This is a personal essay written by the author, sharing their individual journey and experiences. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this piece belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MyndStories. This essay has not been professionally vetted or reviewed for clinical accuracy.
Have you heard the saying, “Don’t ask a fish to climb a tree”?
Well, I was that fish. And for 6 years, I kept climbing. Well, entering, not climbing.
Entering the wrong classrooms, the wrong boardrooms.
Be it the 2 years of junior college pursuing science or the 4 years of engineering in IT, I sat in classrooms where concepts kept taking space on blackboards, but never in my head. As if they were banned from doing so.
When I look back, I don’t know how I passed my 12th board exams. People assume that when someone says that, they’re being modest. But I wasn’t. I did score well, which only made it harder for people to believe that I barely understood what I was writing. To tell you the truth, I passed because of rote learning and luck. People who know me might find it difficult to believe this, but it is my truth.
I wish I could say the same happened during engineering. But I can’t. Because this time, things got worse.
I failed.
The person who had never failed, failed.
One subject in the second semester. Three subjects in the third. The only reason I didn’t fail further was because re-exams were expensive, and I had zero interest in repeating subjects I already despised. I pushed through with a good score, not out of ambition, but because I was determined not to spend an extra day beyond the required four years to complete my degree.
During those 6 years, I saw passion. Not in myself, but in those around me. I saw people who truly loved what they were studying, people who spoke about science and engineering like it was an extension of their identity. I envied them.
Because passion was distant to me. It always felt out of reach for me. As if passion deliberately ignored a human who desperately wanted to embody it. I never thought there would come a day (months and years even) when passion would befriend me.
But it did come. You’ll see how in a moment.
I went ahead and worked in Capgemini India, a reputed IT firm, which I think I got because I can speak well. Others were happy because my resume would now be worth looking at, apparently. I spent 1.5 years making the most of it. But the IT world, which offered so much to the city of Bangalore, unfortunately, had nothing to give me.
I remember how the mornings made me feel that urge to lie in bed for as long as I could, and leave only when I knew I couldn’t be more late than that, if I had to survive in Bangalore doing that job. The days were spent making friends, because I was good at it, and also because I had time. Time earned by not working hard enough, by not wanting to work hard enough. I remember how useless I felt because I depended on colleagues to get through my task list. I know I could’ve done it if I tried harder, but even the little effort I put in drained me. The lines of code felt like a foreign language, which I had no interest in learning. Evenings were better, spent with friends, the only time I forgot that I wasn’t suffocating. But the nights brought the same old dread again. Dread of going back to a place where I didn’t fit.
I desperately needed to go somewhere I could feel I was not so useless. There had to be something even I could do, right?
And that’s when I started looking for a change. A change that was due for 8 long years.
And on one night in January 2019, around 1 a.m., everything actually changed.
I had just spent 3 or 4 hours writing a copy test for an agency in Mumbai. And for the first time, work made me feel something. Apart from dread and exhaustion, I mean. Something closer to excitement.
And I saw something in me change from the next morning. The same girl who dreaded waking up and walking for just 10 minutes to work, woke up with a feeling that had not met her in years – hope. Hope that maybe there was a way out, that the next chapter of her career need not feel like a slow, sinking ship.
A hope that joy would return to her life. Joy of doing something she could.
But here’s what no one tells you: joy doesn’t just show up. People talk about finding passion like it’s waiting around the corner, ready to be discovered. Like a ready-made meal served to you on a plate. But they forget, you have to buy the ingredients. You have to cook it yourself.
I was restless when I was figuring out my next career move. I consulted career coaches, reached out to senior colleagues, messaged strangers (who were in the industry I wanted to be in) on LinkedIn, and tried to learn how people made transitions.
Every waking minute was spent trying to make this dream of finding joy through work a reality. People who knew me in that phase will agree when I say – this is not an exaggeration.
All of this just to wake up with a little less despair. A little less anxiety. A little more hope.
And that was not my first time. I’ve had to do it over and over again. Whenever I realised I wasn’t a fit anymore. Wait, let me correct that. Whenever I realised that whatever I was doing was not the right fit for me.
I changed when I wanted more meaning in my writing work and left my first agency.
I changed when I realised my dream job, making ads, wasn’t making me happy.
I changed when freelancing gave me freedom, but not enough money.
I changed when I left a stable agency job because I needed more than just a paycheck.
I changed whenever I realized I wanted more joy from my work.
Seen from the outside, these might seem like unconventional or even reckless choices. But for me, the question was always, if not me, who else?
Yes, if I had stayed in my IT job, I’d probably be earning more. Yes, if I had stayed in my agency jobs, I could continue to do creative work without worrying about money.
But I also know how those decisions would have made me feel. Trapped, restless, out of place. Like that fish still trying to climb a tree. I didn’t want to be that fish again. I wanted to find my own water. To swim freely, through low tides, high tides, all of it.
None of it was easy. And it never really will be. Not even when I pause to count my blessings.
But every time I let go of something that no longer fits, every time I step into the unknown, I move one step closer to the version of me that wakes up excited to work.
And that, to me, is everything.
