A False Sense of Urgency
How being impatient about the wrong things will get you nowhere in life.
There are a hundred million things one wants to do in his/her life, and they want to do it as soon as possible. The #FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) attitude the millennials and this fast moving world has embedded into every person has made us more impatient by the minute. Every minute there is a new post from a company, a celebrity or someone awesome, of doing something awesome, somewhere awesome. That’s the curse that social media comes with. It sets a standard for a good life so high, that we are in a constant rush to put ourselves up to those standards. Even we have to fake it. There are too many people who throw parties or go to run marathons just so that they can get that one selfie on Facebook and a million likes for that “effort”. The problem is no one might even remember your incredible stride after 5 minutes. That’s how low our attention span has sunk in a world of social chaos. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere. To get as good as or better than the next guy. To beat the best and become the best. The most popular, and the most amazing. The sad reality is, no one has time to understand their own preferences and shortcomings. Everyone wants to be everyone else, but themselves. George travels a lot, but Susan doesn’t. But just because George gets a dozen likes for his travelling pictures, Susan puts on her trekking shoes and books a ticket to the Galapagos Islands. It kind of ruins the point if you take a vacation as a retreat and spend your whole time taking pictures and uploading statuses on your phone.
I wasn’t aware of this till today morning. Ive always wanted to build this company, something rare and not a lot of people are doing. Turns out there are too many people already doing it. So I started googling these companies. And I started googling how I can get where these people are as fast as possible, so I can beat them at their own game. I started designing logos, I started ruffling through books. My mind was churning thoughts at the speed of light.
What if someone else builds the same company that I want to build?
What if I’m known as the “copy” when I actually build it?
What if nobody buys my stuff and everyone just rushes to the giants that are already established?
Why is everyone always a million steps ahead of me?
These questions have tormented me for months, until recently, I realized that these sudden panic attacks are useless. But this is the fear most people have. “What if everyone has their fun and I’m left behind?” is something most kids and adults too say sometimes in their lifetime.
I’ve loved Science. I’ve always loved it. The mysteries and wonders of the world and how things work and how I could build stuff using those same principles has always shocked and awed me. The very process of answering tough questions and spending hours looking for answers and working out problems has always been my passion. But this sense of urgency, to get somewhere where someone else is kind of ruins the whole game. It puts my whole life inside a pressurized container. I blame the school system for this of course. You “have to” finish this test within the next 5 minutes. You “have to” finish this assignment in a day. You “Have to” score as high as the toppers in your class.
Your head starts spinning when you look at your competition. A million, billion people are running the same race that you are. Its scary.
But the fun part about life is that it isn’t a race. Even though there are narcissists who treat it like one, you need to pace yourself. You need to adopt a patient mindset in order to get things done. If there are 12 year olds going to college and winning Nobel Prizes that’s fine. Really. It’s their life. You surely can’t feel insecure because of them. You have your own life. You’re time will come. If you want to build or create something that will stand the test of time, you will need to deploy patience.
I have friends who have made haste to grow their “start-ups” too fast too soon, who have spent millions of dollars on things they had no Idea about, just to get to the top. And they have crashed and burned severely. Haste makes waste is the best quote for those who fail to deploy patience.
If you want to learn something, do something , or build something,
PACE YOUR SELF.
Social media influencers are smart. They will show you pictures of “entrepreneurs” who have Lamborghinis and Ferraris and make it look like it all happened overnight. You will make haste and fall into their trap and buy their shitty product or book titled “Seven tips that will make you your first million dollars” . It will surely put a million bucks into the bank account. But theirs not yours.
You need to strategise and plan everything that you want to do over the long term. Hay Shacks are easy and fast to build. But Cement houses take time to dry. We all know which one will withstand the storm. Even I freak out sometimes when I look around and see that everyone is moving so fast, and doing things by the second. But at the end of the day I realize that everyone’s gonna do what they’re gonna do , irrespective of what I think about it. Everyone has their own fight. And I have my own. And So do you. You will take your own time. Just keep telling yourself to be patient. There IS NO HURRY.
