Writing From The Heart

I’ve written a couple of articles here on Medium about outlook and procrastination.

In the beginning, I was very hesitant to publish them.

Even though I knew that the core idea expressed in them was strong, I had a nagging feeling that I may not be the best person to dole out such advice to strangers on the internet. The question that arose in my mind was, “What gives me the right to tell others how to live their life when my own isn’t completely where I want it to be?”

In short, am I preaching what I don’t practice? The answer came to me soon after.

No, my perspective is important because someone out there is facing the same problems as me. Even if their situation is not 100% the same as mine, there is something of value I have to offer that can help them improve it.

I want to help people who are struggling with the same issues as me and help them see what I see, even if I haven’t been able to fully incorporate those learnings into my life yet.

This led me to a startling revelation.

If everyone who writes about their experiences is in the same boat as me, then they too go through immense struggle, just like me.

Because learning comes from failure, and you can only teach if you have faced the same problems and come out stronger on the other end.

The internet is full of charlatans who confidently spew half-baked knowledge to build a following and make money off their audiences. While some are making a genuine effort to provide value, many just see their audience as an exploitable resource — masses who can be manipulated to achieve their personal goals.

I’m firmly in the former camp.

I deeply care about the reader’s experience. I try to connect with them through common ground and just point them in the right direction based on what little I’ve learned by being in the same shoes as them.

If I hadn’t struggled with note-taking apps, trying to build a Personal Knowledge Management system and maximize my productivity, I wouldn’t have been able to write Minute Wise, Hour Foolish.

If I hadn’t noticed the disconnect between my long-term optimism and my short-term pessimism, then I wouldn’t have been able to write Macro Optimism and Micro Pessimism — A Dangerous Combination.

It is only after probing my mind, introspecting on my problems, and examining my thoughts that I have come to discover these ideas. For someone to give you a clear answer to your question, you can best believe that they have been through an immense struggle to arrive at it.

Now, of course, I’m not saying these ideas are unique. Everything that can be said about the human mind has been said hundreds of times before by people much smarter and in tune with themselves than me.

However, I now feel empathetic to anyone who writes such content as I have understood just how strong the feelings must be inside you to make their way onto a page and then persuade the reader. What the reader feels after reading a text is more likely only a fractional, distilled version of all the writer’s experiences and thoughts on the topic.

Ergo, writers who dare to write about self-help are some of the most broken people you’ll ever get a chance to hear from.

The Power Of Belief

Everyone has something they struggle with. We can try to be, but are rarely, the masters of every domain of our life. Some struggle with work, some with time, some with love, some with money, some with friends, some with family — the list goes on.

If you don’t struggle with something, then likely you’ve never wondered why others have such problems with those respective challenges.

For a rich person, it is easy to demonize a poor person for their spending habits. For someone productive, it is easy to call other people lazy. For attractive people, it is easy to say that those unlucky in love just have a bad attitude. It is just human nature to ignore your blessings and find fault in others.

At the end of the day, those who are good at a particular part of life have a clear mind and a heap full of conviction about themselves that makes them likely to not give up when problems arise.

For example, my father spent a lot of time teaching me math when I was very young. I later learned a lot of advanced concepts before my age and scored well in exams. So, I always had this belief that I was “good at math.” However, as a tool that is not frequently used gets rusted, I stopped doing math and now struggle just like everyone.

However, the belief that I’m “good at math” never left me. It is so ingrained in me that whenever I see a math problem today, I know that it will take some time to arrive at the answer, but I can do it. This is the power of a strong belief. It may take some time because my brain is rusty, but I’ll eventually arrive at an answer.

Without this belief, I wouldn’t have ever picked up programming to make games or pursued a career in computer science.

Today, if somebody asks me, “How do I start programming?” my answer is, “Just do it.”

It may never come across my mind that their obliviousness is on a whole other level than mine because they lack the belief that, “Yes, I can do math, I will figure out programming.” Because they never had good teachers or lost that chance in their formative years.

On the other hand, when the shoe is on the other foot and I ask someone for advice, it would be easy for them to dismiss my questions entirely. My lack of belief wouldn’t even be a consideration for them.

So, writers who write to help others, I believe, once fundamentally lacked this belief in whatever they are now teaching. What is profound to them may be trivial to someone else. Then, it becomes nothing less than an act of bravery to put yourselves out there like that when you might be judged.

I never believed that I was good at time management or meeting deadlines. This is why I’m obsessed with productivity today because it is vital for survival. Constantly learning and changing course when needed is what has kept me going thus far.

Closing Words

I feel for anyone who has ever shared their deepest thoughts and has been met with complete silence or, worse, dismissal.

So, the next time you read a self-help article here on Medium, please spare a thought for the writer who has been through hell itself to retrieve that morsel of wisdom.