Impress yourself

Hi Praise,

You do know that I am looking forward to your reply, as always. At this point, I feel like a pen pal to over 500 people.

How have you been?

I've been well. The past few weeks have been rather interesting, to say the least — in a good way. I'm not in any dark place or confusing state, even though it would feel good to be able to say "yo, I'm in a fucked up; leave me alone".

Why? Because people won't leave you the fuck alone. They always want to have a bit of your time, somehow. You owe them an answer just because they ask it.

Lol.

But I'm fine. I really am and I'm grateful that I'm fine — because not a lot of people know what it feels like to be fine and more importantly, it has been a while since I felt wholly fine.

"Let's build" has been a pretty interesting mantra at Bloc — not everybody per se, no. Jerry, the CTO, always end a very long conversation with those two words and no matter how impossible the problem was, the answer was always "let's build".

And honestly, what choice do we have except to build?

Here's another one.

"Impress yourself". I tweeted this a few minutes before writing this letter and it is my personal comprehension of Niyi's now deleted reply to a tweet I made earlier in the week. He said and I paraphrase, "only you gets to decide what excellence means to you".

I liked it and 100% agree with it.

External references of what excellence look like are great, but you'll never be excellent unless you define what excellence means to you. I'll give you an example.

Let's assume your career is a ladder and you regard excellence as ten steps away from when you are. For every step you take on the ladder, your standard for excellence increases by one step. You continue to get better but never feel like you are better.

And this is why I agree with Niyi.

We need self validation — personal, quantifiable milestones for us to show ourselves how much work we put in, how far we've come and how good we are. Conversely, it also helps us know how shitty with are.

It is being grateful and proud of the position you are in right now, combined with being hopeful and excited about how much ground you can still cover.

It is as simple as tweeting your tweet without worrying how "design leaders" would perceive you. It is ranting when you want to rant on your status. And frankly, even though it tires me out, it is posting your horny WhatsApp status updates when you want to.

Here's what will happen:

You'd grow out of it, or become known for it; people would be disgusted or tolerate you. Worry about being the best version of yourself. And even if you think people can't take it and you never decide to share that post, make sure you don't lose yourself to what people think.

At best, everyone's thoughts are suggestions until you decide otherwise.

You don't want to be the 21-year that saved and made money until he is 70 when he is too old to enjoy it. You don't want to grow old, amass a wealth of experience and still think you're not good enough.

The sky may not be your limit, but it is damn well high enough — and you deserve your flowers for getting there.

And frankly, when it all comes down to it, at the finish line, when you drop the pen and shut the door — when you die (read: retire) — the only thing that'll matter is you.

So, impress yourself.

Ciao.

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