Gaslight Yourself

‘Gaslight – to manipulate someone to alter or invalidate their feelings’

To gaslight someone is to manipulate them into doubting or invalidating their own feelings. The term carries an understandably negative connotation. As always, a new term does not necessarily mean a new action. Babies were delivered long before obstetricians existed, and gaslighting existed long before the 1944 film Gaslight gave it a name.Dictatorships, witch hunts, emperors - history is filled with examples of people altering social perception for personal gain, often with disastrous consequences.

But now, in an era of relative freedom of thought, let us play with the definition for a moment.Invalidating feelings is wrong. But what if those feelings are inadequacy, insecurity, or self-doubt? What if we manipulated ourselves into self-belief.? And so, as we go down this rabbit hole no one asked for, we arrive at a primordial answer - the same answer that allowed an average ape to sit atop the food chain:Hard work.

The hard work mousse is a multi-layered delicacy enjoyed only by those willing to toil.

At the first layer lies the physical benefits.Bruce Lee once said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” The principle is universal. Be it the athlete repeating the same motion, the artist drawing a freehand circle, or the academician putting theory onto paper; our hands remember even when our heads fail.

At the next layer lies the mental.Our brains are forests of neuronal circuits through which actions are executed before they ever manifest physically. Hard work acts as a gardener within that forest - trimming, pruning, and fertilizing branches until they produce desirable consequences.Even something as simple as language is built upon repetition and failure. Babies spend months producing cute goos and gahs before speech emerges. Fortunately for them, these attempts are not treated as failures. They are allowed to learn unburdened by consequence.It is funny how this freedom disappears in less than a decade, with every mistake eventually hanging over our necks like an executioner’s guillotine.

At the bottom of this dessert lies the psyche.Hard work creates an identity of self. It becomes a lighthouse amidst the tumultuous storm of emotion. It anchors us in the effervescence of victory and the deluge of defeat alike. It stands firm against unfavourable events and creates a stage upon which our neuronal circuits may bloom into meaningful action.I believe that at the end of the tunnel of emotional and even spiritual soul-searching lies a surprisingly simple answer grounded in hard work.

But simple does not mean easy!

So long may our toils continue.

Stay positive.

‘Productivity lies in the lap of positivity.’

This is something I came to understand during my fourth-year MBBS final practical examinations.

Ophthalmology was the first of six rollercoaster practicals. While all of them were unforgettable in their own ways, ophthalmology was unforgettable for the wrong reasons. A myriad of factors, with none really to blame, led to a subpar set of vivas. But ultimately, at the doorstep of the viva room, there was a mind thinking “Get it over with.”

And it did get over, with as much grace as ripping a bandaid. Each wrong answer compounded my inability to answer the next. My mind derailed during the viva and continued spiraling even while preparing for the next exam. It took a lot of conversation, reflection, and a good night’s sleep to recover from it.

Fortunately, that process bore some fruit. I decided not to bear down on myself too much. I decided to stay positive - though what exactly that meant would have to be learned on the fly.

Fast forward to surgery practicals.During the short case vivas, the examiner asked me, “What is Berry’s sign?” It was a basic question, and I did not remember the answer.But this time, instead of beating myself up, I simply focused on the next question.That small shift allowed me to preserve momentum through the rest of the viva. There was no dramatic“just do it” moment in my head. Conversely, there was simply a certain lightness that allowed what I had already learned to surface.

And perhaps that is what positivity really is.Not an enhancing drug. Not blind optimism. Positivity is simply a state of consciousness that does not allow the result of one moment to burden the possibility of the next. It simply allows what can be, to be.