Hustle or Pain for Gain?
Category: life lesson. 10-minute read. A deep dive into my journey that unfolds an important answer to an important question.
Note: This is a speech I wrote, and delivered at TEDxBennettUniversity.
I’m 21, and not a celebrity. And I’m certainly not old enough to give you wisdom. That’s a lot of ands but you get my point! Today, I'm here to tell about "me" and something important that 40 million women around the world fight every month, and I'm one of them.
Let me start with a question - "How many of you went to tuition or coaching centers during your high school?"
The coaching centers where you enjoyed the evenings with your friends eating at the food corner right after, chit-chatting about the school, and oh my god, the hot gossip, can't forget mentioning that. Most of you, right?
Well, In my high school, we had 60 students in my class of which 59 went to tuition and coaching centers. The one student who didn't was me. Since I was in Sciences, traditionally, I was expected to pursue engineering later, seek coaching, go to tuitions for the entrance examination prep, and do well in the board exams that decided my future.
However, what happened one night changed my entire life’s direction.
I remember it was the onset of the summer break. I was sleeping and around 2:00 am, my mother upstairs rushed to my room hearing me crying aloud. I vividly remember, there was sudden throbbing pain around my back, abdomen, and most parts of my body. I was crying like a baby, I didn't know what was happening to me. I slowly pointed to each part of my body that was in severe pain while my mother sat next to me. Since we were on the outskirts of the city, there were no doctors around. The girl who was a silent cry-er as a baby was crying and screaming the whole night in pain while menstruating at the age of 15.
Mind you, It wasn't my first time menstruating like you all might be assuming, I used to play basketball like a stallion, 12-hours a day even while menstruating which was one of the reasons why the pain stumped me so hard. I could see my whole life crashing slowly in front of me.
But next month, I somehow dragged myself to enroll in chemistry and physics tuition classes with a local teacher. The only difference between me and my friends was that I was missing 5-7 days of classes each month all because I was bed-ridden during my menstrual cycles. And If you tell this to your high-school self, you’ll say that's too much, you're technically behind the whole class.
While my peers had 30 days of a month on the calendar, I was short by a week each month.
My friends would ask me, “Hey, why didn't you come to the tuition class?” And I'd a choice to make between "nothing, I was self-studying" and "well, I suffer from dysmenorrhea that means I'm bed-ridden due to the pain during the menstrual cycle because of an underlying medical issue that is still under-diagnosis and I don't need your sympathy". Obviously, just like any other teen, I chose the shorter version and said, "nothing, I was self-studying."
Evidently, dysmenorrhea had started impacting my life in a significant way. It affected my emotions, my relations, and my academics. And with a heavy heart, 3 months later, I had no choice but to withdraw from the tuition classes and self-study all my subjects.
I was 16 and I knew taking injections every month would be detrimental to my health, I had no option but to rely on them since I didn’t wish to be left behind on the race to a successful life and pills weren’t enough. I'd cry in pain, and my mother would take me to the hospital regardless of the hour in the night.
It felt like losing a war, a war that I didn’t have a fair chance to fight. So, I chose to hustle.
But guess what? All that hustle went in vain when my liver gave up on me after so many painkillers and injections all these months. I ended up being admitted to the ICU for a month right before my board exams. I felt like my life had ended for real. I wasn’t too sure if I would graduate from high school in this condition let alone getting into a good university after. The suffering was endless but what I learned about life while being in the ICU was priceless.
Right across my bed, there was a boy named Annie. Surprisingly, his first words to me were, "I know you're going to do great things in life, and you're just here to take a pause from it." That struck a chord in me. I found out, he was admitted to the ICU for 3 years. He had paralysis but his charm and the radiating positivity was infectious.
We became great friends, we used to watch movies in the day, specifically minions and finding dory, and chat endlessly in the night. And that's how I rejuvenated after the darkest months of my life. At the time when none of my friends visited me, Annie was the only lighthouse on a deserted island for me.
I learned how to accept dysmenorrhea as a part of my life from my time with Annie in the ICU. My parents, on the other hand, were extremely supportive and worried about my health. My father told me,” It’s completely okay if you want to give your board exams next year, we are here for you,” And as a frantic teen, I couldn't hold that thought. It meant that I'd be way behind my batchmates. I, as it is, couldn't go to any coaching centers to prepare for competitive exams, this would also mean giving up on board exams this year.
I held my blanket, looked down, thought for a minute, and told my mom after hearing that from dad, "I'm giving my board exams this year, please get my books to the ICU next time you visit me." After hearing that my father tried convincing me out of concern, "Diksha, are you sure?" and I smiled looking at Finding Dory playing on my phone, and said, yes of course."
And in my head, I told myself, "I'm not going to let my scores or a building define my future. Doesn't matter if I don't do great in competitive exams, I don't know which college will I land up in but I'm going to do this." I had no choice but to hustle this time.
Eventually, I graduated with a 77 percentile and I won't lie, I was disappointed.
The Dravisha everyone knew, I was expected to get somewhere in the 90s but my mother told me, "Hey, so what? That's still great, let's grab some sweets and go to school! We need to celebrate this."
And while serving sweets to my teachers, they would ask me - "wow, how much did you score?" expecting It would be a number in the 90s, I would answer 77 percentile in a low voice and you could see they were taken aback but I didn't bother, I left with a smile. At the end of the day, I managed to convince myself remembering what my mother said and celebrated it with a maggie party.
But the point in my life had come where I had to choose pain over hustle. I could no longer afford to give up on my liver because I wish we had more than one.
The next chapter in my life unfolded, university life. How many of you terribly miss your college life or if you're still in college, will you miss it when you graduate? I see a lot of you smiling and typing yes.
To make things simpler for you to understand, now that I'd chosen pain for my life college-onwards, I wasn't supposed to take painkillers or injections because "pain is gain", right? I'm kidding. It was of course like I said, because I wish we had more than one liver.
As you might remember, I couldn't prepare for competitive exams, so I landed in a tier-3 engineering college following what I love, computer science.
And knowing that I chose pain, I wanted to break all ceilings. I had 11 courses in my second semester and I went against all the advice that I got from my seniors which was "do some courses in your early years and focus on internships only in your pre-final and final year." And I had this itch in me that, It doesn't matter I have dysmenorrhea, I'm going to get through severe pain every month but I'm also going to start with an internship this semester itself, I want to be the best."
And you want to know where that landed me? On the moon, I'm kidding.
It only made me leave that internship mid-way and get me back to my bed, crying in pain. Crippled with that, I decided to focus on something of my own and continued with the mental health initiative I was running to help strangers with low to mild depression for free just by being a hearing aid to them and pointing them to certain professionals if required. And by the time I was going to end my mental health initiative, I had already helped 50+ people smile and find direction in life.
As much as it was a milestone for them, It was also a milestone in my life. It was my reason to smile during severe pain every month that I endured with dysmenorrhea. It made me believe in myself.
Now, do you want to know where that landed me? Don't worry, I wouldn't say the moon but Harvard's Conference in Malaysia which was The Harvard Project for Asian & International Relation's Annual Asia conference in Kuala Lumpur 2018, an interview with the LinkedIn team of India, and as the youngest scholar to the World Youth Forum in Egypt.
These were the biggest achievements in my life and career at that moment. I had found a way to use pain as my fuel which I always treated as adversity.
And of course, If you think all this, didn't come without sacrifices, yes, It didn't because I chose pain, I chose my health, I chose myself over society's expectations, over my institute's expectations.
I clearly remember a day at my college that I’ll never forget. My class had just ended, supporting my back in pain. I walked up to my professor to talk about my earlier absences but my day ended with staying back at college for three hours writing an extra assignment to make up for my absences because otherwise, I wouldn’t be eligible for the exam. I had no choice but to do what was asked of me while there were 1000 needles and hammers hurting every part of my body.
Ladies and gentlemen, that's how I ended up with the first F in a course in my entire life and 2 others for the same reason.
I failed. Wait, let me correct that, I failed because I couldn't attend as many classes as I was supposed to because I suffered from a chronic health condition, dysmenorrhea just like the other 40 million ladies in the world.
The famous German philosopher Nietzche said, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." I was following just that.
Choosing pain should not mean choosing to suffer.
For my good, I shifted to a new college and decided to pursue my love for computer science and entrepreneurship, still am. It's not that my fight has finished or my pain has ended. The fight is a collective of all 40 billion women in the world that fight dysmenorrhea every month in excruciating pain. I in fact, recently got a D just last semester because of very similar reasons I mentioned earlier but that's fine. I don't think any number of Fs or Ds in a course can define my career until I let them because I know what I have as my strength, others don't. And that is pain.
I spend on average 60 days in bed every year in throbbing pain, which means I work and study 2 months less than you every year i.e. 1440 hours a year just like the other 40 million women.
Yet, I chose to thrive. And you can too, no matter what adversity you face in life.
As far as dysmenorrhea is concerned, all a person in agonizing pain needs is just rest and maybe just a teeny tiny bit of empathy from people. Is that too much to ask? Because this is often labeled as gender discrimination, differential treatment at educational institutes and workplaces. My question is, how?
All genders deserve equal empathy no matter what and only then do we achieve equality. No one’s asking you to give me extra marks or a better salary because what you study or work on in 30 days, remember I do it in 24?
Did you know Japan introduced a law for period leaves in 1942 itself to address its labor rights concern that no employer can deny paid period leaves to women. There's been one in South Korea too since 1953.
In India or in the west, I see none.
And if you think a law solves the whole issue, it doesn’t but I believe it is definitely the first step. And it will all stop when we don’t see it as a taboo, as a joke, as just menstrual cramps because hey, there are women who suffer from dysmenorrhea and it’s not just cramps (not that cramps are any good).
But what we can do is to be empathetic, strike a conversation around these taboo topics to push for the greater good.
Who knows we might have a similar law in India soon? Is it too much to ask people to be human? I don’t think that’s hard. I believe in people, I believe in you.
So what do you think, what’s worth it? Pain or hustle? My answer is neither. What’s going to make you is your ability to turn your adversities into your power, your ability to make the negative around you invisible and create that focus, that's the best you can do to achieve the "gain" you look forward to, in life.
Don’t wait to meet Annie in your life to give you that push as I did, be your own Annie.
Also, hey, remember, empathy. If I can do it, you can too.
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Pain is inevitable. To suffer is optional
Your story just reminded me of this lesson. For long I chose to suffer alone so that people around me stayed happy especially my parents. If you ask me how it turned out, well almost had to give up on leading a normal life, missed opportunities to socialise and more importantly lost all motivation.
This is where I'm glad I picked up coaching and started to motivate myself by helping others and I must say, it's been one heck of a year meeting awesome individuals and making some great friends, present company included. It led to the inception of my podcast Get Set To Thrive, where I share my personal experiences (No sad stuff, promise) which enabled me to become a better communicator and I'm so glad you shared yours here
More power to you Dravisha
My Minions say cheers