To Remember

Dear self,

It is 18th May 2017, you just looked at your notes and wondered how on Earth you're doing a subject that your batchmate (of October 2012) did exactly 3 years ago. You're wondering what went wrong, how you could have tried harder and how you would've graduated 2 years ago easily if you were fundamentally different 3-4 years ago.

You worry yourself about graduating at 24/25/26 because of your job prospects, how prospective employers could look at your resume or transcript and immediately reject you because of some misplaced subtle gerantophobia. You are worried of how society would perceive you — your parents, your siblings, your friends, friends of friends, random people you just met at a 2am yumcha session. You are so caught up in thinking about how they might look at you and think "How is she still studying? Why hasn't she graduated yet? How hard can that course be anyway?".You fail to realize that more often than not, people don't fucking care.

The cold, brutal truth is that you don't cross their minds often enough to even warrant a question about when you're gonna graduate.

You've seen friends — coursemates, even — who have graduated at 25. One friend of yours graduated at 28 because he realized he hated his med degree, so he went back and got a degree in software engineering. He could have continued being a doctor but nonetheless, he rejected the notion, went back and essentially kickstarted his undergrad studies in a totally different major. Did he care? No. He did what made him happy, what he thought was right for his future.

So why do you worry? In the end, you're doing good by pursuing your studies, especially since you have combined both passion and rationality. I say rationality because at least with a degree in applied maths, you wouldn't be confined to one single field in your career. The options are exhaustive. You're not wasting your mental capacity by doing this, you're not wasting your time or effort. One day, this is all going to pay off. In the grand scheme of things, everything will fall into place in due time and you are going to look back and wonder why you wasted your time worrying anyway.

We know what we went through. We know about those nights spent crying because we couldn't cope with crippling loneliness. We know about those psychotic breaks, the suicide attempts, the horrible scars on the left arm, the inability to focus or retain information, the blanking out, the inability to speak, the horrible tremors. But those days are far and few between now. Sure, sometimes you get anxiety attacks now and then but that doesn't offset the amount of progress you've made anyhow. You've come a long way, You went from Cs and failing to As and Bs. You deserve to be proud of your progress. You also deserve to be forgiving about the times you do not measure up.

So don't be hindered by this small thing. 22 or 24 or 26, what the hell does it matter? You're still going to graduate and you're gonna be done. If you end up extending another few semesters, accept it and work harder. There's no shame in extending, there's no shame in graduating late. There's only shame and unending dissatisfaction if you keep measuring yourself by another person's metrics. Isn't it painfully obvious that we are programmed differently? It's equivalent to measuring yourself in pounds and then complaining that you're not lighter by kilogram standards. It is so ridiculously stupid to be making comparisons. While I agree that not all comparisons are necessarily bad, what you're doing is just self-destructive and counter-productive in the end. You just end up sad and devastated. So why do you do this? Why do you insist on this weird academic self-flagellation hahaha

You are going to be stronger in the long run, y'know. Perhaps you don't find yourself smarter or stronger now, but you will be someday. Every single moment, every small breakthrough, every heartbreak, every painful experience and heartbreaking realization is going to be added layer by layer to reinforce your knowledge about everything. And even when you think you've reached a point where you've exhausted that capacity, it's still going to grow. The sky is the limit.

So please, forget this self-pitying shtick of yours. Stop overwhelming yourself with this ungodly concoction of anger and hate and sadness. You make it seem like every rare mistake is like a regression in 200 steps but the truth is that it simply isn't. You give advice to random Redditors about the normalcy of making mistakes and how progress isn't a positively monotonic curve and yet here you are judging yourself with every panic attack, immediately labeling yourself as a failure. You're just not. It just isn't true.

Give yourself a break when you need to. Rest. Smile more. For god's sake, love your damn self.

Warmest regards with a sprinkle of ass-kicking,
ez