Shahed Kamal
Sep 7, 2018 · 4 min read

How do you not mess up life as a grown up?

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and came across three life lessons I reflected in a post I wrote on my 24th birthday. It’s been a while since I wrote them so I had forgotten about it. Going through them again, the point number one below really hit home.

I was doing really well in life as a 24 year old which is why I had the reflection post to remind myself that I am growing up and I cannot afford to mess things up now. But just a year later I messed up big time. This mess up resulted in all the good things in my life to tumble down in the last 2 months. I failed my last semester of medical school, I am going through a very painful relationship breakdown, I am on the verge of shutting down my company, I had to quit from a job I was 4 weeks in and I am at the lowest in my faith in God.

I am not here to just have a pity party but yes I would like to have one because I find it therapeutic. I find it to be a way of feeling lighter knowing everything inside me is not just inside but also on the internet somewhere. I also do it because it’s the only time when I think a lot about life, purpose, the end goal. Through doing this I can articulate all those thoughts afor me to see it clearly now and also to remember when I am older.

Most of my thoughts and reflection after the recent tough time has been around doing too many things in life at once. I have always felt I am kinda good in lots of things rather being the best at one. I still remember the first time I had this realisation. I was in year 11 and came second in class for the semester. I was deeply saddened for not being first, I knew I studied really hard. Then I compared myself to the person who came first, he just studied and wasn’t interested in anything else. I was then leading the school council, playing in the school cricket team, doing athletics, had side business gigs, had a relationship, etc. I was studying hard and doing lots of other things on the side. I remember realising it then but I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing. I was told by people around me that it was a good thing and I just agreed. Fast forward 8 years I am still the same where I do lots of things and wear multiple hats. A full time medical student, running a company with employees and customers, be in a committed relationship, give entrepreneurship talks, have a part time job at a health tech startup, do product design, constantly have new small side projects, etc.

Being this weird person with lots of hats had become my identity. That is how people knew me. It was all going well – I got through 3 years of medical school, won awards for my startup, got speaking opportunities, fell in love. I was told what I was doing impossible but I thought I was doing okay? People around me told me that too when I constantly smashed goals in all areas. I thought my work ethic was the secret sauce and I could do this. I actually got excited about this way of life and pondered about writing a book on why everyone should have side hustles and do lots of things at once. At social gatherings I’d tell people how I advocated this way of life because we have one shot at living life and I want to experience it all by becoming a doctor, a successful startup founder, a good partner and everything else I dreamt to become. But the last 2 months has made me think and question this way of life, was I wrong to choose this path?

I started thinking about it after I watched this Ted talk – https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance/up-next?language=en where the speaker talks about one consistent thing among successful people is having Grit. She defines Grit as finding something you are passionate about and persevering. Sticking with things when it gets tough? Not jump from one thing to the other. Wearing multiple hats like I did is the worst lifestyle to practice Grit. As soon as one thing gets hard you move to other. When Med school was tough I worked on the startup, when that got hard you start thinking about other projects. You have no reason to stick with things which are ugly and hard.

All this thinking has lead me to decide that I am going to re look at life and focus on few things and do them well. I think I will still do lots of things, that is who I have always been but I am going to become cautious. Now that I have fallen flat, I am going to rebuild life one thing at a time starting with working as hard as I can for medical school. It’s going to be hard but I will do all I can to start cutting down on things that I need to let go. Whenever I get tempted to do lots of things again, I’ll think of this post, this discussion I had in my head and question every opportunity before I say yes.

Shahed Kamal

Written by

Final year medical student and Ed-tech Entrepreneur. Shahed is passionate about healthcare, education and startups.

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