Bend the world according to your will

A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time most people don't even try, and just accept that things are the way that they are. - Sam Altman

Think about it: how many people have you met in your life who aspire to make a generational impact, who want to make humanity multi-planetary, or who aim to be the next Elon Musk? I am sure the number is close to zero. However, if you ask around in India, almost everyone knows someone who wants to be an IAS officer.

It's logical in a way. If getting into an elite university is already considered a significant achievement, then daring to dream of being the best in the world seems unattainable to many. But that is a different game entirely. Those lofty goals are not zero-sum games where your success means someone else's failure. Even if someone dares to dream big, society is filled with mediocre people who will ridicule them.

I truly believe that anyone can achieve any height of achievement, particularly the dreams they have harbored since their early years. There is a crowded middle ground—like entering elite universities or securing reputable jobs at big MNCs. But if you look closely, there is plenty of space to be truly great.

Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you, and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. - Steve Jobs

I resonate deeply with this sentiment. We are the future. We should strive to make humanity proud by achieving things that no one ever thought possible. Believe me, it won't take an extraordinary amount of effort, maybe just 2x or 3x more than usual. But think about the returns. And don't do it for the returns; do it because you can and because it is necessary.

Soon, we will live in a world of abundance. Intelligence will be cheap, but courage, vision, and ambition will be rare. I used to think visionaries predicted the future, but I was wrong. Visionaries shape the future according to their will, and we often see it as if it was inevitable, but that's never the case.

Be ambitious, be courageous, be fearless, be relentless, be great.