I’m Still Scared

Thoughts about success

Some say that you only live once. Others say that you can live forever once you die. I think that these are just assumptions. The only thing I know for sure is that for ever single second that passes by, death comes closer.

Now, for my background in biotech, you may think that this will be an article about aging, longevity, or how to be healthier. Well, it is not. I just want to put my thoughts somewhere and have people read them because that’s one of the things I know how to do best 🥴.

For the past few months of the year I’ve been scared about something more than death. I’ve been scared about not living, and by “not living” I mean “not making the most out of my life”.
This is what this article is about.

This year, I came up with the hypothesis that we are all born great, that we are all born with the courage and skills that we need to reach our maximum potential: to be as successful and as happy as we can be.
I think we are all born having a lot of dreams and aspirations, yet only a few die having lived up to their own expectations.

Becoming an astronaut, nurse, veterinarian… a lot of those are just stereotypes, but when kids genuinely want something, they have a powerful conviction that they will get it.
They visualize themselves being that someone, having that something: they are aspirational…visionaries… or fools?

As I was mentioning before, this is a hypothesis that I came up with after having some experiences myself, or seeing other people experience similar events. Perhaps I’m wrong, and as my grandpa once told me “there are people who struggle to dream”.
Of course he wasn’t saying this in a literal context (althought that happens as well). What I think that he meant is that he’s seen people who don’t aspire for something more. They settle for what they have and they’re happy with that.

So maybe there are people who don’t dream about changing the world, launching a rocket to Mars, or curing cancer — which again, are just examples of what some other people could consider to be great — and this doesn’t mean that they’re “losers”. That doesn’t even mean they won’t be successful, because it all depends on what success means to them.

We go back to one of the initial statements: we are all born with the ability to reach our maximum potential, which could very likely align with our definition of success.
And we also go back to the very first sentence in this article: I’m still scared.

“What if I never become as successful as I want to?”

Now I will try to explain the other half of my hypothesis. Everyone is born (or develops at an early age) a desire for something, and everyone has the capacity to reach that fullest potential regardless of the environment that surrounds them. However, 2 things happen: one is the environment, and the other one is how we react to it.

It’s hard to make a statement about success and the environment that surrounds people that want to be successful, just because of the clearly existent inequalities.

I could say that when someone in Cuba (for example) isn’t as successful as someone in the US, it’s just because they weren’t trying as hard.
Well, if we think about that from an objective point of view, maybe they weren’t indeed, trying as hard as they should have in order to succeed coming from that environment.
To further develop this example, I like this quote by Yuval Noah Harari:

“When conditions improve, expectations balloon”

So we could imagine that if the person in Cuba doesn’t have anything else outside of their country to compare their lives with, perhaps the goals or dreams they will develop as kids will be far less “ambitious” in comparison to those of a person being born in a developed country.

This makes me think about the question “what can greatness mean to any child, living in whichever part of the world?”
Furthermore, can a child/person even develop an idea of what greatness means without being influenced by their environment?

I clearly remember that when I was a bit younger, greatness for me meant “being the most important person in the world”, but I can’t be sure if this was something that I genuinely thought, or something that the world told me.

So of course the world is unfair, and I’m completely convinced that the amount of effort that it took Bill Gates to be a billionaire doesn’t compare to the amount of effort that someone else makes to have something to eat today. That last person may have a complete different definition of success, so the real issue for me is: what makes people successful, regardless of the many meanings that this word has, and regardless of the environment?

What I think that happens when people don’t live up to their expectations, and leave their dreams behind, is that the environment is stronger than their desire to succeed.
There’s this other quote by Steve Jobs that I have been keeping in mind lately:

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish”

This brings me to the next point which is something that my dad once told me: what really matters is how you react to the environment. Don’t let circumstances define you.
It’s the same idea that Steve had. The story behind that quote may have been one full of “no’s”, full of “you’re crazy” and everything in between. But Steve staid hungry. He was hungry for success.

To my understanding of the quote, and having experienced it myself, the “stay foolish” part refers to either being naturally ignorant, or ignore on purpose.
What if you didn’t know what isn’t possible (according to the rest of the world)? What if you didn’t know that millions of people have tried to cure cancer and all of them have failed somehow?

I think that this is one of the best qualities that the youngest have. They are foolish about the plethora of limitations and obstacles that exist in the world. Some of them only know that they want to change the world, and that they will.
Many of them don’t know much about paying taxes, getting into a IVY-league school, having a deadly disease, social pressure or insecurities.

What’s the first step into changing the world or doing anything new? Getting started!
I think that young people want to get started. They sometimes get these boosts of inspiration by watching a movie, reading a book, talking to someone, or simply by visualizing themselves and the people they could become.

Something else that I’ve noticed, is that there are 2 reasons why someone would want to become great: the fear of being conventional, or the willing to be extraordinary.
I’m not sure if both of them can be present in someone’s mind at the same time, or if one of them is more positive than the other one.

Personally, I’ve been noticing a shift between the 2 of them. When I was younger, I had this burning desire to be extraordinary. Now, as you may have noticed in the title, I’m terribly scared of being conventional.

Continuing with the idea of getting started, not everyone does, even when they really want to. Again, the environment can tell you that you’re too young, that you don’t have enough money, or the gross “this isn’t how things work in real life”.

What happens with Steve’s quote? Perhaps the secret behind those who succeed is staying hungry enough to stand those comments or situations, is being foolish enough to ignore the limitations.

What happens if you do the opposite? Here’s when the other part of my hypothesis/idea comes into place.
As time passes by, and you keep getting no’s and you keep accepting them, you also keep on demonstrating something to yourself: that you won’t achieve your dreams.

You can also continue being a fool and say “I will do all of those things when I grow older. It’s just a matter of time”, but is that really true?
I think it depends on what you’ve already done. You don’t need to solve climate change when you’re 12, but you can get started.

In this sense, there are 3 invisible barriers to success. The ultimate idea is that the ones who succeed, are the ones who pass through these 3 challenges.
The first one, as we’ve seen, is getting started. Doing that tiny thing that takes you from 0 to 0.1.
The second one is the “keep on going”. When things get difficult, probably the real challenge aren’t those difficulties themselves, but being perseverant and continue playing and running after success.

Now, I’m not sure about the third one. I think that it could also be the first one in some sense, since it is about “anti complacency”.
Let’s face it, there are some people — including myself, and I’m incredibly grateful for that — who have everything they need. All the basic necessities and a little bit more, have been covered.

I have food, clothes, a bed, a house, clean water, wifi, a laptop, and more. Even if I stick to what I consider to be a “conventional job”, I’m sure that I’ll be fine.
And of course that life is a rollercoaster and this year we’ve seen that nothing is for sure, but overall, I don’t have many things to worry about.

Probably this is kind of hard to understand for some people, especially in other countries and cultures, but I’ll tell you a little bit about my environment: it’s one of complacency. From grades, to getting a job, most people that I know are complacent.
I remember that this mindset got stronger in the people around me when middle school started. All those kids who once did an effort to be the best in something, were then just settling down for going to school and sitting in a bench for 6 hours.

From all my class (almost 100 people), only 2 of us were fighting against complacency. Again, according to the definition of success that others may have had in that moment, perhaps they were doing the right thing. Perhaps their goal was to have as many friends as possible, or have the most followers on Instagram.
But I knew that some of them had had dreams about being an astronaut, a millionaire, or something else, that didn’t align to their middle school selves.

I’m not saying that changing is wrong. Actually, it’s one of the best things that one can do as humans. What I’m saying is that when you have such a strong desire for something, you should fight for it.

Even metaphorically speaking, fighting requires courage. From my perspective one can either fight against the environment, our inner selves, or both. The first one may happen because the conditions are challenging and we can’t do much to change them. On the contrary, when we fight against ourselves, we may be fighting against complacency, against our reaction to the environment.
Perhaps the most difficult situation occurs when we have to confront both.

Moreover, what happens when your definition of success is being the best? Meaning, being the best CEO in your country, the best student in your class, or the best runner in the world?

Even when that sounds like a very clear definition of success, the parameters with which you measure that, can get a little abstract in my opinion.
Does being the best CEO in the Canada mean that you’re the one who makes the most money, the one who is a better leader? How do you measure being a good leader?

Keeping our goal a little abstract still, let’s say that we want to make an impact in the world by starting a company that solves a problem for millions of people.
Then you’ll probably want to ask yourself the following question that I remember from a TED Talk:

What do know that you wish you didn’t know?

Because when you get out there and get your hands dirty you will discover many limitations that you didn’t know about when you first decided to take action. Plus, you probably wouldn’t have gotten started if you’d known of those challenges before.

The thing is that all of us will continue to face different challenges as we travel through life, and what I think I’m learning is that we need to be fool enough to think that among the billions of people worldwide, with the billions of probabilities that each of them has of changing the world, you are gonna be one of the few who does that.

The opposite of this thought/mindset (being a fool) has lead me to think about things like my “unfair advantage”. Especially now, being in an environment of like-minded people, it’s hard to be a fool. It’s hard to imagine how you could be the best, and so I’m are constantly looking for something that makes me special.

Or at least that’s the way I used to think before writing this article, and perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be only one Mark Zuckerberg who connects the world at 19 years old. Perhaps if we had a more abundant mindset, we would understand that everyone has the chance of being their best at that very specific goal that they have, and it’s only our monkey minds that are jealous about others’ success.

If there’s something that scared me even more, is what a young Mexican entrepreneur and innovator told me: “Greatness can’t be planned” (there’s actually a book that talks about precisely that).
What?! Then I’m a slave to what the universe wants to do with my life?
Apparently what he meant is that you can know what you want, but you will never be sure of how you’ll get there.

In the end, these are just the thoughts of a 16-year-old who just got started, whose expectations have stayed the same from when she was 5 years old. What has changed are probably the actions that she’s taken to get to where she wants to be, and the insecurities she now has about her journey.

Hopefully one day, a chronologically old woman can tell the story of how she beat the 3 main barriers/challenges to success and can help others to do the same.
Thanks for reading :)

Hey! I’m Sofi, a 16-year-old girl who’s extremely passionate about biotech, human longevity, and innovation itself 🦄. I’m learning a lot about exponential technologies to start a company that impacts the world positively 🚀. I love writing articles about scientific innovations to show you the amazing future that awaits us!
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