Beyond the Books

Finding Answers in the Messy Magic

I recently realized that learned more about life from Disney movies than from life itself.

Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but hear me out.

Take Frozen, for example.

Elsa, the ice queen herself, had it all—a loving family, a beautiful kingdom, and magical powers that could make even the most cynical among us believe in fairy tales.

But something was missing.

There was a nagging feeling, a whisper in the back of her mind, a calling she couldn't ignore.

Sure, she was happy. But was she truly fulfilled? Was she living her life to the fullest, embracing her true potential?

The answer, as we all know, was a resounding "no."

The call to adventure, the yearning for something more, can be a powerful force.

It can shake us out of our comfort zones, challenge us to confront our fears, and ultimately lead us to discover who we truly are.

But no one tells you how scary it is.

No one tells you how you could lose yourself in the process.

Elsa's story resonates because it speaks to that universal human desire for growth, for purpose, for a life that's more than just comfortable and predictable.

It's okay to want to chase after that dream, that passion, that elusive something that's been calling your name.

In fact, it's not just okay—it's essential.

Because if we don't listen to that inner voice, if we ignore the call to adventure, we risk settling for a life that's less than what we're capable of.

We risk living with regrets, wondering "what if?" and never knowing the true extent of our potential.

I began with this because I am treading this path now.

I have no idea what this might lead to.

And as you may have guessed my brain is brimming with a long list of ‘What-Ifs‘ waiting to be answered.

High School of Certainty

I was quite a nerdy kid growing up.

Picture a competitive 13 year old Indian kid with pointy hairs getting straight A’s in tests while doing a handstand (okay maybe not.) 

I thought I’d just a “land“ a white-collar job and prance around in fancy suits, taking business calls during lunch if I just passed those exams. That was my dream. At least the one that most of us are shown.

I still remember telling this to my best friend at the time. Let’s call him V.

“What’s your job now?”, he asked.

Apparently we had to make a radio show (2013 version of a podcast) talking about a theme of our choice.

For some reason V and I thought of playing our future selves meeting on a roadside coffee shop in the suburbs. (yeah don’t even..) 

So, I said,

“I am a totally successful Math professor at the University of Singapore.

Super rich, super popular.

Don’t even need to lift a finger to get things done cuz my students just love me that much.”

That poor professor had no idea what was coming for him.

I used to never be scared of heading straight on to take up challenges, academically speaking. I thought I was the strongest.

Maybe the strongest at being buried in books. Strongest in avoiding confronting my real fears.

In hindsight, all those tests, all those “accomplishments“ of mine don’t seem to matter now.

I mean it does feel good to look at those grade-sheets when I am down but the feeling doesn’t really last long.

Everything, every problem I solved in high school had a definitive answer.

And it was up to me to find the right one. The one and only solutions to all of them.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise I projected that attitude to Life itself.

If I wasn’t sure how that something was gonna end up, If I couldn’t see a clear cut vision of what I would get out of by doing it, you guessed it. I would never start.

It’s like whatever I look at these days, I’m scared of it now.

So, grade-sheets.

The reason it the intensity of the good feeling diminishing every time I look at them again is because,

Nothing that I learned accounted for the fact that life is filled with uncertainties. Life has nothing but that.

None of those giant Science textbooks taught me that. Well one did. Kinda.

Remember the theory of Probability?

Even though I was pretty good at calculating the chances of picking a green ball from an urn of a 100 was 0.6739823, that didn’t help either.

Why? Cuz I solved the problem by finding the one right solution and I passed the test.

So according to the wild optimist of my brain, Failure was out of the equation. And Winning, was inevitable.

What if it didn’t?

I never stopped to think what if things don’t work out.

Maybe I did, but I never really sat down to really go all in and be touchy-feely about it.

Sure I did not get into 2 out of 10 unis that I applied for ,or got an occasional B instead of an A or didn’t get to finish watching that Disney movie.

Before we get on to the epiphany moment,

But none of them made me think.

Maybe because the pain of losing wasn’t that big.

Maybe because I was comfortable and always had something to fall back on.

Maybe because I could always be proud of my accomplishments and a hot guy from heaven would just hand me a million bucks to deliver a guest lecture at his sister’s sweet sixteen about Math. Ew!

But what I do remember is, when I felt like I had no way out, I’d just quit doing it.

I’d rather quit doing something, leave it in the middle instead of accepting that I failed at it.

Even though I could have stuck it out,

Even though I saw other people doing it and getting through,

I chose the easy way out.

Funny how Giving up takes barely a minute but getting through takes a lifetime.

I recently came across this post of Gary Vee.

if you knew him you’d remember him saying things like

“Happiness fucking wins”, “Do shit you love” and on and on. Well he did rub off on me a lot.

So what he said was,

Makes you think, huh?

The teenage me would have killed to hear a dose of that.

The Howl

Looking back, I realize that my fear of failure was really a fear of the unknown, of stepping outside the comfortable bubble.

The bubble that I had created for myself.

But what I didn't understand then was that the greatest growth and fulfillment often comes from embracing uncertainty.

It's like that lone wolf howling at the moon. (Not sure if they still do that though. Hopefully howling is still mainstream.)

It's a call to adventure, a declaration of independence, a refusal to be tamed by fear.

The lone wolf doesn't shy away from the unknown.

The lone wolf embraces it,

Embraces by trusting in its own instincts and abilities to navigate the wilderness.

I'm still learning to embrace this mentality, to trust myself even when the path ahead is uncertain.

It's a daily practice, a constant battle against the voice of doubt that whispers in my ear.

But I'm getting there, one step at a time.

And you know what? It's fucking exhilarating.

It's also terrifying.

It's a constant battle between the desire for safety and the yearning for growth. And the latter just hurts. A lot.

But,

What if the "what ifs" are not roadblocks, but signposts guiding us towards a life we never even dared to dream of?

That's the question I'm grappling with as I step into the unknown, guided by the call of the lone wolf within.

Self-talk time.

What's your biggest "what if" holding you back right now? 

It doesn’t have to something huge. Remember, these “What-ifs” are mostly stupid. Don’t feel bad to acknowledge them. It’s part of the process.

Share it in the comments below.

By the way, I know I haven’t been disciplined with my writing but I'm working on it, I swear.

If you don’t get another post next week, feel free to give me hell in the chat.

Remember, You are not struggling. You are just growing. Love you.

Until next time,

Your Wolf in the Wilderness,

Karthik R