“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Today, I can say for certain that the journey to real happiness and success has to start from your mindset. This attestation comes after decades of confusion, wandering around, and craving internal happiness. I had wanted to do something meaningful in my life so badly, yet none ever came through. My previous mentality drove me away from where I wanted to be.
I am not sure of anything stronger that has plagued my journey in life other than the desire to find a purpose. And this is one of the most difficult things I have had to wrestle with. From mountain tops in southern Nigeria to the expected blind obedience to religious authority and thinking, confusion was the product of my curious mind early on.
I grew up loving sports and was good at football. Typical naija parents wanted all kids to either be a doctor or a lawyer. They said “go to school and face your studies.” Well, I did. By the time I would pause my academic pursuit in 2018, I was holding two Masters and more than a decade of experience in several low-paying jobs, thick skin, taxi driving, and religious sentiments. If you have ever felt like a failure, then that makes us two. I was empty, sad, and depressed.
For some of us who grew up in that part of the world, religion is a dominant thing that you easily find in most households. In such a place, you have no right to question anything for fear of being deemed a rogue. You don’t want to be bullied into days of fasting, praying, and deliverance to be saved from who knows what. There was no escaping from religious piety but it robbed me of actual connections I could have made and information I could have had to help me understand the world better. Unconsciously, your eyes were conditioned to see the world in binary opposites, and judge people for their habits and choices.
All of these created a lot of problems for me growing up. Left me with a lot of questions on the inside that I could not get answers to. Finding a balance after leaving Nigeria in 2015 became almost impossible. No one ever asked me what I wanted to become in life. People I knew in my country were only interested in how prepared I was for the return of Christ. But in Finland, everything was different — e-v-e-ry-th-i-n-g. From the cold weather to how people live, I struggled to adapt. To survive in this kind of place, you depend on your pack of friends to learn the in-thing. That never helped, of course. Nigerians roam in local circles, and depending on your circle, you may live as an outsider the rest of your life abroad.
“Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made. If you want a different result, make a different choice.” Anonymous’
Sometime early 2020 I was losing almost everything I had held dearly. Two years before then I had lost my dad at an uncomfortable period when I was about completing my second master’s degree. Covid struck the world and countries were forced to bend their knees. With streets empty, my worst fear got hold of me. I didn’t want to fail. I craved a purpose. But that choice of pack created more challenges that became greater than I could bear at a time of such a severe pandemic.
“Thinking that has brought me this far has created some problems this thinking can’t solve.”
Be advised: choose a better pack because at a time of your lowest low, when empathy is needed, you don’t want to be stuck with people who are closed or fixed minded. The ones around me were the types with a fixed mindset. They were comfortable in pretence rather than living in reality. For someone with a mind of curiosity and ability to question situations, I was not built to accept those terms. A successful mind is a curious one. And when you have such a mind, you want to understand many things, like, how my pack would rather hold on to their luxuries, even when they are soaked in debt and businesses reading negative equity months after months. Carol Dweck’s insightful book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, is a book you may want to read for more on the concept of mindset as it relates to success.
“The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Einstein
Stay curious, it is important. If you do not like where you are, be curious to find out what you can do about it.
Do not allow people to dictate the direction of your life. You know it, they don’t. A series of choices that we make do alter our lives.
If you are like me, with a similar struggle of how to find your purpose — a meaning to life, start here. These 5 points helped me through my struggles and I hope they help you too.
- Mindset: The need for something to be that is not there, the need to make something better that is ugly — finding the direction to your purpose starts with your mindset. There is a mindset that got you there. You cannot get out of it unless you re-tune the frequency of your mind. How you think and how you communicate with people matter. Mindset is not equal to mind. Changing your mindset is not the same as changing your mind. It means reflecting on the mentality that got you into a situation, evaluating it, and making a decision based on your findings. Change comes by actively considering creative ways to fix issues, and this takes me to the next point.
- Skills: For me, I took three days off. The reason for the days off was to stay away from people and focus on myself. I wanted to list all the skills I have in order to find out which one of them could bring me happiness and purpose. Even eating made up the list. It is okay to have as many as possible. After the third day, I began striking off fantasies from realities. I would go on the internet and research the things I could achieve with the skills I have until I settled for writing and content creation. So, have at least one skill that can solve problems. Everyone has one or a mind that can understand one. Learn a skill if you don’t have one.
- Discipline: This one needs no introduction, but it needs to be repeated. No one wants to waste their time on stuff that does not help your new beginning. Discipline will help you work on your skills and hone it. Stay away from energies that do not help your cause. Your healing is not about them, it is about you.
- Friends (Pack): Brown used the term OQP to mean only quality people, and you should practice it. Doing this landed me my first job. I withdrew myself from the street and began a new journey. Everyone around you has some energy which may or may not match yours. If they are not adding value to you, they are taking value from you. Find like-minded people who understand your struggles. Even relationships are, in some ways, transactional these days. If a relationship is parasitic, it will fail. You now know your purpose, so keeping the wrong type of friends can lead to negative results.
- Empathy: This is a gospel I will always preach because it got me my first job. My next-door neighbour whom we normally hangout in the corridor asked me one day to help him proofread his thesis. He thought I had a better understanding of English and enjoyed every bit of our conversation. He offered to pay, but I declined. I was jobless, but I had become fond of him and his cat, so I did not mind helping a friend out. After about a month, he brought me into his apartment for the first time and showed me what he was working on for almost two years. He thought I could help reevaluate the design and offer better content for the software he was building. That got me my first shot at IT and it has been nothing but grace ever since.
At that time, I was only a storyteller. I was passionate about creativity and enthusiastic about technology, but not enough to prove any actual knowledge of IT.
A good turn with an open-mind to treat people with dignity can help you to a better life.
