What's My Story?
How a squash loss, a frozen presentation, and the work that followed taught me to own my choices without trying to own every outcome.
(This is the extended version of the story featured on the homepage.)
What I Thought Mastery Meant
William Ernest Henley’s line in Invictus, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul,” made intuitive sense to me. Set a goal, work diligently toward it, and the outcome would follow.
Through middle school, that formula seemed to work. It made me disciplined, but it also made every result feel like a verdict on who I was.
The Shirt I Didn’t Earn
After six months and 150 hours of training, I expected to earn a Squash Gold Division shirt. To me, it was not simply a shirt. It was the promised return on every practice and every hour I had invested.
Then I lost the match that would have earned it. The effort was real, but the result I had treated as inevitable never came.
That was the first time I remember pressure becoming physical. My palms began to sweat before situations where other people could watch me fall short.
A Smaller and Smaller Stage
The sweating itself was manageable. What followed mattered more: I began choosing situations where the pressure could be shared or hidden. Volleyball let six players hold a result together; in hackathons, I stayed behind my teammates when it was time to present.
Avoidance protected me from visible failure, but it also quietly removed every chance to discover that I could survive it.
Nowhere Left to Hide
At UC Irvine’s GSET program, every team had to present. I memorized my section and repeated it internally while a teammate spoke first. There was no way to retreat into the background.
When my turn came, the words flowed until they did not. I froze halfway through, forgot part of the script, and stumbled through the rest. I sat down believing I had wasted all the preparation that came before it.
On the ride to the airport, my mom asked what I had expected to happen. I had no answer, but the question stayed with me.
Two Kinds of Control
My mom’s question brought back a principle from the Bhagavad Gita that I had heard at spiritual gatherings since childhood: “You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.”
I once heard that as indifference. Now I understand it as a boundary. Aspiration asks me to prepare seriously; attachment insists that the work only counts if reality returns the exact outcome I imagined.
I could master my preparation, choices, and response without pretending to master the score, applause, or result.
Practice in Public
At a Tech4Silvers workshop, my palms dampened around the microphone in front of 30 seniors. I delivered the session anyway, then stayed to answer every question.
The goal was no longer to prove that I felt no fear. It was to remain useful while feeling it. By the next session, 50 more seniors wanted to join.
Once I focused on helping the people in front of me, I had less attention left for what the room might think of me.
The Next Point
During a timeout against Jesuit High School, I noticed my teammate Colin’s hand shaking just before he was subbed in. I recognized the feeling and told him, “You got this, bro.”
The tremor did not mean he was unprepared. It showed that the moment mattered to him. We won that game and later won the state championship.
My palms still dampen before games and presentations. They just do not cool me away anymore. I can still aspire fiercely and compete to win without treating success as something effort entitles me to.
I still set goals. I still work toward them.
Fate was never my part of the bargain. My soul was.