27 Life Ideas From A 27 Year Old: #3 Becoming Important

There's something about oceans that is just.so.wonderful.

The word success gets thrown around so much in media, among social groups and hierarchies, among educated and non-educated circles that you see a wide spectrum of definitions on the word. For some, it's about status, some about money, some about general well being, for some.. all the aforementioned. Different people have different take and that's interesting. Imagine everyone having the same idea about success. Limited resources would naturally prevent everyone from being successful. 

I argue though, that everyone can. As a 27 year old who's not tied up in any social structure, I see success for myself in these three basic terms:

A) If I pay my bills on time and I have the financial resources to pay for social outings.

B) Maintain health. In that I don't have to dependent on someone to look after my body.

C) If I can be of value to others. In other words, I have skill set that people need and I leverage that to get the things I need instead. Sort of like barter trade. I could trade it for money, skill or to make a difference.

These three things structurally form the basis of what I call my confidence backbone. I lose anyone one of them, I crumble in all fronts. They are, actually, highly interdependent. In engineering terms, we call this a tightly coupled situation. One fails and there's a chain reaction.

So the whole time, I am constantly having to think of these three aspects and find what I call the life equilibrium equation. Balance, in simple terms. However, much like equations, one parameter in particular can tip an on going reaction; either in the positive or negative side. That particular parameter is C.

Let me recap what C was:

The value you create with the skill set you have. 

Because if you have skills, you trade it for something better. A better lifestyle, better health and better pay. And because you have the ability to trade, you create value in the society that you exist on. 

So this is where I delve into the topic of "being important." To write this article, I had to come to terms about how life-unchanging-ly unimportant I am [HERE]. That acceptance freed me of any guilt, overconfidence, over ego I had and allowed me now think of how I can change that. And well, be important. You know, those people with body-guards-around-them important. 

I see a direct correlation between being important to being useful. Being useful shows that you have a value proposition to other people and society. That value primarily is based on the skills you have acquired either through training, formal education or binge learning from internet. (I stress the fact that no one is born with particular talent. Situation, environment and mentor-ship does.)

This links my theory that success is now directly linked to being useful which then makes you important. Clear? The simplest next step to do now is to play the multiply game. 

The more people and societies that you can be useful to, the more successful you become and thus, more important. The question you should be asking yourself now is, "how can I maximize that?"

Personally for me, I see drafting of governmental policies and stringent implementation of those policies to have the most widest effect on people. In fact, I want to be in stage in some part of my life where I am either directly or indirectly influencing sectors of education, health, science, technology, economy, and infrastructure. That is what I am aiming for. That is why I felt my formal education wasn't enough and I had to get a Ph.D. 

In all honesty, nobody wants to go through the process of Ph.D. If Master's degree taught me anything, it's that doing the degree is a pain in the butt-hole and reminds me every time I sit down. Yet, I strongly feel I will be exponentially raising my general usefulness while increasing my importance if I am able to dog down and complete my Ph.D. 

That is my rationale for doing this god-forsaken Ph.D. I could have easily re-written the title saying that.