You are not a lottery ticket

If you look at the world, there is a sense of difference in everybody. Someone is rich, someone is not. Someone is happy, someone is miserable. But something that gives us an excuse for not acting on our impulses is that we think the greatest wonders on Earth are made out of sheer luck.

There are some analogies in the world that, even though you are aware of them, you shouldn't believe. Luck is one of them. If you believe that luck exists, you do yourself more harm than if you don't.

If you are there in your life, hoping for that one day which would magically change your life, that one thing that'll fulfill you for a lifetime, you are going to be humbled very soon. No one thing seems to change your life forever. Instead, if you craft it, you make yourself a good fortune that shall serve you as long as you continue acting on it.

It begins with the family we have. So many adult people are humbled by life. They have been bashed by life's reality so much that they are a little scared when they talk. Most parents aren't even sure whether their kid is going to make enough money to sustain themselves in the near future, let alone thinking of building the next Steve Jobs within them.

In the initial days of a startup that I have been one of the founders of, we got an investor. He's not an investor by profession, but he is my private lecturer. I once heard him say, "Exception is not an example." Later, I heard that quite a few times in my life.

It's true that exceptions aren't an example, but every example can be an exception.

For example, if every human were to have software engineering skills by birth, what would happen?

We could potentially automate most hardware and machines and make our lives easier so that we can think about more creative things.

Thus, if everybody had a story to tell, if everybody crafted themselves as exceptions, the world would become a better place.

Another argument against this thought process is that the term would vanish then. Yeah, that's partially true. But it doesn't do anything bad to the Universe, does it?

I used to talk with my classmates almost two years ago about how most adults end up becoming miserable with the choices they are told to make by their families. My classmates just used to nod their heads on the x-axis, saying, "Only fools end up like that."

Exceptionalism is a myth, as long as I perceive it from the perspective that my finest teachers have taught me. If you could calculate Elon's life, the way he went through his life and became him, by analyzing that, you would find yourself searching for some missing pieces. It started with curiosity and ended with execution.

I also didn't have a chance to dilute myself into the exceptionalism myth. The Academic English book tried to make me read Steve Jobs' biography, which was quarterly baked, where they tried to cite the fact that these people are somewhat different from most people.

If you try to see things differently, soon you start seeing things differently.

And as you see things differently, you become different.

And I don't know why people miss the first line: that you have to move your head forward to get forward.