Be your own narrator

Today I graduate with the highest average and dissertation scores of the Department of Political Science from the University of York following my Master’s in International Relations. 

There have been many lessons, of which the most insightful were often coupled with failures, on this path towards achievements and self-determination. 

Yuval Noah said Sapiens think in stories. I do believe he is correct, and I would like to share parts of my story with you. 

Statistics were telling their own story. A story where the main protagonist, myself, was on the path to a future where no chapters on education could be found. Upon graduating from high school, a vocational school where I learnt how to manipulate 1950s printing machines, I shared my thoughts about going to university. 

This criminal ambition, shared by few of my classmates, forced the director of the school to organise a two-hour session. The goal of the session was to realign our wishes with the socio-economic position we had found ourselves growing up in. 

We were told that university was not for us. Indeed a few years prior, university access was not accorded to vocational school students; only a recent reform had made the move possible. While we had barely had math lessons for the past three years, we listened to the statistics during the presentation. The success rate was zero. Not that no one had done it before, it can be assumed some from the school had, but it was too insignificant to be rounded to a simple percent. 

The truth is that too often people judge others through the prism of their own misery and lack of imagination. Statistics tell great stories about the status quo, however humans have embodied and enabled spectacular coups de theatre throughout history. 

Imagination, and a hegemonic reading about the direction my life could - or should - be taking, were the hardest villains of this story. Context matters. Our relationships, and the extent of our potential, are underpinned by how we see ourselves, the themes and introductory chapters. This understanding of ourselves and of our potential development routes are defined by stories embedded in our socio-cultural environments. 

What should a black man do in America in the 1960s ? What should a women do in France in the 1910s ? These answers were changed via a radical epiphany. It is the imagination of new realities that enabled change to take place before it did. Rosa Park or King had a story of their own making, ready to challenge the old bestsellers and blockbusters. 

I remain convinced that is not the act of physically writing the story which was (too) hard. It was to imagine the story in a world with a single genre, deep structure, and ending. 

I therefore enrolled at the University of Strasbourg, with little idea of what it consisted of, asking the secretary about a degree in English. I always wanted to see if I could learn a foreign language, and open the doors to a larger part of humankind. 

During all that time, and until the last day of my education, doubt never left the story. 

I remember walking in the main entrance a few days before the start. Someone welcomed me, I mentioned that having a considerable lack of preparation (literally no clue or ability to communicate) was my main concern. Everyone was twice as good as me (they were around 20 times I'd say now). She replied that I just had to work twice as hard then. 

At first glance I thought, "yeah, that simple right". It was nearly that simple. 

There were many pitfalls along the way. The first trick was to know what it was to work twice as hard, or to work at all. It takes a lot to know how to know. I had never studied before. I once told a teacher at the beginning that I was going to work every day (I was thinking an hour a day). She laughed, saying she hoped so. To my surprise, it wasn't a bold statement to her. 

No story is written in isolation. My friend Thibault Gassman taught me what working meant and how to do it. He was perhaps the single most important inspiration in this story. It made me realise how information was an impartial divider of society. I had too many unknown unknowns, things I needed to know I had no idea existed but were crucial to the achievement of my objectives. 

I gave myself a year to catch up. If others had been studying English and History for 5 years, three hours a week, surely this was only 700 hours or so. I had a year. 

I remained at university during this self-planned prep year. My first grade ever was 0.5, and I gave it everything I had. I further understood there was no need to try now, but a good year of work would, perhaps, make it doable. 

During this whole year, one of the main difficulties was to be the odd one. No editor bought into my story. Not that I bothered pitching. I’d never take part in anything, could't understand or speak anyway. People were asking me what I was doing there in the first place. Why did I not do something else ?

I will not share my full study tricks and schedules here. I mentioned them to a few friends, but they tend to scare people off. What I will say though is that I took my first day break after three years. 

During the summer I packed my bags and moved to London for the first time. 

New country, 19, first time leaving the house, a different language I could barely speak. The two months I spent there were highly beneficial. I would read in the morning and set up to talk to strangers in the afternoon. Unfortunately I had no money for a teacher, so I had to be creative (thank you the homeless community for the chats, I'll always try to get involved in your cause). 

At the beginning of this trip, I read my first book ever in English. I managed to understand the story quite generally - Animal Farm. It was truly empowering, a little bit like Frederic Douglass's first written words. I consequently set the goal to read a hundred more books before the end of this degree (this is why I now always share reading extracts, I kept the habit after achieving this goal). 

In September, I went back to university. My first grade was 16.75/20. For the class where I got 0.5, I obtained only 7/20. Still tough! I worked three months straight. There was no difference between the eve of an exam and the beginning of the year to my heretic studying. 

And then the end of the first term arrived. The moment of trust after a significant investment from my life. It would be hard to describe the moment when I went to see the results. For my degree, results are written on the wall in front of the department and can be found with your student number. You have to go there physically and everyone is in front of it. I found my number yet I could hardly believe what I saw. 

I had more than 14/20 average, solidly established in the top 10 students. This just blew my mind with an emancipatory realisation: I was the narrator. 

We fail to realise our own potential and agency because we're afraid of failure and consequently never try. I had known much failure and grew accustomed to its presence. I used it as a motivator, I wanted to establish my agency, I hated other people taking my drafts and writing the following chapters.

I cannot do justice to this specific self-realisation. I truly believe it takes one to experience it for themselves.

Be your own narrator.