Don’t Give In to Cynicism

Don’t Give In to Cynicism

Cynicism is everywhere. Especially online. It’s the same chorus: the system is rigged and no one without connections can break through. The tone is weary, almost rehearsed, as though the story has been told so many times it has become a truth.

But it is not the only truth.

I can’t even remember where I got the link. As is usual with me, I click a recommended link and leave it breathing for air for many days till I have an uninterrupted hour or so to devote to it. This one was Daniel Priestley sparring with Gary Stevenson on The Diary of a CEO. Stevenson’s argument was emotional, rooted in the idea that geography and family define the future. Priestley, without denying inequality, pushed back with something uncomfortable but real: opportunity still exists, and much of it is sitting idle because people have been told not to bother looking.

I have seen this in practice. In talent recruitment drives, vacancies remain open not because gatekeepers are scheming to keep applicants out but because candidates are unaware, or too convinced of futility to apply. In entrepreneurship circles, I have watched aspiring founders walk away from ventures not because the capital was missing but because they believed that without elite access, their ideas had no chance. In scholarships where I am involved in with my friends, students who would not pick calls for verification and would not have the decency to call back.

Ironically, many of the voices repeating the loudest versions of these bleak narratives are people doing relatively well themselves. Some are graduates of top universities. Others are building audiences and careers online. They are not powerless, yet their words encourage others to believe they are.

Of course, there is much to criticise in the way societies are structured. Inequality and barriers to progress are real. Ignoring them would be dishonest. But there is a difference between recognising flaws and surrendering agency. Every generation has faced obstacles. Yet from Omu Aran to Oron, we are crowded with people who began with little, met indifference or hostility, and still built lives of significance.

Many of them were not prodigies. They did not inherit vast networks or superior intelligence. Some had no capital beyond stubborn energy. What they did have was the absence of constant voices telling them to give up before they tried.

The danger of cynicism is not that it diagnoses problems. The danger is that it convinces you those problems are immovable. And once you accept that, effort feels pointless. You stop searching for the unfilled vacancy. You abandon the business idea before you draw a plan. You mute your own curiosity. You wait for the system to change before you take steps.

The reality is harsher but also more hopeful. Most people reading this are not as disadvantaged as the narrative suggests. Many opportunities will not come from elite corridors or secret clubs but from alertness and the refusal to quit early. That is not a romantic slogan. It is something I have watched play out again and again. In my life and the lives of countless people I know.

So do not let the drumbeat of cynicism set your rhythm. It may be louder, but it is not the only music.

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”