Throughout my life I have always loved an underdog story. I often listen to people talking about their rags to riches stories, and what in particular helped them overcome their originally poor situation. And I have often been at fault to try to imagine those situations for myself in order to gain a mental edge.
Whenever someone slighted me, I would make it a point to prove them wrong. For example, when I felt the college admissions system slighted me because I didn’t get into UCLA, I was a man on a mission to prove them wrong and for me that was getting into a top 10 tech company in the world, and I did that. When my friends or family would call me fat and unathletic, I made it a point to get into better shape. As a result, since freshman year of college, I went from about 208 pounds to 182 pounds currently. During my internship with Salesforce, I made it a point to never take a day for granted. I knew a lot of my fellow interns came from better schools, like CMU, Stanford, UC Berkeley, to name a few, and I had to prove to myself and to my coworkers that I belonged. And with the help of that underdog attitude, I worked hard and got a return offer. Of course all of those times are when I was successful, but for each success there were many failures along the way. There were a countless number of days where I truly felt like I couldn’t achieve my goals, but on those days I remind myself why I originally set them. And although not the only reason, but a big reason was to prove people wrong. Whenever someone tells me I’m not good enough, especially myself, my natural response has always been “Fuck you! Let me prove you that your wrong.”
But the truth behind it, is that I’m not really an underdog. And quite frankly, I’m not sure if I ever was. I grew up in a fairly comfortable childhood with two amazing, loving parents. My parents were immigrants and they definitely did have to struggle, especially in their initial years in the United States and in Australia. But they persevered, found stable jobs and got through those years and now are able to live comfortably, and as a result so am I. They worked their ass off to provide for my brother and I. They put us through good private schools, and taught us the right virtues and morals. Fast forwarding to now, I have a really good group of friends and family that I can always count on, I have a job many people would kill for, especially right out of college and I’m able to live quite comfortably as a result. To say that I am incredibly fortunate and lucky is a huge understatement. I truly cannot ask for a better situation for myself to be in. It is a life that I truly could not have dreamed of 4 years ago.
And yet somehow I still want to consider myself an underdog. But to sit here and try to find ways to slight myself to make myself out as an underdog so that I can find a new edge against the competition is NOT sustainable. Instead, I should be working hard for myself, not to prove something or someone else wrong. I should be working hard for the people I love. I should be working hard to make this beautiful world a better place. I should be working hard so that I can truly live a life that I remember, and I can leave an impact that I would be proud of. Naturally that statement leads to a lot of questions. How do I get to that point? What is the impact you want to leave? What constitutes a memorable life? And to answer almost all of those questions, I have no idea. I’m still figuring it out. But that’s the beauty in life, is that you are often forced to change in order to tackle your next obstacle. But through that change you grow stronger and wiser. Life is never stale, never stagnant and always changing. And to me, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
For now, I’m going to take it a day at a time. And each day try to grow, and to learn more about myself so that I can become the best version of myself I can be.
The marathon continues.
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Prabh
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