33: Most Myself

I was 16 when I started taking special classes for Physics, Chemistry and Maths to train for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance exams - one of the hardest entrance exams in the world where 1.5 million students compete to get into a handful of spots at the best engineering colleges in India. With a less than 1% success rate, it’s a 2-day gauntlet that will determine your university admission, future career and social status for years to come. Or so you’re told. And at the tender age of 16 you believe it to be a certainty.

It’s the World Cup for nerdy dweebs (I say this as a proud card-carrying member). Except it’s not limited to Ronaldo or Messi. A nobody like me could win but the difference is that your life feels at stake.

My Chemistry teacher was a gentleman called Mr. Banerjee. Bloody brilliant but a tough critic. Until now I had scraped by as a teacher’s pet, where flattery and unpaid chores got me in my educators’ good graces. But Banerjee Sir was different. He was here to win. He knew what it took for a kid to get into IIT and he wanted to play a part in making it happen. He wanted a top 100 ranker. He had been doing this for 30+ years. He was JK Simmons minus the chair-hurling.

He could look at you and sus you out, then tell you whether you’d make the cut. He knew which students understood their own reality versus who was in denial. His ire was public. He’d ask questions to test his students and you’d better be able to answer otherwise you were reminded that “you’re wasting everyone’s time.”

It was evident that the bar was high and also that I wasn’t meeting it - I just didn’t know it yet. It’d be a lie if I said I wasn’t putting in the effort but I have to admit that the vibes were stronger than the work ethic needed. Banerjee Sir must’ve made this assessment already. One time he asked a question in class, something about the chirality of an organic compound. The hands of the usual suspects shot up in the air. I wasn’t usually among this crew but I knew the answer this time. I was called upon, and I blurted out the answer, and met with brief praise - the kind that keeps the delusion alive.

As was often the case, my answer was followed by Banerjee Sir’s real-time assessment of my IIT future, “Harjas…you’re an interesting one. You’re not a top student but you’re also not at the bottom. You are…above average. There’s nothing wrong with being above average but that’s not what gets you into IIT.”

Above Average. Two words that weighed me down like an anchor. Words I would not have used to describe myself. Not at 16. Not based on the life I thought I had had until then.

—

Later in life, these words would come back to me at the most innocuous of times; times where these thoughts had no real consequence. Driving in the middle lane of a three-lane highway (”did I pick the middle because I’m scared to drive in the fastest lane?”), when I lost a squash match I believed I should’ve won (”I’m guess I’m good but not that good”), when I was interviewing for jobs out of college (”it’s an offer but it’s not Microsoft or Google. Why can’t I be making the Zuck Bucks?”).

In some ways, Banerjee Sir’s words laid bare a falsehood I had imbibed.

The Indian education system forks at two levels - 10th and 12th grades. So you “graduate” once at 16 then again at 18. During graduation, awards are given out to students not unlike the Oscars. The Best Picture equivalent: “Best All-Rounder”. A multi-hyphenate. Sitting higher in the pecking order than “Best Academics” or “Best Sportsperson.” And for my graduating class, I won Best All-Rounder. I was multi-hyphenate before that phrase existed. Good at academics, good at sports, House Captain, speech and debate team, national-level quizzer. This was the prediction of my future, I thought. But Banerjee Sir saw it differently. Jack of all trades, master of none. Good at a lot of things, best at nothing. Good, but not “good enough”.

Beyond this new discovery of academic insecurity, there were others I’d harbored unknowingly over the years.

• •

  Economic insecurity -

  “why can’t I buy the latest Harry Potter book? Why do I have to rent from the library?”

• •

  Status insecurity -

  “So and so said they use the lounge at the airport, why don’t we have access?”

• •

  Physical insecurity -

  “Why would a someone choose to be in a relationship with someone who looks like me? No Hindi film actors wear turbans.”

• •

  Social insecurity -

  “I have friends but not a single best friend.”

My childhood was an exercise in trying to blend in while wanting to stand out. My parents never made me feel this way. They did everything they could to ensure I had access to the best opportunities, despite their own financial burdens and insecurities (something I would learn only later in life). They did everything they could to make me feel “more-than” but India happens to be a society that feels zero-sum by design. You either have it or you don’t; and I felt like I didn’t, despite all the things I did have.

To no one’s surprise - including myself - I did not make the cut. But in some sense I failed upwards. I had my feet in two boats - one in India and the other in the US. Not only did I flunk the IIT exam but I was also rejected by Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale and Cornell. Same as IIT, I thought the vibes would make it across the Atlantic and convince these schools to pick me! Manifestation is not a strategy it turns out. But one university I’d never heard of did accept me, Drexel University. They also gave me a significant scholarship. I guess above average was good enough for them, and I was grateful for that. Drexel was the singular path ahead which I embarked on. In hindsight, it was also a fork in the road - one that shaped life in a very specific way from how it could’ve turned out.

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I was working on my admissions essay for Princeton when I was first introduced to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. My father, who was helping me with the essay thought it would sound impressive to the Admissions Office, trying to play to the high-browed intelligence of the Ivy League. So I transcribed the words my father dictated without really understanding who Maslow was or what Needs he was referring to. In time I’ve learned better. I don’t know how much I agree with the extremely Western, pseudo-intellectual, individualistic idea of self-actualization at the top of the pyramid, but the philosophy of the Hierarchy is sound. Certain insecurities need to be met before you “graduate” to new ones.

As my time in the US went on, I noticed this graduation for myself. In extremely Bollywood fashion I had vowed to my mother before leaving India that I would make the most of my time here. This was another incredible opportunity thanks to my parents, despite the extreme financial burden an international education for their son put them under. An opportunity I didn’t want to squander. Despite all my stated insecurities, the truth is that life was cushy. I had a roof over my head, food I didn’t need to worry about, an excellent education, every need fulfilled. But I just wanted more. Why, one might ask? But I didn’t. I just did. The comfort of that first pyramidal layer is why I didn’t work as hard for IIT as I should have. I may not have wanted it as badly as the others did, but I also lacked the will to admit that to myself.

But in the US now, it was “best or bust” again. I worked hard, found friends (best friends - ambitious but kind who came from similar backgrounds), changed universities in hopes for a better outcome, found myself knocked down again (impostor syndrome - below average now), found the will to work hard again thinking about my parents’ faith in me, stayed the course, faced rejections, found a job, then found three more. By the time I was 22 and leaving college, I was going to be making more money than anyone in my family had ever made at that age. I felt like I was Scrooge McDuck.

With the social security from college and a newfound economic security from my job, the status insecurity started to melt away too. The potential from the credentialism of my childhood had morphed into real outcomes in life - ones that seemed like what IIT was going to give me too. The idea of zero-sum victories in my head, like the ones Banerjee Sir had painted, started to change. The more life I got under my belt, the more beautifully I saw the strands intersect. Linearity was not the only path. Meanders - and whatever shape they may take for anyone - could be beautiful too. In Indian polite society, meanders were seen as outright “bad” - gap years, breaks, sabbaticals, career changes - but there was a beauty to the American individualism I witnessed that encouraged one to find their own gravel road.

As Maslow predicted, the insecurities now leveled up. As I became more confident in my economic ability, the brain started asking “but is this what you want?” As I projected my life out one decade, what I saw was the usual paved path - get a job, save up, buy a car, save some more, get married, buy a house, have children, then buy a bigger house. It seemed like I was purpose-built to earn and spend in increasingly large quantities. I also felt undeserving of the money I made for the work I did. I thought of so many other professions where people did work far more noble and meaningful to society but got paid much much less. I considered the massive luck of draw of being born in a politically stable country versus being born 3000 miles west. I could’ve been buried underground on Maslow’s pyramid. Why do I deserve any of this? Want Want Want changed to Why Why Why.

I shared this existential crisis with my Dumbledore-esque grandfather whose wisdom should be bottled up and sold. I told him the extremely plain path I saw ahead of me, how I thought I was undeserving of whatever I was being given. I told him I wanted to donate whatever I made because there were others that needed so much more than I did.

His response was simple and became a guiding principle for me later, “Beta (son), if God wants you to be the medium through which the less fortunate can benefit, who are you to question that choice?”

The mind shifted again, now from scarcity to abundance. “There is enough for me and for everyone else, so I can, and should, be making choices that benefit both me and whomever I can benefit.” I also started to wrestle with questions of longevity. **Not Peter Attia life-longevity but **sustainable, Buddha, contentment longevity. Life had been a sprint so far, every day from ages 3 to 22 regimented between home and school. How do you give meaning to life when the externally imposed structure fades away?

Yes work (and growth at work) were important but there was also more to life than my 15” Macbook screen. At 22 I realized I had no hobbies of creation. Many hobbies of consumption - film, TV, books and music - but none of creation for creation’s sake. As I navigated a life of learning healthy ambition at work, I started to pick up painting and running, writing and storytelling. Squash was reintroduced to my life (with on-again, off-again bouts for years) and so were many a board-game nights with friends. Joy and community became greater compasses for decision-making than increasingly moar economic security.

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This shift crystallized further when I had to choose between two job offers at 27. Google wanted me at a level lower than I was at, but offered the same pay as my other offer. Etsy offered the same money as Google but promoted me a level higher - one rung closer to management, which was something I felt I’d intrinsically be good at. On paper, Google was the smarter choice. The stock has done well in the six years since I had the offer. Then there’s prestige and the brand value of being a Xoogler (ex-Googler). But Google didn’t need me, it had a hundred thousand others like me. Etsy felt more communal, the mission more noble, and it felt like a place that was closer to something I personally wanted to try. I could’ve eventually been on the same path at Google but who knows how long that would be. And would I have burned out there first? I chose Etsy. Chose the thing that felt right over the thing that looked better.

At 28, I met my wife who I’ve now been married to for 4 years. The physical insecurity persisted in some form until I met her. It got better past teenage, don’t get me wrong. I became very comfortable in my skin, in my identity as a turban-wearing Sikh, and the idea of “conventionally handsome” faded away too. (Unconventionally handsome is handsome too.) The “abundance” realization continued with every birthday: very few things in life are zero-sum. My relationship with Chandan has blossomed with each passing year and the emotional security I feel with her is hard to describe. Knowing that we want and choose each other everyday feels magical. It almost makes me look back at the years before her as ones where I was pretending to be whole without knowing what I was missing.

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I celebrated my 33rd birthday this past Thursday. There’s a nice ring to that number, 33. It feels balanced. Symmetrical. Metaphorical for the life I have today. And what these 2500 words have ultimately been trying to say is that I feel more myself today than I’ve ever felt before. At peace with myself, content, and extremely happy to be above average, if that relative comparison even means anything anymore.

There’s a line I heard somewhere once - the Buddha became the Buddha because he had things he could renounce. It’s not until you’ve had the experience of acquiring or achieving that it becomes easier to let things go. The expectations and insecurities I held were all from a place of not having, or being told I didn’t belong. But once I did have those things, the reality of their vanity revealed itself equally quickly. To then be able to change my mind about what’s important and live a life of creativity, joy, community, hard work and contentment, is all one can ask for and I could not be more grateful for the shape of my life today.

So, I don’t know about thee, I’m feeling 33!