It is very easy to believe you can never be wrong. It gets even worse if you are smart.
Part of our growth process is the (sometimes bitter) acknowledgment that we do not and ultimately cannot know it all. It is easy to delude ourselves that we will always be right.
One time there was a very smart man. He lived in a small town, just after Warri. At a very young age, he showed signs of brilliance well above his peers. In no time, his name was on everyone’s lips. He was the best at everything.
In the years that followed, he would travel with his classmates for debates, science fairs, and quiz competitions. They won everything. Scratch that.
He won everything.
He was so good that his teammates need not be there.
So brilliant, one time a student from another school shouted at her teacher during the break at one of those events.
“Voke is here, and their school is going to win anyway. So we might as well not prepare!”
Imagine how the poor teacher would have felt. What would she have done with her rehearsed motivational speech?
Voke soon left secondary school and breezed through university like it was nothing. As he grew older, his mind voraciously devoured everything. Science, Philosophy, Music, everything.
Or so we thought.
The cracks began to show when he started working. He would get jobs so easily, but could never keep them. Nobody wanted him around after a few months.
He could not understand why. He did his job better than everybody else. He even helped out colleagues in other departments, sometimes, without them asking.
Still, it was mostly met with animosity.
Now, Voke had one thing I call “Smart People Complex”. You might know it by a different name, but it’s the problem a lot of brilliant people have, where they think because they have gotten so many things right, they can’t get anything wrong.
It is a game of numbers really.
Albeit silly, most people would rather justify a misstep, than admit that they’re wrong. Somehow we have – over a long period of time – conditioned ourselves to rarely see our faults.
It’s like a system designed to protect itself (read as ego) against any assault (read as other opinion and/or truth).
Now throw in conversations and the ensuing arguments. The logic and thought processes that fuel our convictions and shape our stance on topics. Imagine them as bricks, pillars, and frames for a house you’re building.
Your dream home.
Finally, throw in the emotions that help you connect deeply to these things. To the people, you interact with. The clients you interface with, and the colleagues with whom you share a workspace. The emotions that make you feel – in what words can almost never describe – that your line of actions and beliefs are in line with what is true.
Think of it as the mortar that keeps the bricks together.
You know, you need just enough to keep the house together, but too much, and your house won’t exactly be the way you want it to.
Now step back and look at Voke’s life. Can you guess why nobody wanted him around?
It can be argued that most of us have more bricks (or pillars) than mortar. For some, it’s the other way around.
But regardless of what hand life deals you, nothing stops us from finding a balance. It’s not one or the other.
These things are easy to brush aside, especially when there are arguments for our case. And really, there always will be, if you look hard enough.
We can have the finest bricks, the soundest of minds to churn out intelligent discourse and the eloquence to put forth our thoughts; or even the purest of mortars, the emotional intelligence to listen, and understand, to empathize and walk distances in others’ shoes.
But all that will amount to nothing if we don’t actively find a balance.
Interactions, and ultimately character judgement is largely by design, and not based on the strength of potential.
In the end, the life you build will depend on the mind you have designed.