The Breach
There comes a point in our lives where we ask ourselves what we’re really living for. Do we choose the reason? Is it set out for us already? Perhaps there’s even no reason. There is no consensus, but for me, I found that life is a cycle of advancing forward, learning lessons and developing along the way, and then turning back to shine light on the path for others to tread. In other words, I can only lead as far as I’ve gone before.
We all must pursue something in this life, or risk a certain level of existential crisis or even depression. Life is a constant hamster wheel of finding something to run after. But as we pursue anything, we tumble and fall along the way. Take learning to walk as an example. We fall countless times as babies before we ever take our first step. We learn to walk but we can’t run yet, and so forth. The end product is an eighteen year old who is grateful he doesn’t live on the top floor of his uni accommodation because stairs are too much work. Naturally, to progress in anything we must not be perfect at it to begin with. We must have shortcomings, areas of improvement so to speak. And in order to realise where those areas of improvement are, we must fail. Ultimately, failure is an indicator of the things you cannot quite do. But it is only then that we can begin to work on those things. For instance, I may not be able to squat very well because I have poor ankle mobility. Only once I squat and fail can I assess why I fail, and begin to work on it accordingly. And although failure does not always point us directly to the things we need to improve, it is often a great guide. At the very least failure can signal us to look for where we fall short.
As we continue to face mistakes in the pursuit of our goals, we collect human capital along the way. We can use our failures to not only anticipate and avoid future mistakes, but we can also assess our anticipation of our potential failures to see how we can anticipate future failures better. We can also assess our assessments of our anticipation of — okay I’ll shut up now, but you get the point. We can use our failures to become better at doing things, but we can also fail at that. As such, we can use failure to learn how to fail properly. Perspective is also worth mentioning here. Failure itself does not intrinsically ensure growth or improvement. A weight on the floor is useless by itself, but we can pick it up and use it in a number of ways to our advantage. Likewise, we can use failure to our advantage by cultivating lessons out of our mistakes.
So as we gain human capital and learn how to do things better (or to respond to not doing things better, better), we can then impart the knowledge we have gained onto others trying to do a similar thing. During university, I have and will continue to failure countless times at organisation, doing the work correctly, navigating independent life and so on. But once I complete university, the idea is that I will learn how to do all of these things better and can then go on to show others the way. I could give Zoom calls or post little tips and tricks on how to study better, or write better essays, or do any of the other little things that we do in our lives. But I cannot do these things where I have not attempted to improve in them myself. If my organisation skills remain shit throughout the three years because I made no effort to improve them, then my advice isn’t exactly worth much because I don’t know how well it works. You can only lead as far as you’ve gone before.
What is human capital in very short answer?
Human capital the intangible economic value of a worker’s experience and skills. This includes factors like education, training, intelligence, skills, health, and other things employers value such as loyalty and punctuality.
And in this sense mistakes are what can make you useful to others. Because human capital are the sorts of things you get paid for, but also the things you can offer for free. So as you progress, you can show others the way and hopefully prevent them from making many of the same mistakes that you do. Everyone’s experiences are unique and so you can’t prevent all mistakes, and some mistakes are even necessary for people to make, after all experience is the best teacher. But it can at least prepare others for the journey ahead. I cannot predict the weather, the waves or the obstacles of your journey, but I can tell you how I got there. Some journeys, however, are much harder than others in terms of showing the way. I can help other students get into Oxbridge universities by telling them what I did and what to look for based off of what my tutors have told me so far. But it is tremendously harder for me to explain to the same people how to navigate relationships and love. Paths can be tedious in nature and so generally look the same for all people, and some follow absolutely no formula. There is some advice regarding love that is generally useful because to some extent people are similar. But in the same breath, people are very different and this can give rise to all sorts of unknowns. Think of it as a map of the world, but it doesn’t tell you where the mountains or volcanoes are, what the terrain is like or anything else. Only where there is land, and where there is water. In those cases we often have to feel our way through the dark, and things like relationships require two or more people, so we have a hand to hold while we go through it. Even so, it is still worth it, because whatever you learn from your experiences will be more useful to hear than nothing at all. Someone who has tried again and again in love as a spouse will have a lot more to say about love and what to do than someone who never tried in love at all.
What is the importance of all this? Let’s tie it back to the start where I first mentioned purpose. Nietzsche once said “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how”, and this idea of leading where you’ve gone before serves as, by and large, my why. There are many things that we want to do in this life, or things that we know are important or beneficial for us to do, but we are too scared to do them. The adversity can only build us, but we only think of the fall down regardless of the climb up. And this is often what causes us to play it small in life, and strip ourselves of so much growth and joy. In many of these moments, I play it small too, because we’re not all infinitely courageous. But what allows me to fight and triumph at all in these situations is to think of who I’m doing it for. It is people in specific such as my family, future kids, friends, but it is also more general entities. I think about my community as a whole, people I might meet day by day, kids who might be watching me from afar. The more I build myself up, the more I can be of use to them; the more I can become a person of value. This is what life is for me. I have no God, and so there is no acting for what comes after life, but there is certainly acting to impact the world after I’m gone. Life for me is a cycle of doing things, failing, improving, and helping others do the same thing. They can then in turn make mistakes, both new and the same, progress and teach others and so on. It allows us to fulfil our need for constant pursuit, while reaping the life enjoyment of helping others fulfil theirs.
Additionally, trying new things and getting uncomfortable is a necessity for growth and becoming a person of value, and this adds to our sense of humility. You become the idiot again, bottom of the pile, knowing absolutely nothing and having to be taught everything. You do that often enough and it will go a long way in suppressing your ego. You learn to become more vulnerable, and build deeper relationships with people as well as yourself, because you’re willing to admit that you don’t know it all. We all have respect for someone like that in a room. I recently had a talk with Kamel Hothi, where she said that the leaders people want to follow are the ones who say “I don’t know how to do that”, “Can you show me how to do that”, and it’s extremely true. We’ve all got time for someone else’s humility, yet it is so much harder for us to be humble ourselves. Exposing ourselves to novelty will go a long way in that. With the double benefit of building both character and humility, new experience literally improves you while making you less inclined to feel the need to show it off.
To round off, I wanted to leave you with a beautiful note from Nathan James Tettey, which comes at the end of “In the Fire” By Dave. Frankly, the whole album is a masterpiece, and the quality of this quote is consistent with the rest of it. Without further ado…
“Do your research, to travel
Go and see, Go and really see the corners of the world
That are alien to you, really do interest you
And you know, ’cause in due process then you’ll meet new people
And then those people will tell you new stories
Then you become a voice for the voiceless
I mean, you should ask Daniel, really and truly, where he goes to find himself
’Cause I don’t know anything, I’m just speculatin’, umm
More importantly for you and your family
You then get to ask the questions and answer the questions
About where you were made
Like “Where you come from, where you’re goin, London, Lagos, LA”
The journey is the film”.
