I have started listening to a podcast by Ali Abdaal and his brother Taimur Abdaal, it is called "not overthinking"and have been pretty overthinking these days. I like the podcasts as they remind me of the conversations I used to have with my brothers. Here I am going to post the emails I send them in response to the podcasts, to keep a record.
podcast: why do we like to be correct?
21/07/2020 2:39 AM
Hi ,
I came across your podcasts and liked listening to
them. The urge to be right is an instinct for survival. At first it is to
impress, to standout, to gain attention; and is inherent in all of us. Later
, we realize what's important is not all the words and numbers we know, but the
essence that lies behind those words.
When i was young, I wanted to impress people as i thought it
will make me more likeable .Later, i wanted to excel in everything I did; to be
cool to all those around me. But now,there are a very few people i want to be
cool to and with them, coolness is not cashed in numbers or words;but in the
warmth of the heart.
These are my thoughts after listening to the podcast.
P.S. working in the ER is cool.
Regards.
thoughts prompted by the podcast: why are we scared to put our selves out their?
23/07/20
12:06 AM
Hi,
Apart from the fact that my father will kick me out of the house and my
dear family will disown me; putting my self out there might be a fun new
experience.
So while listening to the podcast I asked myself; if ,by any chance ,I
am not threatened by an impending family crisis, will I chose to put myself out
there? .I guess, the answer will be the extension of my current choices ,as at
the moment although I am free to put my self out there on the social media , I
chose not to and it’s a well thought about decision .
When I was young ,young enough not to have appeared in my secondary
school exams, my family knew me as happy go lucky ,naughty kind of a child but
as soon as I started scoring high in major exams of my life my whole
identity became ” the one who was the good student” .”The good student”, masked
the playful girl , the girl who sings well ,plays well, draws well and was once
just fun to hang around with. Although I was never pressured ,to study, by my
parents; I knew they had expectations. The pressure to do well again started
building up in my small head ,that was so full of all good things, to realize
what I was doing to myself . The situation further deteriorated , when I got in
to med school ,from that day, I was no longer Bia but “ Dr.Bia”. This
time it was not just my extended family but immediate family who treated
me as if I had overnight transformed a prestigious sophisticated person and the
babbling “ 24 hour radio “ disappeared . It took a whole lot of ruining
my reputation thorough med school for my parents to realize that I was the same
reckless, timid person but wearing a white coat .Now, the situation has
improved atleast with the people I love; to an extent that they
don’t even take my medical advise seriously, ah the dilemma! but for rest
of the world , I am still a doctor .So I have learned to keep the company of
children, in family events, although the aunties try their best to lure me into
their discussions of rising blood pressures and gynecological health. I
even sometimes get the weird need of saying this jargon of words with a
straight face to people who treat me differently .And they think that I
am saying something from such a high level of intellect that it is beyond their
mental capability to understand my words;
And the golden words are
“I proved that the hypercube of suitable dimension can be edge
decomposed by the copies of an arbitrary tree” and the irony is that these are
not even my own words.
A profession has become my identity; it has taken a lot of effort to
redefine and rediscover my identity again . I would never want a part of my
life that I chose to show on the camera, become my whole existence or in any
way put me under the thumb. Thus , I guess I am not ready to put my self out
there unless it is for the Nobel prize.
Kudos .
