Separating what matters from the trivial many
Without a real sense of purpose, success will elude you. Even if you attain it, I doubt if it’ll last that long. So why not have a sense of purpose? And of course the right one. Why not be free with yourself? Why not be anxious for nothing? Remember that you’re not in competition with anybody. Tomorrow deserves only a glance and nothing more.
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I once read a piece of work by Thomas Stanley, PhD. The title was Millionaires Mind. In his book, he interviewed several successful people amongst whom were physicians. It was established that luck wasn’t all there was in being successful. In fact, these men and women came to the conclusion that hard work and the desire to succeed paid far more role in their success, than luck did. That’s exactly how it is in medical school.
I’m not sure any doctor today will tell you that he or she became successful in their medical practise through luck. First and foremost, they were able to graduate as doctors through hard work and not sheer happenstance. Without a sense of purpose, they wouldn’t have been successful today. It was a real sense of purpose that gave them the conscious desire to study their vast medical texts in the first place; it was their real sense of purpose that urged them to persevere despite the failures and difficulties.
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I experienced this firsthand during a major virus outbreak. Late 2019 and almost throughout 2020, hell was let loose. The corona virus outbreak turned the vast majority of the world upside down, and education in most countries wasn’t left out. Students were locked up at homes; no lectures were going on, except in some developed nations that were at the time learning through electronic means. Virtual learning was so common then. For these students that were locked up at home — like in my country Nigeria — with no one pushing them to study their books, it was relatively difficult for them to read without distractions (reading in school environment was relatively more comfortable most people argue). However, some others were studying. The few students who were studying and doing research was able to stay focused because they had a true sense of purpose. They knew why they were in school. It wasn’t so easy to study at home, with social media handles so easy to access. A lot of people spent so much time on Facebook, X (Twitter) and Instagram. A lot of people were depressed as well. It was a major setback.
At one time, a friend of mine sent me a text and there was this sentence that caught my interest. He said, "If I get out of this alive, I will become a doctor." He was talking about the pandemic that paused his pursuits. Coupled with this, ASUU (Academic Staff Union of Universities, in Nigeria) was on strike, while the outbreak lasted, even while the deaths were reducing. He had a real sense of purpose. He was tough. He was an observer of nature. He knew why he was in med school. He lived each day according to what each day brought. He fought the challenges of each day with the strengths that day gave him. He didn’t worry about the future. He once said, "What difference does it make? We will definitely graduate when it’s time for us to graduate. The stars are working for us and not against us."
This pattern of thoughts enabled him to avoid getting depressed.
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So it’s important to be sure you are on the right track. You must learn to recognize things that are beyond your reach and things that are well within your reach. There are some goals that you need to let go for now. Failure to do so, you’ll get your arms cut off as you try to grab them, by all means. It’s not short selling yourself. It’s the height of power, even. In his book, 48 Laws of Power, the writer Robert Greene wrote, "Never show that something has affected you or that you are offended - that only shows that you have acknowledged a problem."
If there’s no real sense of purpose in pursuing after that which you desire, then let go. Force yourself to learn to despise it. "Remember: you choose to let things bother you. You can just as easily choose not to notice the irritating offender, to consider the matter trivial and unworthy of your interest," wrote Robert. As in the case of people, so also you cancel out some goals, when you choose to ignore them. You nullify them. You show them that you are more superior than them. This is not a matter of pride. It’s a matter of self-mastery. Infact, this will help you in mastering your emotions. Show me a man who cannot disdain that which has no real meaning to him and I’ll show you a man who is almost at the verge of falling down. You must learn to separate that which matters from the trivial many.
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