Growing up Blind
As I turn 25 this year, I have been practically blind for almost 12 years now. Over the course of that times, I have experienced quite a number of unpleasant things in life, from getting rejected to attend school due to my disability, losing friends, and getting bullied because of my blindness.
Sure, there are also other (not-so-fun) stuff of being blind, such as, you can no longer watch Premier League Soccer on TV, You don’t get to excited about Social Media (i.e., Instagram), and pretty girls (of course).
But if I’m being honest, the most difficult thing about being blind is actually learning to be dependent on other people.
When your light switch off, you have to relearn all the basic skills that you have taken for granted and start all over again. Things that are use to be so mundane: Eating, walking, and picking clothes become a bit challenging at first. People wouldn’t know either I was blind or really really drunk.
That said, after 10 years living in the darkness, I can say that I have mastered the art of blindness now. Some fellow dudes in the blind community even said to me: “you have survived the Boot Camp”. If such thing would ever exist.😂
�Joke aside though, the experience did leave a long-lasting impact in my life.
Going blind at such a young age proved to be an incredible teacher teaching me about everything in life. The situation that I had to go through, force me to take matters into my own hand, and assume responsibility to decide for my own destiny and future.
If it wasn’t from my friend, who suggested me reading “extreme ownership” by Jocko Willink, I wouldn’t have known that these principles actually has been tought countless times before. And trust me it works!
For those who don’t know, Jocko Willink himself is an author and a former Navy Seal who wrote the best-selling book “Extreme Ownership”, in which his pass experience in the war in Iraq has helped many people to build leadership and push through adversity in life.
I believe everybody can benefited from an extreme ownership mentality, regardless if you are a soldier. A clerk working nine-to-five, or a person with disability like myself.
In this article, I will show you some of the extreme ownership mentalities that I’ve adopted myself, and it has helped me tremendously in my blindness journey.
Stop Blaming and Take Responsibility
“Believe it or not, most people prefer delusion. They blame others or bad luck or chaotic circumstance.”~David Goggins.
Why? Because, we human, are just a social creature and we love pointing finger to other humans to give them the responsibility of our failure, while we sit comfortably waiting things to be fixed because we have excuse.
Before blaming others of your predicament, you should examine yourself objectively: am I responsible for my own situation? Or am I just blaming others to avoid responsibility?
Obviously, it would be easy to just play the victim role, and be like: “life it’s not fair!,”, rather than putting matters into your own hands, and be accountable of your life and destiny.
Extreme ownership is about assuming responsibility. It is an art to be 100% honest with yourself, and to not be at the mercy of everyone and everything around you. Huge part of it is to own the failure and face the hard truth in front of you.
There were definitely moments in my life, especially in the beginning of my blindness journey, that I was in the victim mentality mode. After all, I had the reason, the excuse, and the justification to be that way. Frankly, that was what society expected people like me to be. But, just because it’s the path of least resistance, doesn’t mean it’s the best one.
Choosing to put the blame on the people and situation around me didn’t serve me anything. It didn’t get me close to my goals, nor it made me happy. It was just holding me down.
With this sudden realization, I slowly untangle myself from all the lies and belief I had been feeding my brain. To move forward in life is to take absolute ownership of oneself. Put it simply, everything is your fault. By internalizing this, you will hold yourself accountable and start doing something, instead of dwelling in regret and toxic behavior, such as blaming other people and circumstances for why you fail and never succeed in life. Being mature is all about responsibility: both have to do with owning your failure and hold yourself accountable.
Control what you can Control
if you are born poor it’s not your mistake, if you die poor it’s your mistake”~Bill Gates
Let me remind you, some aspects in our life cannot be changed e.g., your height, your parent, where you are born, whether you born rich or poor, and what people think of you. They are external forces in life, and it’s beyond our control.
You might try to change other perception about yourself: after all that’s what social medias are use for, right? But you shouldn’t!
The truth is, you can’t really control what other people think of you. Well, you could. But it takes a lot of effort and resources. You should reallocate those valuable times to instead focusing on the things you can control (i.e., career, emotional being, family/love ones). At the end of the day, there is no even point of chasing those likes and acceptant.
Let me tell you, I was naturally an introverted person, and to some extent, I still am. I was not looking for the spotlight (i.e., being the center of the attention). When I became blind however, it was a little bit impossible to not get attention from the crowd, especially when you’re the only person tapping a stick just to get coffee from a small shop across the park.
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A simple walk for a blind person is always challenging: you just can’t see the road ahead.
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I would also kept overthinking what people might think of me: are they staring at me? Are they looking at me funny because of my white cane? Of course they are.
At one point, I came to a conclusion that there is no point wasting time on that. People will think what they want to think. Part of extreme ownership mentality is not giving a crap about what society thinks of you. It’s about being on your purpose and mission. Be apologetic of who you are, including all the greatness, flaws and weaknesses within. Embracing the extreme inside will let you unlock this power: the key is to always chase excellence and remove all the distractions that prevent you from achieving greatness in life.
World Doesn’t Works in a Mysterious Way
“They say there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, but not once your eyes adjust to the darkness, and that’s what happened to me.”~David Goggins.
Embracing extreme ownership power is all about the realization that our fate: happiness, success, career and everything in life, is absolutely in our control. The world won’t have a say on that, nor it owes us anything. It may sound obvious for some people, but believe me, most of us are still trapped in this vortex. We think that world works in a mysterious way. We think that if the stars align and the days are right, a million dollar will be knocking at our door.
Stop believing that your life will work out itself without you having to put in the effort. It wont!
The truth is, most life scenarios are quite harsh, but that’s okay. Rather than being bitter about it, make the most out of your current situation and become the best version of yourself. Again, life doesn’t owe us anything. If you fall down, bruised and beaten, guess what? Nobody is more responsible to pick yourself back up again but you.
I had to learn this the hard way. In the beginning of my blindness journey, I was so fixated on the idea of restoring my vision back to normal again. Every medications, treatment, surgery and some of experimental approaches have been tried unsuccessfully, While I kept feeding my brain with lies that such thing would be possible. The truth was, I was in self-denial the whole time. That kind of thinking led me no where in life.
Extreme ownership teaches us to accept the reality as it is. It also teaches us to face the most extreme version of ourselves, in its rawest form possible. When you are in the most difficult situation in your life, you will realize that the most important conversation you’ve ever had is with yourself. I might have sounded like a broken record already, but trust me, the world don’t owe us anything. You don’t deserve anything in life. Things must be earned. Success must be built. You must fight your own battle. Instead of becoming (the affect) of something, try to be (the cause) of something.
See the difference?
Final Thought
Having extreme ownership mentality really boils down to realizing oneself responsibility and power. Taking a responsibility is a form of externally owning the consequences of the things you do and don’t do. If you decide to pursue something, it will be upon you to earn the reward or bare the consequences. I could have spent all of my teenage years hoping that Elon Musk, or maybe the next Elon will come up with cutting edge technology to cure all the blindness in the world. But that’s not an extreme ownership mentality though.
Extreme ownership is not letting yourself become victim of your own life: it’s proactively owning 100% of your life and destiny! It’s all about cutting all the BS, and focus on the things that truly matter. I don’t have to remind you that we only have one life in this world. Therefore, we might as well make it worthwhile, by taking full control of our mind and the path we choose to follow.
