Millennial Fieldnotes #6: The Power to Cure Imposter Syndrome ????
Don't Google This
Who invented the ‘QWERTY’ keyboard that we all use today?
Who invented the first computer in the world?
Who invented the first car?
If you knew it at the top of your head, congrats- you are a genius. And my sincerest respects to you.
Whenever I struggle to hit publish for the fear of being outed as a pseudo-intellectual, being criticised for being superficial and lame or just for the fear that the work I do is insignificant, I always google for the inventor of some useful and ubiquitous appliance that I have been using
I search for great inventions whose creators remain buried under the sands of time. I search for people whose work impact us to this very day and yet not many know of their names.
Why?
For two simple but powerful reasons.
First, I remind myself that even if I eventually make good on my potential - time will, as usual, wash me into obscurity as it has done for all people of greatness. If you and I need to google who invented the first car, in the year 2600- no one probably cares about how who writes The Breakfast Bagel. This is the greatest sense of empowerment - to be free from the illusions of grandeur, knowing that history will probably make light of my failures. (Unless I become a dictator or mass murderer, then probably not).
This begs the question - why even try? If you will be forgotten, then why would you want to start? To this nihilistic question, the answer is found in the second reason,
Second, my work and my contributions, no matter how trivial or significant wil have the potential to leave an imprint on humankind.
No one remembers the name of Christopher Sholes, but we all use the QWERTY keyboard.
No one remembers Charles Babbage but we all use computers almost every day.
No one remembers Carl Benz but we take cars and buses from point to point.
Their works might have been the first in their respective categories but they were by no means definitive. Without subsequent innovations, we would be stuck with pollutive cars, jammed keyboards and a room-sized computer. The improvements we have witnessed and will continue to witness come off the sweat and toil of people just like you and me.
The Beauty of our collective humanity is that - our names may be forgotten but our imperfect contributions can have an impact for generations to come.
With that, I leave you with my favourite Steve Jobs quote.