Just A Boy?

There is a story in the Bible about David that took on a whole different meaning for me in my early twenties.

Word had gone around that young David had offered himself as a champion for Israel against Goliath, and so Saul summoned him to the palace. There, Saul’s first words were intended to remind David who he was and put him in his place: “How could you fight him?” Saul scolded David, “You're just a boy, and he has been a soldier all his life.” (1 Samuel 17:33)

Leaving school with nothing but ambitions and good grammar, this was very much the same message that reality greeted me with, “You are just a boy.” When I attempted to start a business but failed spectacularly, the world whispered, “You are just a boy.” When I decided to pursue my dream to become a writer, the words were written boldly across the pages, “Victor, are you forgetting that you are just a boy?”

Being twenty-something facing the demands and expectations of the world feels challenging and humiliating like a chimpanzee attempting to fly a Concorde. One day we are a happy, hopeful bunch in flowing gowns, posing for shiny photoshoots on graduation day. The next day we are out facing reality and feeling clueless and directionless.

The transition from naïve hopefulness to debilitating existential angst a few years later is sad, if not comical. We have to live in the duality of accomplished scholars and hapless beginners.

I think that we are given oversized gowns for graduation for a reason, and that is to remind every graduate that they should cut their expectations down to size.

Remember when they gave you your elder siblings’ oversized shoes and you had to grow into them? That is what I felt like. Everyone expects so much from us, citing the immense ‘investment’ that they have made in us. To them, we are the freshly minted totems with miraculous solutions to the problems that have faced the family and the clan for generations.

The new graduate goes back home to the ululations of the village folk and a prince’s welcome; woe to you if you are the first and only graduate in the five villages! The old men trip over themselves to shake your hand, the women whisper their daughter’s names to your ear, and the children inspect you like an alien from Mars. A graduate in rural Africa is a rare and precious creature, a sign of new things to come – the promised one. But no one ever thinks to ask us if we feel equally hopeful. As we peek into the future, we do not feel equal to the challenge that awaits us. Everyone thinks we have made it, but inside we feel like mere beginners.

Whether in skill, understanding of the world, or even relationships, the feeling of insufficiency somehow finds us. Sometimes as I attempt to overcome my limitations and take on a challenge, a searing imposter syndrome takes over and paralyzes my passion. Building true confidence takes time. Unlucky for you if you saunter into the company of seniors who see you as competition and thereby actively oppose you. We thought that our schooling qualified us for much more than such. But we were wrong. Reality is the great equalizer.

These experiences have been humiliating and humbling, forcing me to recalibrate my self-perception.

They’ve been equally crucial to shaping my character, challenging me to let go of childish or outright stupid ideals that I held onto before.

Cooperating with reality

My mid-twenties have been spent contending with these realizations and finding my moves in the dance with reality.

I have a deep awareness that how well I set the rhythm at this stage will influence to a great degree the years to come. I have had to undergo a ‘quarter-life crisis’ and make embarrassing missteps. Sometimes I am lost in the fog and confusion. Yet some mornings I wake up to a clear sky and golden sunshine, brightened by an enlightening realization.

I have noticed a pattern in the pursuit of worthwhile unknowns. When life wants me to fulfill a duty, it first throws me into the rough waters. I will be taken from the straight road to an unmarked wilderness - from the comfort of the ship to the turbulence of the sea.

Whenever I make up my mind to have my life mean something and to be impactful, I enter into the first stage - chaos. In this season, whatever was working for me and keeping me comfortable disappears. Choosing to change the course of my life is choosing to face chaos. The order that I have been basking in quickly metamorphoses into disorder.

It’s like contradicting the law of Entropy. The universe's natural order is disorder, and I am seeking to alter that state by replacing chaos with order, and so reality snaps back with vengeance.

Chaos, discomfort, and uncertainty will always test a person once they make a bold decision of growth.

I am always tempted to avoid it. The tension is simply too much. It is not wrong to avoid the pain of this uncertainty. The excuses I make are sensible and by any means. I will be left with my comfort to keep.

However, the price you pay for hesitating is the life that you could have lived.

One truth has remained clear to me, and which I have found best expressed by Sam Altman this way: “You can bend the universe to your will a surprisingly high percentage of the time.”

I can enforce my will onto the fabric of reality and shape it. I am not simply a pawn in the game; I can choose to be a player, and the moves I make will send ripples across the fabric of reality. If I am present and intentional in the dance with reality, I can use this power to influence circumstances and outcomes.

Surprise!

However, an interesting aspect of reality is its capacity for surprises. While I am capable of influencing reality, I am equally as blind and ignorant.

Reality has facts that I am unaware of, and these will usually appear as surprises from time to time. There is an invisible hand moving the pieces.

I have made peace with the complexity of life and reality; it is a fact that I will be facing all my life.

A part of living well, therefore, is accepting that reality has information that I don’t, and appreciating the surprises that it brings – even if those be in the form of failure.

The supreme aim is learning, not getting; becoming, not arriving. The important thing is to proclaim a ‘Yes to life!” and remember to live.