Photo by Jennifer Feng on Unsplash
It was a lie. But in your heart, you probably knew that already.
Even now, it doesn’t stop us telling that to our kids. After all, our generation may be doomed, but the next one will have real freedom, right?
For a long time, this was one of my underlying beliefs. Anyone, if they tried hard enough, could achieve anything. The power of the mind was so powerful that we can make it happen, no matter what the odds.
There’s something comforting in this belief. It certainly allowed me to protect myself from seeing the harsher realities of the world. Even if you have disadvantages such as racial barriers or disabilities, there were always ways to overcome it. You just had to work harder and smarter.
In truth, life can be cruel, and there is something deeply upsetting about this fact. We end up believing such things to avoid this feeling. But we need to be honest – for example, If you grow up in Palestine right now, you may die from malnutrition before reaching adulthood. This is due to no fault of your own.
No amount of positive thinking can do anything if you have a bomb drop on you.
This is not to be fatalistic. If we have some fortune to have a functioning life, positive belief can naturally have a massive impact. So many people are stuck on the idea that they simply cannot do lots of things, when in reality they probably could if they really wanted to. This is where the shift in mindset can be very powerful.
Yet we need to not forget about the realities of the world. I personally wish someone was more honest with me when I was younger. I choose a career in policy because I thought I could genuinely make a positive difference through these traditional roots. If I had known the realities of how things are really done, I may have done so differently. Or at the very least, I would have gone in knowing the truth of what I was getting into.
Meritocracy is the leading mythology of the modern day workplace. For all the talk of equality, there is still a sense that you need to be the ‘right sort’. In fact, that’s probably more the case now then it was ten years ago. Nothing shows this more than our current world situation. Diversity and inclusion was always an optional extra and right now it is out of vogue, and as such is being dumped. Unfortunately for me, I’m on the wrong side of that fence.
What helps me in moments of despair is looking at this more spiritually. I’ve been more drawn to the idea that we have our own ‘life directions’. I use the word direction, rather than path. This is not something set in stone, instead it is a general direction that we walk towards. The compass points us in a certain way, but it is for us to find the routes and paths in our own journey of life. How far we go on the journey is dependent on us. If we are determined, we will go further. If we are uncommitted, we will languish half-way through.
In the western world, we seem to either go way too broad of saying anything is possible, or try and diagnose what people should be doing as soon as we can.
I remember when I was at school I was quite good at maths. I therefore was pushed towards a career in sciences, even though I had little desire to really follow that path. I remember the careers adviser being surprised that I wanted to do something more creative, even though my grades were less good there. Apparently the most important direction is whether we are good at something, rather than whether we actually enjoy it. What is even more ridiculous is that this conversation was when I was 15.
This is how many limiting beliefs get created. When we get told at a young age that we are only destined to do what we enjoyed at school, well it’s no wonder that many people are too scared to try other things. Yet we see many examples of people who end up being successful in domains that they originally didn’t do well in. Steve Jobs studies were nothing to do with IT, yet he ended up founding and leading Apple as their CEO for decades.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that my draw has been towards helping people, and generally some sense of altruistic work. I like to analyse and reflect. I have a gift for seeing things that are not evident to most people (which I’ve only learnt recently). This is going to be a theme of my working life no matter where I go.
Since working on my father’s biography, I’ve become aware at how coded this is to my genetics. My father has done plenty to support development in both the local community in the UK Bangladesh, and many of his brothers did so as well. My oldest uncle worked for decades in Sandwell Borough and was awarded an MBE last year. I also have an older brother who ended up working in international development in Kenya.
In this sense, I know that I’m broadly moving towards where I’m meant to go, even if it’s been a bumpy ride. For some people, such a direction is a lot clearer and straightforwards. My one is apparently more chaotic, unconventional and norm-breaking.
So rather than giving the ambiguous and often overwhelming advice of ‘you can be whatever you want to be’, I prefer to go with the idea of ‘be the best version of you’.
Life plays an important role in guiding us on where we are to go. Then, it is up to us to see how far we reach.