You are not a onedimensional constant

hello guys it’s advati mishra over here

before i begin i’ll briefly describe

myself for exactly 20 seconds

i love math love physics i love

economics

i love programming and in the 6th 7th

and 8th grades

i used to read 1 300 page book per week

i have read each and every book of harry

potter oc jackson

the hunger games divergent the maze

runner

and go ahead and name any other series

trust me

i have read it well from this

description of myself

raise your hand if you imagine my 13

year old self

looking like this i’m not surprised

because if i were in the audience and

the 17 year old

started her talk with matt i would have

had the same image in my mind

from the pig tails to the awkward smile

and the braces

now i always thought of myself as a

fairly confident person

however on seeing this photo i found

myself feeling self-conscious

because i began thinking about the

opinion that the general high school

population had of me

braces kind of dorky awkward smile

kind of gawky likes math and science

kind of geeky

i felt as if i lived in a stereotypical

high school environment

that we only see on television shows

where physical attributes

dictate the perception that others have

a few

is your brain automatically trying to

figure out which compartment you fall in

well don’t worry doing so is natural

because this has become the state of

reality today

each and every one of us has this

compulsive need for compartmentalization

in our own minds that we often try to

attach

labels to others by assigning them fixed

characteristics

and arriving at hasty generalizations

thus creating stereotypes

according to various studies biases

based on stereotypes

is one of the biggest causes of bullying

in high school environments

which significantly affects our mental

health i know this from personal

experience too

because as you might have guessed i was

viewed by many as a node

and although i had quite a few good

friends i found myself feeling slightly

marginalized

in my high school social hierarchy

because of the label i had

i knew that i was not a one-dimensional

constant so i made it my life’s mission

to prove how multifaceted i really was

and it all began over here

this is the playground of my previous

high school just imagine the mumbai sun

overhead

and 40 odd sweaty teenagers and this is

the environment in my pt class

whenever selections for annual annual

sports they were held

the athletes of course watched what they

ate

donned their running gear and performed

a set of heavy exercises

constituting a so-called warm-up they

stretched their legs their arms their

backs their wrists

while the nodes look for every

opportunity to run at the end

so that we could run with no one around

to see us i’m sure you’re familiar with

this environment

in your high school as well

since this was my last sports day at my

previous high school

i thought to myself what’s the harm in

participating in the 800 meter run

just for some context in my school

participating in this run

was not mandatory but i was determined

to do so

and so i stood with six other girls at

the starting line

and as soon as my teacher blew the

whistle i began running

my scientifically inclined mind thought

to myself

okay advati you have 800 meters surround

you should target 4 minutes thus you

should run around

3.33 meters per second on an average

ok doable i said to myself

but as i began running my legs started

leaking

the rubber band of one of my pigtails

had fallen off

i couldn’t breathe i couldn’t see your

head because my vision was getting

blowed

and i felt like giving up the number of

girls running had fallen to five and

then four and then three

and then two and then one but my friends

kept cheering me on

and i felt this need to prove myself to

someone or rather to myself

i am not constricted to one stereotype

so i ran and i ran and i ran till i

reached the finish line

and i almost puked because i had exerted

my body without any trading

at this point you might be thinking that

i might have been proud of myself

because hey advati

you did manage to finish the days but at

the end

i didn’t feel any sense of

accomplishment i thought i would have

felt better

because i had proved to others and to

myself that i was not a one-dimensional

constant

but i felt normal i said nothing had

only happened

although a few people did congratulate

me

when i came home and told my father

who’s a very passionate runner

about my impulsive decision to sprint

800 meters

he did not ask me why i had done it but

he did encourage me to scale up from 800

to 2000 to 5000

finally 10 000 meters so i trained and i

trained and i trained

i watched what i ate i don my running

gear and performed a set of heavy

exercises

constituting a so-called warm-up i

stretch my legs

my arms my back my wrists and i didn’t

look for any opportunity to run at the

end

so that no one saw me i was happy i was

not constricted to my

previous stereotype i was an athlete too

when my father was satisfied that i had

trained enough he and i registered for

the iit bombay 10 kilometer on

but when i woke up at 4am and went to

the ground i was in for a big surprise

at the starting line i saw people of all

genders

all religions all bills and all ages

standing

with a determined look in their eyes

they all stretched their legs their arms

their backs

and their wrists together and as soon as

the organizer blew the whistle

we began running when my legs started

aching

i saw a person limping onwards when i

found myself slowing down

i heard an old female rhino encourage me

when i found myself panting

a few middle-aged volunteers gave me an

energy drink

when i found myself wanting to give up i

felt all my fellow runners

running alongside me giving their full

support

it was at that moment when i realized

that i had been drawing strength from

their diversity

i realized that what brought all of us

together was a passion that we had

discovered

but then when i had this moment of

realization

i heard this alarm constantly buzz in my

ears

when i looked around i saw an ambulance

whiz past me

because apparently someone a kilometer

ahead had suffered from a heart attack

the next day when i read the newspaper

and saw the picture of the man

i vaguely remember that maybe he was the

one who kept encouraging me to go on

even though i did not know him

personally i felt the sense of loss

it was then when i realized that if i

felt self-conscious on being stereotyped

as a node

then he surely might have been

self-conscious on being implicitly

stereotyped at first glance

but this did not really stop him from

wanting to finish the run

and wanting to achieve his time target

people who don’t even know me

have associated with me as my favorite

artist

taylor swift says you are not the

opinion of someone

who doesn’t know you i’ll repeat this

once more

you are not the opinion of someone who

doesn’t know you

i always thought that the challenge i

was trying to rise up to

was the challenge of fighting against

others compartmentalizing me as a node

however on some more introspection i

realized that the real challenge that i

faced

was a fixed mindset of sorts that i

possessed

which led me to believe that others

opinions and not my personal abilities

dictated the type of person i was thus

the real problem was in my mind and it

was constructed

by me reconstructing an entire belief

system

was definitely not easy because i needed

to train my mind

to change my perception of why i did

what i did

and continuously convince myself that

their initial opinions

should in no way limit me from doing

what i do best

the key solution to face any sort of

challenge you face in life

that is in your mind and your outlook on

how you function as a human being

both in isolation and in the society

full of others

so hello guys it’s advati mishra over

here

before i end i’ll briefly describe

myself for exactly 20 seconds

oh wait actually i won’t the books i

read

the subjects i love do not really define

me

my new outlook on life leads me to

believe i’m much more than that

i’m a node i’m an artist i’m a musician

i’m an athlete

i’m just going to be who i want to be

thank you