HOW TO BECOME USEFUL

 By Matata Mercy.

Recently I was listening to a podcast of Lex Fridman who asked Elon Musk what young people could do to become successful in life.

Image credit: Being useful by Gemini.

 The answer that Musk gave to this question intrigued  and made me think deeper about what it means to be useful. 

It is certainly possible to be doing something that is not useful to society and many people have actually done that.

 Truth betold, doing something useful is hard but it is important for anyone who wants to achieve success financially although there are other ways of making money by doing bad stuff like robbing a bank, prostitution or working as an assassin.

The fundamental question we can ask is how can a person become useful to society in the modern society?

Today, I will share with you my thoughts about the things that a human being can do to become useful to others.

1.Acquire skills and knowledge.

When I was a kid, nobody told me this and Iam regretting why I did not come across this earlier in my life. 

The value of acquiring skills and knowledge but most importantly the skills that could help a human being become useful in society. 

Being a grown up, it has now dawned on me that there are certain useful skills that I actually do lack and I wish I had learnt them earlier on like cooking, driving, content production and others. 

The good thing is that I can now learn these skills since iam aware of their importance in my life.

 Without skills,it is very difficult to do something useful.

2.Make something that people want.

Another important aspect of becoming useful is to make something that people want.

Why do I insist on making something that people want,it is because you could make something that people do not want in simple terms you can make something that doesnot have users.

It is not easy to make something that people want but it is possible.

To make something that people want, you will need to get the right idea and these ideas come from the problems that you want to solve. 

All the big companies have solved a problem and that why they do have users.

 Google solved the search problem by using it’s algorithms to provide the most accurate search results which were better than that offered by other search engines, Facebook solved the problem of connecting people through  a social network.

 If you can find a solution for a problem by building something that has users then you are on the right path even if the users are few initially. 

3.Engage in charity and donations.

One other way of being useful could be participating in charitable work and donations that can be used to fund projects that help the poor and underprivileged in the society. 

If you have been privileged to accumulate enough wealth beyond what you need for your personal use, it would be a good idea to donate some of the money to charity just like Bill Gates has donated billions of dollars to help fight diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and others.

 Your participation in charitable works should not only be limited to donating money but you could also participate in events like blood donations, community outreaches that take place in places like hospitals where the sick are visited or even market cleaning events. 

Being useful is an important aspect of being human, and I do think people  should be intentional about that. 

And to be useful also the aspect of passion does apply since when you love something it will become very easy for you to pursue it.

One final reason why I do believe you should become useful to society is because that is how our society progresses, the people who do something useful are the ones who take our society forward and bring progress to humanity.