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