How to Not Waste Your Potential: Intro to Iroko

Admitting that you’ve reached a low point in your life is harder than it sounds. When you think about it, it makes sense as to why it can be so difficult: Imagine explaining that you’re afraid to make the wrong step in your life. If you move left when you were really (technically) supposed to move right, what do you do then? Imagine debating with someone that it’s best to stay stagnant in life, making sure every single breath you take is careful, calculated, and worth everyone else’s time. You can’t, right? Imagine it, I mean. It’s okay because I can’t either.

I’ve spent most of the quarantine trying to find the perfect excuse as to why I haven’t picked up a pen and paper. Why I haven’t been writing if it’s what I simply love to do. Pay attention to that emphasis on ‘love’, because my introduction to people is always “I’m a writer, I love it”. But do I even love it anymore, if the thought of writing a book or short story makes me want to run away and hide? I enjoyed using the “school is so tiring, I don’t have time to free write” line, for about three years, until my friends and family started giving me that blank, annoyed stare instead of the “I completely understand your point” look. I was turning into a disappointment. Quickly, at that.

I’m embarrassed. I can’t tell them that the actual truth is that I’m scared of rejection from the entire world. Writers face criticism all the time, and a single wrong step (in my mind) is a step closer to getting swallowed, chewed up, and spat right out because the taste of my being - my entire mind and ideas - were absolutely disgusting. I’ve never felt good enough or ready enough to throw myself out there, in the corporate world and also into the world of watchers and readers, because there was a stubborn piece of me cowering away from my future. I don’t like the idea of “failure”. And by failure, I mean not getting a big-enough audience to support my writing and believe in me as an artist. Failure means not being able to survive in a world like this with just my writing abilities.

I’ve been imagining thousands of eyes on my back since the day I started writing. I’ve peered too far into the future, where I’m already standing tall at book signings in Barnes & Noble, as I wrote the first few sentences of a short story probably no one besides my mother would hear aloud or witness in front of them. I didn’t realize this was a problem until college. I was picturing my ideal life, my definition of success, that I began to move in a way that would definitely get me to that point in life. I hammered rules in my mind to stack up on connections via networking, to write until I drop, and to find the perfect publishing company that would pick me up like angels and carry me to my dream life. It sounded pretty simple to 12-year-old me, to make precise steps to reach the end goal. I even had a roadmap to follow, so I never missed a single beat. It felt like the most intense round of Just Dance, where you’re trying to get 5 stars with only perfect moves to show off to your friends that you’re a true badass.

According to the roadmap, I should be scoring an internship with Teen Vogue right about now. Or Seventeen. Or even The New York Times. To save you the suspense, I have no internship with Teen Vogue. No internship with Seventeen. And most definitely no internship with The New York Times. And there’s no backup plan on the roadmap, or even the opportunity to press a “go back” button, so I can remind younger me to somehow become best friends with the hiring manager for Vogue. I feel completely derailed because, for years now, nothing has gone according to plan. And with every passing minute, the dreams I used to see so clearly get more blurry and indistinguishable.

College was the slap to the face I needed. That life was not about making a life-plan, and that it was perfectly okay to walk on a different path than what you first imagined. While my friends were crying happy tears about their internships at Amazon and Google, I was constantly refreshing my web browser to find my future job: my moment to dance around with my friends and tell them that I’m ready to take my next big steps in life. But nothing. There was nothing that called out to me as opportunities did for my friends who majored in science, tech, and business. There was nothing even for freshmen undergrad besides volunteer work that was unpaid and required you to rip off your legs and arms all for the sake of serving them 20+ hours every week.

I was close to signing up for anything that had the words “Intern Writer” typed next to it. Because my resume was in the other tab laughing at me, saying that I was screwed if I didn’t start finding internships to add to it soon. I was desperate, I was crying every other night, and I was jealous of everyone I knew who wasn’t a writer like me.

“This one looks great for you!” would start so many conversations, but would quickly end when the words FOR JUNIOR AND SENIOR UNDERGRAD mocked me. It seemed like every company wanted juniors and seniors, which made no sense to me at all. Was I expected to volunteer at smaller companies for twenty hours a week, drafting their business proposals and ideas, all for the sake of having enough credentials to have a chance at working for a company that was willing to finally pay me for all of my effort and hard work? I was giving up, even questioning if it was even worth torturing myself like this all for the sake of doing what I loved.

“Just do your own thing” was something I often heard but was too nervous to pursue. I felt like I would waste my time, that no one would take "my own thing" seriously, and I would just end up struggling to catch up with everyone else. I didn't believe in myself in the slightest, and the saddest part is that everyone around me genuinely did.

The mindset I have seems like a virus, and I'm trying my best to shake it off. I tried to solve this problem by giving myself time, a break from writing, where I would fall so in love with it again that I'll be able to come back, write some more, and find myself overwhelmed with luck by working at a newspaper or magazine company and an upcoming book deal surprising me just a few years after.

But I can’t keep waiting. Especially now, as an upcoming sophomore in college, with all of this free time and potential, practically clawing at my face and soul. I’m excited for Iroko, and how I am creating my own platform to have the freedom to write and publish any topics I see fit while also breaking free from this ridiculous mindset of not feeling good enough and not being ready for the world.

Making an attempt is better than having a perfect excuse that you’ve used so much and so often that you’ve started to believe it yourself. I got lost in my own nerves, thinking of the worst outcome before even giving writing a legitimate shot. Heck, I’ve never even managed to stand on a stage for a poetry slam. But now, here I am, smothering the stubbornness and the fear and strutting down a new path.