The Motivated Hustler

I talk about gratitude a lot because a core part of me believes that gratitude is not only important, but also an important key to one’s happiness. Almost two weeks ago, I almost lost sight of my gratitude. Prior to my vacation, I was struck with such overwhelming emotion that my gratitude was blown out of the water. Allow me to explain.

Recently some friends and I ended up at a friend’s new apartment that her parents bought for her. We get into the space and it is breath taking. The common area was as big as half my parent’s house. The walkway to the rooms were at least the length of my house and then each bedroom was the side of half my house as well. It had a concrete balcony the side of my living room and the view was pretty breathtaking. The area itself was incredible as well, with playgrounds, a light rail station and security all around. Essentially it was the kind of place I wanted to live in once I became “successful”.

When I stepped into her apartment, I was hit with a wave of emotion. As I stood there, I nearly cried because my brain reacted the way I would have reacted if I had finally achieved that goal of mine. My brain acted as though I had finally become a successful doctor who could afford nice things. I could feel the tear dripping down my cheek when reality finally set in. After that initial overwhelming feeling, I felt a pang of jealousy. Part of me was uncomfortable with the idea that someone could be given something that I envisioned that I would have to work for many years to even consider achieving. It gnawed at me and eventually became a vicious poison I could not be rid of.

Then my holiday came and I flew back down to Melbourne where I spent a lot of time with my friends. I of course recounted my adventures as a young medical student in Sydney and naturally I told them about my friends. I suppose when I told people about this girl and her apartment, people could sense my envy. Don’t get me wrong, this girl is amazing and she is so lovely to me and helps me out when I am struggling and I appreciate her so much; but, I was definitely envious of the resources she had.

My friends would tell me about girls they dated who were rich but had other issues and that I shouldn’t worry too much about the fortune she held. Others would sit in silent awe and tell me that it would be me one day. Even people I followed online would make posts about not falling for consumer culture and wanting instant gratification but rather enjoying the grind. My parents especially could also sense my disgruntlement and would tell me that I’d appreciate it more if I worked for it. Basically my parents tried hard to remove this venom from me and I am glad to say that they successfully managed to.

Spending time with my family and back in my low socio-economic neighbourhood, I was able to slowly regain my gratitude. How you ask? I just had to look at what I had.

My parents have been the most supportive people in my life. I’ve written about them before in posts elsewhere online, but they’ve basically done everything they can to give me as comfortable life as they can whilst I push myself through hell. My mum used to wake up and cook while I showered so I could sleep in and not waste time making food. She used to bring me fruit and make me Berrocas whenever I was feeling tired. Mum would listen to me complain about how hard school was and would always say something that had the right balance of logic and emotion. Dad wasn’t much of a talker but he showed his love through his actions. He used to drive me to tutoring, he would drive me to school, he would drive me to my entrance exams, he would take days off to make sure I got to my uni exams on time, he would basically do everything he could to get me to where I needed to be. He was always a silent supporter, but mum would always tell me about the things he would do when I wasn’t looking. He always had my back, even when I didn’t know it.

I had regained my gratitude a few days before I was due to return. However, on the drive to the airport to catch my flight back to Sydney, my dad restated something he had said in passing once. He told me that he had lived alone before so he knew how hard it could be. He had lived alone and had hustled since he was 11 years old. He told me he knew how hard it could be which is why he always insisted that I would ask for help if I needed it. As a person, I don’t like to ask my parents for money because I know they’re old and they have dreams for retirement and that asking for money would chip away at that. I don’t want to take away the rest of their lives just so I can live mine. It feels wrong to me. But in the car, my dad told me that the first time he sent me some money, he did it without telling mum. He told me to never be afraid to ask because he knew how hard it was. It made me consider how hard his life must have been. To be 11 and on his own, working and travelling from place to place. The thought of how much he must have suffered, to want to not inflict that on his own child. This too made me grateful, that although they couldn’t buy me a house or pay for my rent, they provided me with something far greater. They gave me love and instilled in me values that I feel are so crucial to happiness.

Bruce Lee once said “Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a hard one.” There are times when I question this ideal and resent the fact that I have to constantly endure things when others are spoon fed happiness. However, I will say that I am grateful that although my parents cannot provide me with the easiest life, they are able to provide me with the strength to endure the life I have now and I hope one day to be able to provide my own children with the same thing. I’d say an inheritance like that would be far more valuable than money.

Medical school is an amazing place where the cohort has such a diverse background. There are people who have come straight from uni, worked for a long time, studied science or even have a background in musical performance. The one thing that we do have in common though, is that we are persistent, determined and incredibly hard workers. With that said, there are also some incredibly gifted people in my cohort.

It can be overwhelming at times. You’ll sit in a class and there will be people who are sprinting through the tasks, they know the name of every bump and rough surface on a bone, they know every ligament that attaches and what it does, they know where all the muscles insert and the etymology of all these parts. You sit with them and you can’t help but feel overwhelmed. You try hard to keep up but you just can’t.

Now I will not lie. When I found myself in this situation, I did begin to question myself and whether or not I deserved a place at medical school. I was feeling pretty despondent. I couldn’t study anatomy like these people, I couldn’t absorb this level of detail the way they did and I couldn’t recall it as quickly either.

I left that group and found myself some other people. These people had spent a lot of time slowly absorbing the knowledge. I asked them to teach me and they went through everything succinctly. All the rough edges, the grooves, the bumps, their names and their Latin origins, they ran through everything with me and I was able to absorb it. I had just spent 30 minutes staring at a diagram, trying to absorb everything but I couldn’t. But now here I was, listening to someone rush through everything in 10 minutes and suddenly everything made sense.

They were certainly impressed at how quickly I was able to learn it because it took them hours to. But see, I was impressed that they were able to sit down for so long and go through it in such detail; and then distill it in their minds so succinctly. If we were to both try and study the way the other person did, we would probably both collectively know nothing.

It’s easy to get caught up in what other people are doing and to feel like you’re doing something wrong. But if there’s anything I’ve learned in these last 4 weeks, it’s that you need to play to your strengths. I have spent the last 4 weeks trying to break my habit of cramming for things, but when I try to sit down for hours and slowly memorise content, it just is not effective. I’ve spent my whole university career cramming, using videos, using various other resources that have condensed the information down to important core message. I guess in hindsight, it was foolish of me to try to study like those around me.

The thing is though, it’s extremely easy to fall into this trap when everyone around you is performing better. I think it’s only logical to think that the person who’s performing better than you probably has the better technique. But I don’t think that this is necessarily always the case.

I’ve come to realise that you need to do things your way. We can’t all be geniuses and be blessed with amazing talent. But what we can do, is push ourselves and not only work hard, but also work smart. We can’t all be Bill Gates, but if we happen to have a talent in management, we could be his vice president and still be reaping nearly as many benefits.

I’m constantly preaching that to reach new heights, you need to step outside of your comfort zone. That only by doing new and exciting things can you continue to grow and develop as a person.

It can be thrilling. You’ll be overwhelmed by the new sights, sounds and smells. Everything is foreign to you and you feel like you’re grabbing at air whilst free falling. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

Sometimes, we find great success on our new endeavours; but other times, we may discover our own inadequacies. New environments present us with new challenges and whilst we may try our hardest to prepare for them, sometimes, it’s just not possible.

This may result in us feeling defeated. But it’s important to remember to not fall into despair. We can’t expect to be successful all the time nor on our first try. As I’ve said before, to expect to not fail at least 3 times is somewhat foolish.

I suppose I write this post really to cheer myself up. My new life has presented new challenges and I am treading water as quickly as I can. I’ve spent my whole life overcoming obstacles, so I guess these higher obstacles that have presented themselves before me are putting me off my game.

A few nights ago, Facebook brought to my attention a few videos of older people talking about millennials. Instead of calling us lazy and entitled, these videos talked about how as millennials, we don’t really have great friends.

I think every millennial has realised this. We have all these friends on Facebook, but how many of them really know us. Many of us in our younger teenage years blame everyone else for this. We all want solid friendships, but everyone else is content with liking our statuses and pictures. Eventually we grow up and accept that superficial friendships are the norm and just accept it.

Well I don’t think Facebook or modern technology is to blame. Not completely at least. I think the reason that very few of us are able to find close friends is because we’re not willing to put ourselves out there.

Social media is an integral part of our lives now, whether it be for business or for socialising, I can seldom think of anyone who is not on social media. It is such an integral part of our lives. In fact, one might argue that social media is our life. We post so much of our lives on social media, allowing ourselves to be scrutinized. Some of us are guilty of posting too much, possibly sharing something not pleasant, and perhaps some of us have received backlash for it. Consequently, we have been conditioned to only show the best sides of our lives and hide our harsher times. We learn that no one wants to see or hear about our hardships and I feel that we carry that into our real lives. I also feel that this is why we don’t have any close friends.

I know this sounds like just a theory, but allow me to inject some anecdotal evidence. I used to be a ‘floater’ in high school. I moved around between different groups. I always felt like I was part of these groups, after all we would hang out together and do things together outside of school. That’s what friends do. But I’d notice that sometimes they’d huddle away from me to discuss really juicy secrets or sometimes if I had trouble with other people, these guys wouldn’t always have my back. Of course, this is fair.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve had my break up and now I’m just ruined mentally. I mentioned it in my YouTube video (Link: bit.ly/brokenup), but I saw a counselor and learned that being open with ones feelings was okay. I started to open up to my friends and tell them what was up. Suddenly I found that people began to see me as a human being and I think that’s what a lot of people are missing.

Eventually, I had a squad. People who had my back through thick and thin. We trusted each other and were there for each other whenever things got hard and I think a lot of people lack this. Why? Because they’re not willing to open up.

Sometimes I’ll meet up with those other friends of mine who always were a little distant. Now that I had experienced what true friendship was, it became extremely obvious that I was essentially a stranger. They obviously thought I was cool enough to invite so they did, but we weren’t tight or biffles. This is fine of course, but I think everyone needs a squad.

Social media has conditioned us to hide our sadness and struggles, consequently we aren’t able to form these deep and meaningful relationships with people. Personally, I like to be pretty open with my life and situation. I understand that a lot of people don’t want to share their struggles because they’re worried that they’re bothering people or bringing down the mood. I get it. I used to feel this way too. But I’ve come to realise that people don’t mind if you complain, as long as you’re doing something about it. If we all live our lives without sharing our hardships, then we can never really get to know people.

The video I saw on Facebook basically said that we as millennials are facing higher levels of depression and anxiety. We are a generation who are promised that we can do anything we want and can get anything we want if we try. Then, when we realise that this is not the case, our identity breaks and we begin to feel stressed and anxious. Because we lack people who share our anxieties with, it becomes a bigger and bigger burden that ends up controlling our lives.

No man (or woman) is an island. We all need someone when times get tough. In fact we have a built in system that makes us feel better when we vent to someone. But the first step is to get said someone. Next time you’re going through a hard time, tell your friends. Maybe even tell it in a funny way, but let them know. Granted, there are some people who are so used to being closed off, that they will give you a stock answer and not really care. This is fine, but it is also a good sign that they are not really squad material. Some people will give you advice, but they won’t open up themselves and still prefer to keep everything private. This too is fine, it is all conditioning. It is not impossible to be good friends with the person, but once again, not quite squad material.

If you’re open about yourself long enough, you will eventually find someone similar to you. When you do, you will find this overwhelming joy. You find people who you’ll feel this immediate connection because you share the same passions or tragedies. It’s a powerful bond and is what squads are built on.