating why the highly successful place more value on their time over anything else. Money can be remade, time spent can not; it is forever gone, money is elastic, time is constant, and has a finite end.
The greatest loss we can take is spending our time on anything that does not lead us to a future we hoped for ourselves.
While in Nigeria, the system can be against you, given enough time, I believe you could have become the engineer, doctor, or lawyer that you wanted to be, and even if midway, some realities made us have a change of heart, we could still become that.
And most often, comparing the state of an environment with another environment is a choice of responsibility neglect. We could wish for Nigeria to become like the dream country we want, or hope that the entire continent witnesses a revolution. Still, given a chance in a developed country, we will have a different question: how do we want to live a normal life, if not born into a middle-class family? The Otedolas do not have the same questions that we have; realities are different.
To every problem we face, given a different environment, there is an almost similar version of the exact problem.
The grass is not always greener on the other side; most times, a stagnant mindset will always question what the environment can do for them instead of what they can do in the environment. There are not enough jobs in the country, but people get jobs; there are not enough healthcare providers in the country, but people get treatments. For whatever we think there is not enough or we lack, there is almost someone with an abundance of it somewhere at that particular moment.
And if the goal is emigrating, time is required to get that result, and the time would be spent in the same environment we termed as unstable. can be seen as investment though!
The biggest advantage of money is helping you buy other people’s time, so you can achieve more. This is the sole reason why managers would delegate some tasks rather than do them directly. As humans, we are special and can handle a particular task better than others, such as cooking/plumbing/carpentry. It makes less sense to let you handle your accounting; it is not a good use of your time, pay someone else to do it, except you can’t afford it.
So, asking for the last time, what do you really want? – And now – for your time spent on earth?
If you can define that, why are you wasting your time doing other things that don’t push you forward towards getting what you want?
Why do you keep squandering your time, but put all the blame on the system?
Remember, whatever you are not changing, you are choosing it.
It is mostly not your environment; people excel in it, it is you who can’t define what you want, and if you can, it is you who does not spend enough time on things that can take you where you hope you want.