Master of None: Overcoming Self Doubt | Apoorva Bose | TEDxCUSAT

the one question that i keep getting asked is what is it that i actually do for a living most of you have seen me in malayalam cinema so for you i'm apoorva bose the actor few know me as a lawyer fewer still as a human rights lawyer and if you happen to glance through my instagram profile you might even think i'm a dance or a singer so this is perpetual confusion surrounding what is it that i actually do even so i have found myself struggling to answer the seemingly straightforward question but there's one person who has questioned this aspect of my life way more than others and that's me myself that's probably because i've never really been able to associate myself to just one single activity it's always been a juggling act between all the different things that i'm extremely passionate about so in that respect i think i've always been a jack of many trades but never a master of one but to accept myself as a master of none has not been an overnight process it has taken time this journey has numerous highs and lows and it continues to be a work in progress so today i'd like to share snippets of this journey of mine in the hopes that it resonates with at least some of you so let's turn the clock back a notch i grew up in a typical indian household where my mother sent me for music and dance lessons even before i could walk or talk properly my mother was a relentless taskmaster so she actually sat for music lessons with me for a year until i hummed my very first note my grandmother or amumu as i fondly call her still tells me stories of my endless sulking and crying before every lesson honestly i just hated waking up at four in the morning for my dance lessons before school and then music lessons after all i wanted to do was to just sit at home and play with my cousins and toys i don't know how and when all of this changed but then soon enough these things became the best part of my day and eventually an integral part of my life unlike music and dance i loved being in front of the camera as a child my father loved clicking photos of me and i loved posing for him so when a family friend asked my mother if she'd be okay with me doing a print advertisement am i readily agreed probably a bit relieved knowing that this was something i'd do without throwing a tantrum and that's how my modelling career began at the age of three happily eating ghee for a print advertisement as i grew up i also developed a love for theater and acting there was something amazing about just being on stage and transforming into a new character and instinctively feeling the pulse of the audience so all these different things the theater productions the activities the stage shows representing my school for them all these things they defined my childhood and looking back i don't think i can really imagine a childhood without all these different things that i've become extremely passionate about now moving on a bit from here remember how as children we were often asked this question what would we like to be when we grow up i was asked this in third grade and was asked to make a speech about it so i confidently went up on stage and said that i'd like to become a scientist well this would have been an impossible task considering how amazing i'm at maths and then when i was 13 or 14 this ambition changed to that of a neurosurgeon well again i suspect this has something to do with me watching hugh laurie on house md the point is until a certain age this question never really scared any of us until high school suddenly we were sent for all these career counselling sessions and teachers were stressing on the importance of the upcoming exams in a career and they were also telling us that these extracurriculars needed to take a back seat well this was a bit confusing for me because i was always that student who did quite well in her academics but at the same time i also love doing the other things that i was passionate about multitasking actually helped me focus better in my studies i learned to manage my time more efficiently as well so why were these things suddenly termed as distractions so i did what came most naturally to me when i got offers to do movies bang in the middle of my examinations i decided to go for it well this wouldn't have been possible without the support of my family but i honestly had a blast alternating time between my studies and the film set so basically all these different things they were constants in my journey but at the same time there were these external pressures constantly emphasizing on the importance of a mainstream career thankfully by this time i was quite certain i wanted to pursue a career in law but i was also quite certain i wanted to continue doing all the other things i was passionate about and that's exactly what i did in those five years i interned at several places i also managed to do it on three films i worked in the parliament the united nations and also i managed to sing in a movie i also secured a doordarshan accreditation in bharatnatyam but every single time in an interview when i was asked this question what i see myself as i drew a blank i was just as confused as ever i don't think i realized at that point that this seemingly straightforward question was in a way to sort of constrict yourself in a certain role or bracket it made you think that in order to be successful you had to become a master at one thing there is natural progression that we're all sort of socially conditioned to follow first you do your school then under graduation then you do your masters and then you pick that one thing that you're most passionate about but what happens if you have many things that you're passionate about the next phase of my life was probably the most important decision that i have ever taken the decision to pursue my master's at the graduate institute in geneva well this meant giving up the comforts of familiarity that are associated to amumus parampuri and hanging out with my cousins in fort kuchi and moving to a strange new place with new people new food and new cultures but most importantly this meant giving up all the other things that i was passionate about at least momentarily so in one sweep i moved from cochin to one of one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world geneva became home way faster than i'd ever imagined well i was exposed to different ideas and perspectives from people all across the world and received an excellent education from some of the most brilliant legal minds in the world at the graduate institute i also developed a liking for human rights and gender issues which continues to be my area of specialization in international law but i think a large part of geneva becoming home had to do with how i continued doing all the other things that i was extremely passionate about i started choreographing dances for festivals met a friend and started jamming and creating music with him traveled to different parts of the world and i also did multiple photo shoots the last lap of my masters came under extraordinary circumstances when the whole world was under lockdown for the first time in my life i was not doing multiple things and there was no academic pressure so in this vacuum i convinced myself that my future was uncertain well i started getting these momentary bouts of anxiety and i brushed this aside as something which was quite normal until the second half of 2020. i started waking up with a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat and this was usually accompanied by feeling of despair on some days i'd wake up convinced that i had covered and would check my temperature every few minutes and on some other days i'd wake up feeling extremely sensitive to sunlight and would stay under my blanket the whole day to make matters worse i also started compulsively googling what exactly was wrong with me was this all in my head or was i actually sick to put the cherry on the cake i woke up one day with an intense ringing noise in my left ear and a hissing noise in my right ear i waited googled some remedies but there was no respite and then began my consultations with a slew of doctors in geneva and i was finally diagnosed with tinnitus for those of you who don't know tinnitus is a condition where you can hear noises such as ringing and hissing in one or both ears in the absence of any external sound well i honestly had never heard of this before but it's actually quite common so what did i do i started googling more and this honestly was just feeding my own paranoia so my condition is rarely an indication of an underlying illness but at the same time it can severely deplete your standard of living imagine hearing this or this every second of your life honestly the only thing i hoped for in that moment was that one moment of silence everything else seemed insignificant in comparison out of sheer desperation i did something which i probably had never thought of before i reached out to a friend's therapist my therapist who had incidentally also been suffering from tinnitus was an absolute godsend though initially i seeked therapy to understand how to deal with tinnitus i soon started introspecting the underlying causes for my anxiety and stress as extreme anxiety and stress are also related to tinnitus the breakthrough moment in my therapy came when i finally realized what was dormant in me all these years my anxiety basically stemmed from my fear of failure what if i'm never successful what if i never make it all this while i had my academics to focus on and now that i was no longer a student i felt confused and stranded but there was another layer that was actually triggering this fear and this brings me to the beginning of my talk the fear of being master of none yes i was a purva boast the actor the dancer the lawyer and the singer but what if i just remained a purva boss the actor the lawyer the dancer and the singer who was just merely average years of social conditioning had led me to believe that in order to become successful i had to choose that one career path so my knee-jerk reaction to this realization was to frantically start looking for new jobs though i already had one i started applying for phd positions that i was barely even interested in but most importantly i stopped dancing and singing well to become a successful human rights lawyer i should focus on my career right in this period of time i started despising geneva a place that i'd called home all i wanted to do was to just go back to cochin be with my family and friends my personal happy space so when travel restrictions eased i decided to go back to kochen a naive part of me actually believed that my tinnitus would just magically vanish the moment i reach cochin well that was just wishful thinking as my tinnitus was just as stubborn as ever but there was a silver lining i started doing all the things that i was extremely passionate about i started dancing again i also started singing again did a bunch of photo shoots and even read multiple scripts and that's when this realization hit me my safe space had never been a physical place it's been all these different things that i'm extremely passionate about this is where i went when i was sad or happy or even confused so if you're somebody who's a master at something then you're there on a sure determination and talent and if that one thing defines you well then hats off to you but if you're somebody like me and still hasn't figured out what defines you in this perpetual rat race well take a step back broaden your horizons who says you have to be defined by just one thing who says that to become successful you have to be the best at something if you think you're just average or just decent and many different things then let me assure you you're perfectly normal and just as awesome let them all define you so today my tinnitus is just as stubborn as ever but i've learned to embrace it as that companion that warning system of mind that tells me when my body is under stress that friend that we all need that tells us to take a break and just chill well tinnitus is that friend for me just that mine is more annoying than most yes i have days when i wake up with a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat but those days are short-lived as i just take a break and maybe jam with a friend yes i'm still healing and there are momentary lapses in this journey but i've learned to accept myself for who i am this is who i am i'm apoorva both the actor the dancer the singer and the lawyer and so much more i'm tiny bits of an actor lawyer dancer and a singer and who knows maybe tomorrow i'll actually find something else i'm more passionate about and maybe along the way i'll go from being a master of none to a master of some

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 10,532

Rating: 4.8414917 out of 5

Keywords: Career, Development, English, Life, Life Development, Overcome, Progress, TEDxTalks

Id: rUS2pJ1UVig

Length: 17min 43sec (1063 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 26 2021