Waiting For Perfect Conditions

If you wait for perfect conditions, you'll never get anything done. 

Of all the categories of people I know, the ones who complain the most are students and junior workers. And the one thing they both have in common is little responsibilities. For students it's understandable, they are still dependents and justified in wishing that the university system was perfect and that a job would be waiting for them after school. I don't blame them when they blame the university system for their academic troubles and the limited global opportunities it affords them. 

It is the people who are no longer dependents but still blame a system or an organization or some external circumstance for their state in life that I have no sympathy for. They are waiting for perfect conditions. 

It's true that we face more troubles and get less opportunities than people in more developed countries. We will always see someone doing better that us purely as a result of them living in another country. As true and unfortunate it is that millions of people in the world are thankful that they were not born in Nigeria, the real tragedy is when we don't let go of our excuses to change our circumstance. We have to let go of our notion of how things should be if they only discourage us from getting things done. We have to stop waiting for perfect conditions.

I love the way the World Bank puts it on their recruitment page, "We recognize that poverty has no borders. Neither does excellence. So we are continually in search of the brightest, most talented individuals from around the globe." They know that excellence is not a product of perfect conditions or great circumstance, or else they would have limited their search for excellence to only some part of the globe. They know that people do rise above the limiting circumstances around them. People do achieve whatever they set their minds on regardless of the conditions they live in. The people who have achieved the most are simply people who gave no thoughts for perfect conditions. Rather than complain, they worked hard at the goal they set for themselves.

I believe that the real joy in life is in achieving what no one thought you could, rising above both the environment and the expectation cap it placed on you. It doesn't matter much if you achieved your original goal. But that you overcame impossible circumstances and went after your goal is what matters. You become better than whom you might have been had you not tried. And if you are lucky you'll achieve what no one around you has ever achieved. 

That the conditions aren't perfect is a blessing and waiting for them to be is simply wasting a great opportunity.