Challenges are what that shape a human to be the person that they are at any given moment. The path that we take is not often filled with rose beds, it is predominantly covered by thorns but that doesn’t mean we will have to stop moving forward. We will have to learn how to endure the challenges to reach our destination.
I am glad for all the challenges that I’ve faced in the 23 years of my life, as it shaped me the person that I am today. I must attribute my fighting spirit to my parents. At the age of 3, I met with an accident because of which I had lost the complete eyesight on my left eye. When the accident happened, I was initially getting treated in a well reputed hospital that has been around for more than 50 years. They were the only eye hospital that had all the required facilities to treat my condition. I received 8 years of treatment from that hospital with no significant improvement in my condition. When I was 13 years old, my parents got to know about another 10-year-old facility which had quite a few successful cases. My parents took me there and I was treated for 2 more years, which helped to retrieve 19% of my vision back on my left eye. Unfortunately, they could not do much as my condition had already worsened. But during that two years, my parents and I traveled for 700+km every two months to get my bi-monthly check up done. They never gave up on me, even when my previous doctors had informed that there was no way in getting my vision back. Their continued efforts helped me to bring back at least partial vision.
I was a pampered kid at my home and I was an active participant in the class and a topper during my school days, which automatically qualified me to be the teachers’ pet. So, I had never really faced any difficulties till the end of my 10th grade. My very first hurdle was when I had switched schools in the 11th grade. I was in a new atmosphere with complete strangers and it was a co-education setting. I found difficulties in making new friends and I could not muster enough courage to participate in the class even when I knew the answers. This was when I found out that I was an introvert and I had never stepped out of my comfort zone before the school switch. This ultimately impacted my academics as it took a huge emotional toll on my mind. I was not able to focus on my studies as my mind was pre-occupied with this new fear. The mid term test results were out, and I saw that I had failed one subject. This was the first ever time that I had failed in my academics. I was always very proud of my academic accomplishments as I did not do well in the arts and the sports aspects of the school curriculum. This gave me the nudge to do something about the problem in hand. I decided to focus more on the academics. I put in twice the amount of my usual efforts. I told myself that it was just for two years and it was okay to not have any friends. It was quite hard at first as I had presumed myself to be that social butterfly and the reality that I was not, hit me hard. I set aside my emotions and focussed on clearing my exams one by one and repeated the same till I completed my 12th grade.
Once the exams were over, I enrolled myself on personality development, public speaking and theatrical classes during the vacation. I did not want the incident to repeat itself on my prime years i.e. my college days. The classes and the vacation got over, it was the first day of college and I thought about the first day in my new school. I pushed myself to talk to as many people as possible, I found 9 other human beings with minds and spirits as diverse as it can get, and I told myself “This is it, this is the bunch”. I found my clique, I made many other good friends, did well in my academics, won a lot of competitions both inter and intra collegiate, got placed in one of the big 4’s at the early stages of the recruitment process and graduated from the college as the outstanding student of the batch 2013-16 for my department.
This was just an instance that happened early on in my life which played a huge part in helping me understand who I am and what do I have to do to become the person that I am today. Everybody has faced hardships in their lives, be it small or big. The degree does not matter, all that matters is that how they reached their goals without giving up just because of the hardships they faced on their way.