Mar 26, 2022
Refining what writing means to me: Ideas, Hope, and Ambition
After getting new perspective on life, grief, and resilience over the past few months, I have continuously thought about what this blog should be about. What is it that I want to share with the world? Or the better question would be — what should I share with the world that also drives value for others?
I have been random about the topics that my articles have taken across my life — from sports to technology to mental health. I get the feeling that I have come full circle. This has allowed for a realisation to dawn upon me.
I believe that we should look at life and issues within it as singular pieces of a colourful mosaic. Just as your life is a part of your family, your work, your community, your country, and more, each of your issues shouldn’t be siloed and be then expected to be tackled well. To decide the purpose of my writing, I went back to my values which are as follows:
- Customer Mindset (empathy)
- Entrepreneurship (empower, educate and enable)
- Agency (accountability)
- Courage (taking decisions, balancing risk)
- Endure (sustain — plan for long-term)
- Multidisciplinary (diversity)
- Innovation (trying new, managing change)
This helped me land on three core pieces that hit various parts of my values and address what I am looking to do with my writing at the same time:
- Ideas
- Hope
- Ambition
I have started to read and listen to more content. And I think some ways to get out of the suicidal thinking hat and prompt others going through such thoughts to do the same are:
- learning new things in the day — and how you feel about them
- opening up possibilities you had limited in your mind for yourself for future — either tomorrow or later
- wanting to bring individual and connected ideas to the fore; perhaps even connect disparate, disconnected ideas — to mean something to change how someone perceives things and drive hope, change, and ambition
- showing what individuals could apply to their lives to get better at something, or helping businesses apply new ideas to turn things around by motivating teams or driving innovation
- finding renewed purpose by finding a niche you are passionate about by exercising relentless curiosity
All that being said, I do realise that there is still a void. We depressed individuals looking to commit suicide need something to look forward to — at all times. Nothing seems interesting in certain moments. New ideas will provide that but only in the interim. The eventual application and the change in philosophy will have to come on our own. Otherwise it is just a few days that someone’s new ideas will save us. As long as a new idea or insight can avoid our collapse through one of our transient emotion bouts, and make us understand that another bout might be lurking, one’s openness to such ideas is worth it. It could become a start to new ventures and unimaginable potential.
There is always hope for change. And we ought to give change a chance. If we don’t, who else will. There is only so much the people and circumstances that surround us can pull off for us. Ultimately we have to rise up and help ourselves. There aren’t many tougher things in this universe than trying to help and actually impact and change someone’s life who doesn’t want it or lifts a finger at their end in the first place. Trust me, I have been there, repeatedly letting down those who have tried to help me time and time again. Any article, video or movie will only go so far. It is only if we let the words and visuals actually hit us — and for that we have to really open up rather than be defensive or skeptic. The major lifting we will have to do — which we are capable of and we will have to trust in ourselves that it is indeed worth it. Hey, Kylie Jenner is still alive after all 🤪.
Look, I will never stop cracking jokes no matter how much pain I am feeling myself or see within my surroundings (or how bad the jokes might be). It is a shot at changing the atmosphere. If it works it works — if it doesn’t we will try next time. Along the way I will hurt some folks because of one or two things that come out inappropriate and a lot of thin skins 😂. Life is no different — you keep getting shots at changing it for yourself and others . The difference is — the change is gradual and takes time — and requires patience. But why should it be any other way — someone was patient nine long months for you — may be more — depending on how long they tried or if someone kept pulling out and kept you hanging in midair time after time 😂.
And there is a chance that we are born — 400 trillion to 1 (at least that is what Gary V. says so I will take his word for it, haha) — it is a miracle. But also don’t forget the competition you came through initially — beating millions who wanted this life but couldn’t have it. You can’t leave millions behind who wanted this life and now decide you don’t want it. Also if you beat those millions — there is at least one aspect of you that is likely to be great and way more worth being in this world than you give it credit for. There is just one caveat. You just haven’t found it or appreciate it enough currently. But isn’t that a good problem to have? Doesn’t that ring curiosity for you as to what that greatness is within you?
This is where hope and ambition intersect. You know you are great at something and hope that you are able to find that early in life. How long can you stay ambitious? 40? 50? 60? Is there a number? Think about any small or big achievement in life that took you a few months or years. It is most likely that the achievement itself didn’t spike the dopamine in you but the “mere” pursuit of it. The anticipation of the reward is the drug that spikes your dopamine levels as James Clear quite clearly puts it in the Atomic Habits. Then that means that you could have a more fulfilling life if you kept pursuing what might be your greatness than achieving something great early and never being able to build anything better because ambition got lost in the hubris.
Bringing it all together, I need ‘hope’ to strive at my darkest hours to go that extra day. That extra day may bring new ‘ideas’ open to which if I am, I could change my mindset, reframe perspective, and merge these ideas with my experiences to create value. ‘Ambition’ keeps the pursuit of such ideas going which help me formulate what I want to achieve next in the micro while connecting to where I am going in the macro with a loose string. Nothing needs to be set in stone, and I manage expectations to not put too much pressure on myself lest my stress-induced eczema and/or depressed victim mindset comes back.
Thus, I will primarily be writing articles that connect ideas and stories within technology and innovation circles in the hope that they create value and stimulate hope and drive ambition.
I hope you found value in reading that and had a chuckle or two along the way. Stay tuned in the coming days for a piece where I look to find insights and value in the intersection of crypto, developing economies, engineering, and environmental sustainability.
Edit:
I may write what I proposed in the last statement but perhaps later. Another thing I want to point out through this — don’t ever feel devoid of the courage to change your mind, or change course midway if that suits you and the value you are looking to create in this world best. The course change is toward a recurring routine, and I know I have mentioned that a few times already without executing on it — but I am more comfortable in admitting my humanness than offering yet another excuse which was very frequent in times of my life when I was coincidentally a lot less happier. Being transparent is liverating. Try it.
New path for my writing: Stay tuned. I shall just write head down without promising anything here. Been there, done that — doesn’t work for me.
