Ba-boom, ba-boom. A relentless beat in life to remind you to tone the fuck down. I hear it constantly, and I find it impossible to get it to stop.

Against my will, my body grooves with the beat with heart palpitations in feverish sweats. I notice that I fall ill a lot more during stressful periods. In the period before I decided to cancel Sapiengraph, and in the period after Sapiengraph, I fell sick twice.

Ba-boom, ba-boom. In a fund-raising pitch that happened in recent months, I was told that I do not inspire confidence. The same guy went on to ask me to buy him a drink because it was the right thing to do since he took his precious time to meet me.

Ba-boom, ba-boom. Then there are critics. There might be a few who are critical of my blog posts. I try my best to ignore them because I do not want to stoop to mediocracy because pleasing everyone means pleasing no one.

Ba-boom, ba-boom. A small percentage of your hires will be poor hires because no one has nailed hiring, including people that are hired by the management team. These people of poor fit irritate me to no end because I have to deal with them daily, and I cannot just block them out.

But the worst and loudest drum beats of them all come from within. Self-doubts. Letting naysayers get to me. Self-rationalization to quit because I am tired.

Take this blog, for example. Every night, I dedicate 30-minutes as a ritual to practice writing and to instill discipline. The routine is simple: I write, upload it on Grammarly, then I post it on Facebook. Done. I do not proof-read it because writing great articles is not my goal. The practice of writing is my goal.

But naysayers and critics come forth with guns blazing. That is fine because the positive messages I get drown out the noise in both quantity and sincerity, and I appreciate your private messages.

Then there come nights by which I want not to write. Instead, I want to spend the time browsing Reddit after a long day at work. My mind will then wander and begin self-rationalizing excuses on why I should not write tonight. That is a weakness at play. So I stop myself and whip myself and force myself to write something.

I think I write better now, and I make fewer grammar mistakes.

Nevertheless, the drum of mediocracy beats unyieldingly and strongly. Like a Schizophrenic, I deal with it and shut it down in my head because I do not want to be weak.