introducing atomic learning: explosion
My first two years at the University of Toronto were nothing like I had imagined. I arrived with a builder’s heart, eager to create, but I was met with an endless, abstract wall: computer science theory, linear algebra, and a blur of data structures. None of it felt connected to the act of creation. Without the "why," I felt like a robot, mindlessly consuming information without ever seeing the machine I was supposed to be building.
The learning curve was a vertical cliff. Every new concept felt like a blind ascent with no guarantee of a view at the summit. As the space for creativity vanished, my motivation eroded. I became disillusioned. Deep down, I still wanted to build, but the more I struggled with the theory, the more I convinced myself I wasn't cut out for the practice. I feared the path I’d chosen was closing off the very future I wanted most.
By the winter semester of my second year, I felt cornered. The obvious answer was to lock in, work harder, focus more, be better. But I couldn't. I hadn't told anyone, because it felt too trivial to admit, but I had lost the ability to concentrate. The world had turned grey, and an icy cold grip had tightened around my chest, a feeling that never seemed to leave.
My mind escaped to a place far away from the black-and-white logic of math. I started living day-to-day, doom-scrolling, watching mindless videos, and sleeping twelve hours at a time, finding sanctuary only in my dreams.
I became lazy, procrastinating as much as I could, driven only by the adrenaline of a looming deadline. In CS, starting a project forty-eight hours before it's due is a death sentence. I’d rush through assignments, submit shoddy work, get the "shitty" marks I expected, and then drown in guilt. Eventually, the guilt turned into a hollowed-out indifference. I simply stopped giving a damn.
I realized then that in every moment I had achieved "success," I hadn't actually been happy, only relieved. I hadn't lived a life. I wanted that more than anything, but UofT felt like a place reserved only for high performers who didn't need to breathe.
I didn't have the vocabulary for what I was feeling. Where I’m from, "mental health" isn't a concept. Emotions don't mean much; you either perform or you don't. I was experiencing a darkness even stronger than anything I’d ever felt, but I didn't know how to interpret it. I had always believed that happiness and success were two sides of the same coin - that was the only way I endured the brutal grind to get here. But the coin had landed on its edge. I felt more alone than ever, thousands of miles from the childhood friends who actually knew me.
I started asking questions that seemed rhetorical: Is it actually necessary to feel like shit all the time to be successful? Were the "smart people" I looked up to also in a constant state of fight-or-flight? Why did they endure this?
The voice in my head kept screaming the same thing: Just work hard, get the grades, get the internship, and forget everything else. But for the first time, I couldn't make myself listen.
Human beings are emotionally complex, but that complexity is only unlocked in places where it’s understood. In the house where I grew up, in the schools I attended, and the society I was raised in, we didn't have the language for this nuance. If I told anyone back home, they’d call it laziness. They’d say the remedy was a good shouting to put the "fear of God" back into me so I’d start working again.
But I knew it was deeper.
I only realized much later that this is what Burnout and Depression look like. Even then, I felt a deep shame in looking toward UofT’s mental health resources. I worried about what people back home would say. I felt like a failure.
Maybe the solution was just that simple: work hard. Maybe therapy was just an excuse to be soft. Maybe I was being ungrateful for my parents' sacrifices. Maybe I was just choosing a hedonistic pursuit of "joy" over the foundations of a future.