Our Life In Miles

‘You can’t hate yourself into change, you need to love yourself into evolution‘ – Lori Deschene something I took 28 years to learn.

Identity crisis of the Early years

Quite early in my childhood, I realised there are only two ways to live life… You either blend in or stand out. And somehow, making friends and mingling with peers never came easy to me. So I chose to stand out – which seemed like an easier option back then. And that has been kind of the guiding principle I have subconsciously been following in most of my critical decisions right since 10 years of age.

I have spent the better part of my childhood balancing playing Table Tennis competitively and trying to ace academic examinations, curricular and otherwise. In academic circles, I tried to stand out as that TT player representing the state and the country. In TT circles, I tried to stand out as that girl acing in scholarships and other competitive exams. But essentially, what it meant was, I didn’t feel like I belonged in either circles. Feeling less than, when socialising with either of the peer groups.

When it came to choosing between the two, at about the age of 17, I chose the easier way out and focused on getting into a premier engineering college. Honestly, because I didn’t think I had it in me to make it into the top 5 in Indian Women’s Category – and if you’re not in the top 5 sustainably, it was slim pickings at making a decent career out of the sport.

Trying to find a footing in College

The first 2 years of my college days at BITS Goa, were spent trying to find my footing. The challenge to blend in continued, and being a university champion at Table Tennis wasn’t good enough to stand out anymore. I tried different clubs and departments, but nothing seemed promising to me from either blending in or standing out perspectives. By the end of second year of college, I started working on different extra curricular projects with Shubham and Hari (again, in my pursuit to find something substantial to ‘define’ my college persona). And while for the better part of the next year, we were chasing half-assed ideas and publishing papers around those, these projects of ours started helping me stand out in a crowd of peers focussing strictly on academic courses. One project led to another, and before I knew it, we were now chasing full fledged startup ideas.

The charm of Entrepreneurship

Soon enough, our startup ‘ideas’ started gaining traction, and we were at crossroads between choosing to pursue entrepreneurship or taking the beaten path; choosing financial security and sitting for college placements. (There was a whole saga of taking a sabbatical / dropping out to pursue the startup, but will save that story for another post). And using the same compass of choosing between blending in vs standing out, I chose to try my hands at entrepreneurship.

Soon, every chapter and every challenge we faced at Pixis seemed intriguing and we went with the flow, tackling every challenge as it appeared. But the enormity of the challenges was wearing out our shields of self preservation and all the deepest darkest vulnerabilities came glaring at me during different turns of this journey; self-esteem issues and Imposter Syndrome being the ones that dealt the strongest blows.

In such a dynamic environment with multiple moving parts, it is very difficult to create an absolute measure of the right and the wrong path. It is like being thrown in the middle of the ocean with no compass (and in our case, no prior training either) and trying to find your way to land. Every action, every decision is subjective and the results might be seen within a day or take months to appear and most likely are a culmination of a myriad of such actions and decisions we take on a daily basis. So you end up questioning everything you say and do.

I tried various shrinks, various positive and negative avenues to seek self affirmation, but eventually landed on endurance sports. It provided the right mix of challenge, growth and gratification to reinforce self confidence, which to be honest, helped me immensely at work and in all walks of life, in general.

A partner in the grind

The journey into endurance sports was eased a lot because I had a partner to share it with. Danish walked into my life during this phase of self exploration and gently nudged me towards a more positive self image over time. We started exploring various new hobbies together and soon turned a few of them into strong passions. We faced quite a few challenges when it came to gaining acceptance from family side, what with the religious differences and what not, but it was easier to know the right from wrong in this battle, at least. (More about this story in another blog post)

We both share a strong interest in travel, adventure sports, and wanting to stay fit in general. But just travelling around the world seemed too easy, partaking in adventure activities as a hobby too unchallenging. We were looking for bigger challenges which offered stronger gratification when achieved.

The journey into endurance sports

So we started with climbing peaks, swimming in open water swimathons, competing in triathlons and upping the goals as we ticked off the previous ones. Each milestone gave a strong sense of fulfilment and left us yearning for more as we kept on walking further on these paths, each of which demanded quite a steep growth curve.

The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

We followed this mantra when setting any goal for us. And as I kept on unlocking each of these milestones, the confidence and general efficiency of operating in all walks of life kept getting better.

Today we are taking on some of the most difficult challenges in the world. I am preparing to swim the English Channel – one of the most difficult swims in the world – and Danish is training to compete in a Full Ironman (140.6) race – one of the most challenging multi-sport events that tests the limits of physical endurance, mental toughness, and sheer determination.

Why share?

While a few years back, every single detail I have written out here would have made me feel extremely conscious to share even in front of a closed audience, I believe the entire arc had profound learnings and findings for me and played a significant role in the way my life has evolved. And through our blog we hope to share our learnings and help fellow adventure enthusiasts plan their own adventures, so it is imperative I share a full account of our journey – warts and all, to give the readers a full disclosure of all things that will lay ahead of you if you choose any of the activities we are pursuing.

So stay tuned if you’re interested to know more about our experiences in the world of swimming, triathlons, mountaineering, travel, scuba diving and general life lessons we’re learning along the way 😇