“I wanted to be successful. And I wanted to enjoy my youth at the same time. Somehow, somewhere in between, I lost control over my time.”

I've always considered myself a good student.

Not that kind of student who studies every single hour, but the one who somehow manages to make it to the top of the class. I scored 91 per cent in Class 10, and my family was proud of me, so was I.

I thought that was a sign that I knew the art of studying.

Then came JEE. Suddenly, the rules of the game were changed; there were more chapters, more questions, more competition and most importantly, more responsibility.

I wasn't studying for a school exam anymore; I had a bigger goal than what I ever thought of. Everyone around me had a piece of advice for me,

"Study regularly".
"Don't waste your time".
"Stay away from distractions".
"Work hard".

I knew all of that.
But knowing all that was different from putting it into practice.

I have always dreamt of achieving success in life. Becoming successful, getting respect and making my family proud has always been my priority.

But at the same time, I don't want my youth to be a waste of my time and energy.

I want to have fun in my life, and I want to make new experiences, and I want to find what I'm good at and what interests me.

I want to enjoy my life outside of my books and sometimes,
I just want to do nothing.
See, nothing is wrong with that.

But when you're preparing for something as intense as JEE, 'do nothing for a while' can turn into 'I will study hard from tomorrow'.

And tomorrow always promises to be a better day.
My biggest distraction was not my phone; sometimes, it was my sleep. Whenever I was feeling lazy, tired or not wanting to study, I would take a nap. I told myself that I'd sleep for a little while and then study properly.

That little while turned into hours, and when I opened my eyes, I just saw the clock and immediately felt guilty.

Then came the thoughts,
"I have wasted so much time today; I'll start fresh tomorrow."

And tomorrow really seemed to be a better day.
Tomorrow I would wake up early.
Tomorrow I would do all my pending questions.
Tomorrow I will revise the whole damn syllabus.
Tomorrow I'll be disciplined and focused.

The funny thing was that tomorrow never had to prove anything to anyone.

I was the one who had to show up today.
My family also noticed my habits.

They are my family, so they kind of keep track of things. Sometimes it's annoying, but yeah, that's what they do. They ask where I am going, when I will be back, have you studied, have you eaten, are you wasting your time, are you distracted, etc.

Their concern sometimes makes me feel suffocated.
When all I need is a break from my studies, and all they care about is whether I'm studying or not.

Sometimes when they tell me, ‘You should study more,' it doesn't convince me to study; instead, it makes me want to close my books. But I also understand that this is because they care. They see my potential; they know I can make it. Maybe that is the reason why they are so concerned. They worry when they see me wasting my time.

I used to think they were the reason why I was in this situation. But then I realised something: even when no one asked me to study, I wasn't studying.

Even when no one checked my phone, I was on it.
Even when no one forced me to sleep, I was taking naps to avoid studying.

Then I realised something.
I had become very good at running away from my work.

Running away from a difficult chapter by sleeping. Taking a break when I had too many problems to solve. Wasting time when I wasn't feeling productive. Making new timetables every time I felt guilty. Making excuses about why I didn't study. Taking naps to escape the work piling up on my table. And sometimes I really did deserve a break.

That was the only problem: I confused deserving a break with running away from my problems.

I started to notice that I was always waiting for a mood to study.
If I had the mood, I studied; if I didn't, then I postponed it for another day.

But exams don't care if I'm feeling motivated or not.

The syllabus doesn't care if I'm in the mood to study or not.

One day, after doing way more sleeping and random stuff than studying, I just pulled myself together, sat at my desk and looked at the books in front of me.

No dramatic music played in the background.
No dramatic speeches.
No sudden change of heart.

I was tired of making promises to myself that I would study and then keeping them for myself to beat myself up over it later.
I had two options: make a new timetable or start studying.

So, I started with a chapter.

Just one chapter.

Not the whole syllabus. Not for ten hours. Not for the perfect timetable I made. I just started with one chapter.

When I finished, I did a little task. I mean, it was not big, not even worth mentioning. But it was something. Something that I didn't do because it was a big thing. But because I felt happy doing it. Because for once I didn't postpone it. Because it was just something I did today, not something I promised myself I would do for tomorrow.

This changed the way I thought about discipline.

Previously, I thought disciplined people were ones who never got distracted.

Now I think they are people who know how to get up and do the task even after they get distracted.

You will get distracted, you will waste time, and you will have days when you feel like your productivity is at an all-time low.

The difference between disciplined and non-disciplined people is that disciplined people will not let this affect their tomorrow.

They don't spend the next three days feeling guilty; they get up and do it. You might like to do your job when you feel energetic, but what will you do when you have no energy?

Discipline doesn't mean being a machine; it means working towards your goal without caring so much about the result.

I don't want to measure each drop of my life towards success. I don't want to look back one day and realise that I spent my whole youth working towards a goal that I don't even like anymore. I want to work hard, but I also want to have things to look back on from my youth.

I want to study hard for JEE, but I also want to have fun.

I don't want to sacrifice everything I want in life just to achieve a certain dream. I don't think discipline means being at my books every second of the day. It just means, if I choose to study, I study properly. If I choose to have a break, I have a break. If I choose to sleep, it is because I need it, not because I can't do my work. If I choose to experiment with life, I don't think of how it can affect my future; I just do it.

That is the kind of discipline I am working towards.

But it's a process.

I am not there yet.

There are so many days when I wake up late,

there are so many days when my notes remain untouched for days,

there are so many times when I say

'I will do it tomorrow',

and there are so many times when I am guilty of these actions.

But that is okay.

The thing about this sentence,

'I will do it tomorrow' is that it is trying to comfort itself from the guilt of not doing something today. And sometimes, I fall for it. But not always.

My 91 per cent in class 10 told me that I am a hard worker.

JEE is teaching me something else.

It is teaching me how to work hard even when there are no results.

Because intelligence, dedication and motivation aren't enough. Sometimes it just requires you to put your head down and do the work. Even when you don't feel like it. I used to think my biggest battle was against distractions. But now I've realised that it is something else. It's the thing inside me that tells me to go out and enjoy my life with friends and the thing inside me that tells me to study hard and get into the best college in the country. Maybe growing up also means knowing that you can't have everything at the same time.

Sometimes it also means knowing when it is time to work and when it is time to play.

When it is time to study, I do it.
When it is time to rest, I give myself a break.
When it is time to enjoy, I don't feel guilty about it.

And that is the kind of discipline I am working towards.
Not the perfectly disciplined person everyone wants me to become, but just being able to make decisions based on what I feel my priorities are now. I don't know where my JEE journey will take me; I don't know what college I will get into and what I will do with my life. But I do know that I don't want to get into college by running away from my current life.

I want to run towards something new and exciting but also learn to understand how to live this life. Maybe that is what this journey is teaching me. To not lie to myself. To not run away from my problems and to just accept them and deal with them one at a time. The last thing I knew about this journey was that the most difficult part wasn't JEE; it was me. And not even me, but the other me. That part of me that always wanted to do everything but never did. That part of me that cared so much about my future goals that it forgot to enjoy the present moment. Now I am at a point where I can say that the battle wasn't against my distractions; it was against my own self. That part of myself which would rather study every day for ten hours than sleep for three hours, that part of me which would rather sleep than study, the part of me that would rather sit in a room doing nothing than study. The part of me that is so scared of failure that it wastes the chance of success. And maybe one day I will look back on this and realise that the journey has changed me as a person. That I am not the same person I was a year ago. And maybe one day, I will thank this battle. Because it reminded me that no matter how hard I try to avoid my problems, one day I will have to face them. And maybe one day I will learn to just accept them and move on from there.

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