A Scholar’s Diary: 4 Life Lessons Through Adversity

Being a scholar is signing up for a life of journeying through knowns into unknowns and trying not to create a path necessarily, but perhaps, leave a trail. In the journey through the unknown lie challenges that shape the polished scholarly persona we see. Doubts are often immense, fears within and without, pressure untold, yet you’ve to wake up another day and keep going.

The American civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr., while addressing students at the Barrat Junior High School in Philadelphia in 1967, remarked, “…so boy, don’t stop now, don’t you sit down on the steps cause you find it’s kinder hard, don’t you fall now… Well, life for none of us has been a crystal stair. But we must keep moving. We must keep going. If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl, but by all means, keep moving!”

These words resonate far too well with the formative truth scholars whisper to themselves more often when the going gets tougher. It is always more about waking up, dressing up, and showing up even when it doesn’t feel like it.

So here are some lessons I have learnt through the course of my time. Mark you, they extend beyond scholarly contexts, far deeper into the core of different facets of our lives.

Build it, one brick at a time

As a scholar, things can be messy if you only focus on the grand things. It is prudent to have the great New York or London in the grand view of things, but you have to build it your way up. Only in God’s majestic world were things said, and they came into being. Everywhere else, it has been a little here and a little there.

While at it, you’ll realise the refinement process begins where the noise stops. A few weeks ago, I conducted some experimental tests, looking forward to some groundbreaking results that could revolutionise how we approach our healthcare management as we know it today. At first, I thought, “Oh, boy, this is it.” But wait a minute, were the results really significant or just noise? Did I factor that in?

And that is where patience in the building comes in. All the bricks may not fit everywhere we set them, yet even then, we must continue seeking that missing brick that completes the set. So is life, while we take it one brick at a time, consistency is what dictates if the building gets to completion.

Be consistent in your pursuits, and don’t give up as long as the dance is on. Yes, the best dancer knows when to exit the stage, but not before they make their best moves. If we ever give up, let it be because we succeeded.

A Scholar is a lifestyle; It’s Lived Daily

There is no harder truth than the fact that we are the choice of our decisions. We are what we choose to be; we become what we repeatedly do. So then, our lifestyle is borne of the little things we do daily, whether by choice or circumstances, and for a scholar, it is the total of both.

My colleague occasionally teases me to take breaks and distract myself: Huh, easier said than done. When I do so, I still find myself drifting back to that recurring issue that needs to be resolved for the research to move forward and be concluded. The very reason, out of choice and circumstances, that makes me wake up and continue the next day.

If I wake and feel like it is done, that I have had enough and want to give up, Rev Luther’s words give me the jerk off. And my amazing mind sharply cut in with a dare: Where is thine power, oh mortal man? Is thy vision that short? And is your dream that small, so much so, as to let it go just like that?

And the next thing? I am all up and ready to go and bring new scientific discoveries to make this world a better place. Nothing drives me than knowing that my scholarly contribution has an impact on this world. It doesn’t matter whether it is an astonishingly great impact, as long as there is value in it.

Thus, don’t only seek to do great things in the world. Perhaps you may not be able to, but endeavour to do that little thing that you can in a great way. A little kindness might fizzle out in our massive universe, yet in the life of that one individual you extend it to, it will mean the world to them.

Never Stop Questioning, For You Stop Learning

Questioning in research is like a compass to a sailor. It guides the entire process, from design to analysis, and identifies the essential gaps in knowledge that are the foundation of proper scholarly work. What amounts to a good research gap depends on the level of study, the available resources, and the expected outcomes. Bottom line, though, a gap is a gap.

Sometimes, macroscopically, the research gap may not be obvious, yet with deeper questioning, clarity creeps in slowly, and it becomes both visible and feasible. At the intersection of questioning and a literature review is structured knowledge that bridges critical thinking and scholarly action. Therefore, questioning in life and in the research world is like oxygen to our living.

Never stop questioning. Ask deep questions, ask surface-level questions, question your “truths,” question your abstract beliefs, question things friends tell you, question things passed on to you, question the things you read and hear.  In short, when you stop asking questions, growth stops, connections dim, associations grow cold, and complacency slowly sets in.

Even as you ask these questions, develop an open mind that is willing to learn. Nothing beats an open mind except that that takes the breath of a man away. It is an unstoppable kind of force and energy.

The Amplifying Power of Effort

All the lessons I have shared above culminate in the beauty of an accomplishment that is the summation of little efforts and decisions made daily. Ultimately, run with this: a little more effort and a little more persistence can turn things that seem hopeless into beautiful accomplishments.

I do this daily. I live this daily. And whereas the going doesn’t necessarily get easy, the journey becomes worthwhile. If anything, continuous effort and struggle are the chasm that differentiates those who fail from those who succeed.

If anything, never lose faith in the power of effort, never stop questioning, and gather the bricks; then one by one, bond them together. It is only a matter of time before the wall stands up and eventually becomes a magnificent structure.

Now, the scholar is off to his scholarly work. Motivated and energised. And so, should you in your pursuits.