A sudden twist in perception may occur in our lives sometimes. Sometimes it feels like we have had our eyes shut before the new perception was gained and other times it really is just a change from one perception to the other.
When I started using the phrase point of realization about 3 years ago, what it simply meant to me was a turning point with a single occurence. A point to realize your goals and directions in life as an individual, the point where you stop living in fantasies and decide to take life more seriously, a point where you do not just aspire success but are willing to take the right actions to acquire it.
In this Joe Rogan’s podcast with Naval Ravikant, Naval describes what I call point of realization as.
Every man has two lives, and the second starts when they realize they have just one.
To give an example, I grew up with a Nigerian dad who told impeccable stories about his childhood academic success. This stories might have been true or absolute lies but there was never a way to verify them and now even he might have forgotten what the actual truth is by reinforcing his memory to believe what he thought he had to tell his kids to make them strive for success. This was a known trend with Nigerian parents and I can’t speak much of other origins I didn’t hail from.
The stories were irrelevant for my older brother as his intelligence and focus were innate. He didn’t need pep talks to study because books were pooped from his consistent gaze upon them. And his grades put smiles to my parent’s face like a million dollar check will do to any average family.
Unlike my brother, I struggled with my grades and if someone had told me I was the black sheep of my family (I wasn’t), it wouldn’t have meant a thing to me. I was just a happy child who wanted to have fun and not be disturbed. I wasn’t rebellious but I wasn’t an easy child either. I just chose fun over books. I loved art so I drew over my school notes and didn’t care to take down actual notes in classes.
As I grew older, the ways I had fun changed but I still tried to have fun and I put that over dedication and focus in anything. I knew what success was and I wanted to achieve it but I just wasn’t acting towards it. So I question my perception at the time. Did I really have a perception of life? or did I just have a definition of life and success and regardlessly lived freely like a myopic bird? There were girls in school who liked cool guys and the ones who liked smart guys. I seem to have mostly attracted the former but the ones I was really interested in were the latter. However, my actions didn’t put me in their category. That still didn’t change me.
I had a turning point suddenly after my high school/secondary education. I was just ready to do things right for no reason or with no incentive at all. I can’t tell what triggered this part of me. It was just my point of self realization.
That was my definition of the phrase in this title and I really wanted to write about it 3 years ago but I resiled. After relating the mind drafted article with my real life encounters over the years, I realized that we do not have a single point of realization in our lives, we just have big and small ones. After learning how to treat myself to be successful in life, I still needed to learn how to treat people around me. I needed to learn how to show love to people. I had lived freely for so long with cynical opinions and about 2 years ago I experienced another point of realization that made me learn to speak respectfully to all kind of humans and appreciate everyone for who they are. Who knows what I’m yet to realize now? I look forward to my next point of realization.