We hear from our family, friends, society, TV channels, and even from great authors or anonymous content makers on social media, to dream and dare to dream. But more than dreaming, my life taught me that the fight to achieve those dreams requires even more courage. The fight with circumstances, with our own inhibitions, and sometimes with the same people who asked to dream once but now think it’s too bold to fit in the standards of social acceptability, that fight is huge, relentless, and tiresome and most of the time difficult to win.
2 years ago, I was sitting in my room wondering where life has led me to. I was stuck in a job I didn’t like, in a relationship with a man who didn’t like me, and with admission for a course in a US university, I did not choose nor had the interest to pursue. I used to think I am not good at anything, be it my job, be it my looks, I didn’t even feel I am a fun person to be with. No reassurances from my closest friends helped. But I wanted to change that, I wanted to change my life for good. I faced so many hurdles along the way and the very first being my deteriorating mental and physical health. Each day was a struggle, to get up and do the simplest thing such as answering a call or even putting up lipstick. I sought help from a therapist and started taking care of myself. I decided to pursue my ambition of getting an MBA from a US university and had no idea how to get that kind of money, how to start, and whom to approach. So I reached out to everyone and anyone who might have an idea. I felt disheartened when one of the banks declined my loan application but kept trying with other alternatives. COVID made things look even more impossible, with travel restrictions and visa appointment unavailability. And when I finally got past this and was about to leave in a week, my mom, who is my only family, fell sick. She told me to hop on to that plan no matter what, and I did!
Even after coming to the US, the challenges didn’t stop especially with finding an internship, a part-time, keeping up the grades, and more importantly keeping up the confidence. I took one day at a time. I might have skipped a few nights of sleep or dinner but today, after years of stagnancy I am on the path to achieving my dream of an MBA degree and I have a job I am totally looking forward to joining. I wouldn’t have believed I could achieve this a few years ago. But this journey has taught me the miracles of hard work. I am not talented or gifted but I work hard to learn the things I don’t know. I am not chasing money, or a position, I am chasing good work - work that changes lives, that inspires you to do more, the one that you don’t need a vacation from. And it's this same hard work that made me realize, that more than being called a successful person or a failure who worked her way through, I want to be known as a fighter.
Let’s stop categorizing people as successful or failures but let’s define a third type - fighters. Because according to them everything in life is worth fighting for. So dare, but dare to fight - for your dreams, for everything you believe in, and build the life you will be proud of! Because if I can do it, you can too !!
