1. Introduction
Visualize the road ahead. Do you accelerate when the road is straight or curved? It takes no wisdom to discern: The straight accelerates, the curves steer. The curves are difficult, and it is that difficulty which forces a change in direction. Meanwhile, the straight is simple; hence, progress is quick. Now, imagine you didn’t accelerate on a straight section and kept waiting for curves. After all, curves are as certain as the sun rising, so why bother accelerating?
You see, most people live very emotional lives. They work when times are hard and relax when times are easy. They seek meaning in times of confusion yet never pause to reflect on life’s beauty. They search for love when they feel lonely; they break up when they feel trapped. They speak prayers in times of despair yet forget about God in times of elation.
It is well understood that emotions are motivators, and most rely on their emotions to execute change. By all means, this is an awful way to live, for it is artificially painful and draining. Seeing things degenerate is painful. Using despair to avert disaster is painful just as much. Then, after overcoming a problem, one feels immobile because things haven’t gotten unbearable. When your emotions take control, your life will be a constant ebb and flow. This is not harmony; this is stagnation. Your emotions will sabotage you; they will make you destroy the fruits of your own labor. Such is the nature of complacency.
That means the cure to complacency is consistency, which is the fruit of discipline. Discipline – that’s doing what needs to be done.
2. Some context
When I was thirteen, I understood very well that my childhood had left me miserable and that something exceptional had to be done. Unlike most children, I was not good at anything. I had no interests and no friends. The only thing I had was resentment. Where did that resentment come from? I don’t want to narrate my entire story, but I had a lot of nonsense in my life. For example, I grew up without a home and without a father. We lived in a homeless shelter when I was nine. I was bullied for two years in primary school and would become the bully a few years later, which left me isolated.
When I look back on my everyday life, I despise it. At age thirteen, the only thing I had was a phone addiction. So, every day would look the same. I didn’t have any power or skills, so what was the point of my existence? When the only things-one-can-do are lingering around, what’s the point? I hated being a child, pushed around, and gaslighted by everyone. You must understand that it’s not that I’m power-hungry; it’s that a purposeless life has ripped me apart.
If my life had continued without change, I would have ended up as an engineer, but it goes without saying that I would not have ended up a happy engineer, but one with an ugly girl boss wife and a monumental dose of bitterness! An idiot I was born - an idiot I could have died!
It was clear that the conventional path had failed me.
Now something big had to be done.
3. The vision
I wanted change; I found change. Ask, and you shall be given, seek and ye shall find.
In late 2020, I had a vision; I call it my 2020 vision. I would become an entrepreneur with a software business. I started by learning how to program, skipped a grade to approach my vision faster, and as they say, the rest is history. I completed 12th grade at sixteen with a perfect high school diploma. (Though I admit I got the graduation paper a few weeks after my 17th birthday.) Meanwhile, I worked on my vision for three years, and my first business failed due to a lack of experience. Yet, I didn’t abandon my vision.
Currently, I’m at university, and I have almost completed the first semester; thus, it is time to write this text.
4. What convinced me to skip 9th grade
Let’s jump back to when I was thirteen years old. I had been working towards my vision for a few months, and my life had improved substantially. It crossed my mind that I could skip a grade, so I considered it. It stayed in my mind, and I could not ignore it, almost like falling in love. Just like with falling in love, fear is the biggest hurdle. The reality is that I didn’t have any real reasons not to skip except for the uncertainty it brought.
So, here’s what’s convinced me to skip 9th grade.
a) Times were never going to be easier
In early 2021, the schools had been closed for nearly a year, which allowed me to make so much progress in the first place. Because the schools were closed, the curriculum got much easier. Another thing that played in my hands was that I didn’t destroy my mind by scrolling all day long like the other children did. With that in mind, I realized that times would never be easier. I understood I would never have so much free progress again, so I took it. This was my opportunity.
b) On having a free spirit
What’s school, actually?
I once got twelve A+ in a row, which I didn’t even know was possible. I profited from grades. Yet, I have a distinct hate for tests, grades, and exams. Can you guess which class I did the worst in? It’s philosophy. What if I were to reveal that you’re reading the text of someone with a C in literature? Grades have nothing to do with reality. The fact that I can’t analyze poems doesn’t mean I can’t write meaningful texts.
Knowing that school didn’t teach me concrete skills, I thought a bit deeper.
Most people think by analogy, meaning they look at people around them and deduce what to do. Thus, they become the average of the people they spend the most time with. People with a free spirit, on the other hand, act on first principles, also known as axioms; they reason from the bottom to the top. A first principle is one that cannot be questioned. A very simple first principle goes: if people do not know about your product, they will not buy. Let me give you my favorite axiom: if you think complicated, you can’t think big. Since thinking by analogy left me in ruins, I had to develop a free spirit early in life. And so, while everyone else was concerned with school, I questioned why school was necessary. Why should I spend a year learning that which can be learned in a hundred hours, if at all? Why spend a whole year? Except for getting a blonde girlfriend without competition, I couldn’t come up with an answer.
Let’s go a bit deeper. It seemed to me that school is insanely repetitive. My thesis is that if all duplicate topics were removed, school could be shortened by a third. This is why I didn’t have any gaps after skipping an entire grade. Let me repeat. I didn’t have any gaps after missing a whole year. Well, to be fair, I did have one gap, the quadratic equation. But guess what – by 12th grade, on the day of the final exam, I had figured it out.
c) I developed early
The most apparent reason to skip a grade is that ‘I was too smart.’
But this ‘too smart’ didn’t occur randomly. For instance, way before school, my mother paid for tutors so that I would get smarter. We would do stuff children would do; for example, I can remember how we drew with stars and candles and then dyed the paper blue, or we kneaded a bridge over a river we drew.
Then, we migrated to Germany. Because I was small and different, and also because I didn’t speak German, I was bullied. That means I didn’t make many friends and started developing exotic interests. (Though, by the time I was thirteen, I had no interest in anything.) For example, I was interested in nuclear energy, while everyone else cared about football cards or anime. Because I was lonely, I spent a large portion of my early childhood with books and documentaries. As a result, I had built plenty of general knowledge. This general knowledge would prove to be a valuable asset, as it made it easy for me to excel in school.
By the way, now that I’m in university, I have to study just like everyone else because that general knowledge no longer holds much value.
d) In need of a new start
As discussed previously, I was a bully in 6th grade. So, it made sense to get a new start. I had nothing binding me to my classmates. It could only get better from here. Looking back, there was one thing kind of binding me, which was, of course, a girl who I wanted from 5th grade on and who I knew also wanted me. Nonetheless, I knew she wasn’t the one.
e) Romeo and Juliet
Despite the abundance of reasons, I was still uncertain.
On one fateful day, my older sister, who used to be one grade above me, showed me a book she had to read: Romeo and Juliet. I tried to read a few pages, yet I did not understand a single sentence, for they were cryptic. “That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m skipping a grade.”
My hate for the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ triggered the avalanche. I hated the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ because I suffered from being a mama’s boy. I was convinced that sexuality was evil, that it was wrong to be the alpha, and that having a girl boss at home was peak life satisfaction. You see, I suffered from being a nerd – someone who’s asexual and submissive while being called ‘smart.’ Yet, as it turns out, life is too short to be a nerd. I needed to do something about it; otherwise, people would continue to force that identity upon me. I knew only one way to overcome nerdiness: I had to demonstrate my power.
Hence, the final reason I skipped 9th grade was to impress and prove my power. I had a massive ego, so I had to use it. What better way to demonstrate my capability than to skip a grade while building a business? I was full of resentment—it was time to turn that into beauty.
*****
I talked with my parents, and we wrote a letter to the principal. In that letter, there was a copy of a small app I built. The principal approved. Then, every teacher voted, and they approved unanimously. It was time for me to prepare, but I ended up doing nothing for school in the months I had left because I worked on my business.
5. How things went
The day I entered 10th grade, no one wanted to start a conversation with me. I had never experienced that before, and I found that strange.
The first few weeks were hard. I was still learning how to program in a seminar among thirty-year-old programmers who wanted to requalify, and hence, I had problems keeping up. I also wasn’t used to the higher expectations in the new grade, and being younger than everyone else by two years was also new.
My life got significantly worse because of a swimming club I was forced to attend, which took three hours a week, three hours which I didn’t have. There’s nothing I hate more than the water; as such, I only got pointless fatigue from swimming. Then, my parents also forced me to spend time with tutors, which was worse than useless, once again wasting time I didn’t have.
Everyone who saw what I was going through wanted me to go back, give up my vision, and go back a grade. But I didn’t listen. I persevered; I overcame. I knew what I was fighting for. This was the story I was going to tell one day.
Things indeed got easier after I began to work during the lessons and convinced my mother to cut out the swimming lessons and tutors. This proved to be the biggest spiritual adventure of my life and I don’t want to think about what would have happened had I given up.
Because I continued to work on my 2020 vision, for the years to come. I began to blossom socially, making friends for life. I finished school while being considered a legend by many teachers and classmates alike. Through sheer determination, I got everything there was to get. At the last day of school, concluded:
“Uncompromising excellence is a true testament to the indomitability of my spirit.”
6. Looking back
I see myself as a warrior monk dwelling in the mountains. I find joy in being dedicated to excellence. What is better than lifelong meditation, fighting, and studying?
Verily, throughout this trial, my spirit grew.
I finished 12th grade in a way most never could; it made me feel like a sword. Yet, I understand that the battle is not over. While I am undeniably superior to almost every other seventeen-year-old, who is probably in 11th grade, that superiority will degenerate if I take pride in my achievements. In ten years, the tides will turn unless I interfere - many people work very hard. That means, now I have to work even harder. What men call remarkable is the fruit of work no one sees.
I started text talking about complacency. Verily, complacency ruins most of those who see success too early in life, because everyone tells them how great they are and convinces them they need to relax.
I want to dedicate a few more sentences towards excellence. You know, many ‘smart’ people argue that skipping a grade is wrong because it's damaging to one’s social life. Furthermore, they see it as beneficial to be older because older brains are more developed, and taller children, in particular, learn to be natural leaders. In addition to that, many argue that it is vital to ‘discover yourself’ and even recommend gap years. But guess what? I am the youngest and shortest person in my university class and I’m doing well. All those statements infuriate me! Rules only apply to people who aren’t willing to man up and improve. Those psychologists are weak; they all hate determination. Let me tell you, I’m not living my life trying to make some psychologists happy. To hell with happiness! If I had to sacrifice happiness for greatness, I would do it. If I had to sacrifice happiness for brilliance, I would do it. If I had to sacrifice happiness for legacy, I would do it. Why is everyone so concerned with how they feel, as if life is about that? If my mother cared about happiness, I would not be. I can promise if I was never born, my ghost would haunt y’all. For millennia, people have done things far more difficult than skipping a grade. And yet, we’ve come to a point where skipping a grade is considered worth writing a text about.
I claimed that I was doing well in university. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that all my worries turned out to be false. I feared that I was not perceived sexy, yet I was wrong. I worried people would still force the nerd identity upon me, yet that did not happen. Skipping a grade solidified that I am who as say I am. It also gave me some room to play because people didn’t put me under pressure to be normal.
To further prove solidify my point, I need to comment on peak high school experience, which is parties. After I turned sixteen, I was legally allowed to party and drink, but I was much more concerned with discipline. I first visited the club nearly a year later, when I was seventeen. Even though everyone complimented me on how passionately, smoothly, and energetically I danced, I hated the atmosphere, and the music was disappointing. I decided to never return. You see, just as school, parties have nothing to with my purpose in life.
I may not have celebrated much, but if we zoom out, who had more fun?
What’s more fun than feeling like a weapon?
Let me share one more experience. When I was thirteen, most were concerned about a very particular party, called youth consecration, where they celebrate their coming of age. Coming of age means becoming an adult. What does it mean to be an adult mean? It means you write to start your story. Therefore, I had my own ritual marking my coming of age.
*****
I diagnose most people with severe short-sightedness. Instead of being concerned with vision, purpose, excellence, victory and indomitability, they worry about that which is fleeting. They write about compromises, parties, academic pressure, or proficiency tests. Yes, most people consider parties more important than their purpose in life, which I find sad. There are so many so people way smarter than me, and yet, most waste their potential.
Indomitability is not about taking creatine powder or some cute pomodoro technique. It is about boldness. The purpose of my blog is to build people up. I believe, that by sharing my story, I get to inspire. I’m not telling you to be me, but I tell you to be relentless. I want your story to be so large it can only be carried by winds themselves.
The thought that scares me the most is that my life could have turned out completely different had I changed my mind before the decision was final. By a hair, I could have stayed a where I was. But no, I did what needed to be done, reaching for the stars. Skipping 9th grade remains the single best decision of my life.
I must thank God for guiding my will.
I must praise the holy spirit for giving me strength.
Amen.
Appendix.
I should clarify, that I categorically discourage anyone younger than thirteen to skip a grade. There is no point in skipping a grade because mommy or daddy says so. I believe that most children don’t have enough tenacity. I also think that parents who let their child skip a grade in primary school are too desperate. I also discourage anyone who doesn’t know their purpose to skip a grade. I should also clarify that you aren’t me and I don’t know anyone’s situation in life. Skipping a grade is a considerable gamble.