The Shark in my Tank: Finding the balance between challenging myself and caring for my mental health

A couple of days ago, I was scrolling through LinkedIn (yes, I am that sort of a person). I came across this story written very much in the format of a WhatsApp forward – it ended with “loved this story, couldn’t resist sharing it ahead” or some variation of that sentence.

Here is my paraphrased version of the story: the people of a certain country had a preference for fresh fish, but the water near their country had hardly any fish. To feed their population, the fishing boats went further into the sea and returned with the fish they found. 

However, by that time, the fish were long dead and the meal was no longer fresh. This brought down the price of fish in the markets.

To overcome this challenge, the fishing companies installed freezers on the boats. The new fishing boats went out into the sea and returned with the frozen fish. 

This, too, was not to the mark for the people – it was better than the dead, unrefrigerated fish, but it still wasn’t fresh. People stopped buying fish in the markets.

In panic, the fishing companies decided to install fish tanks in the boats so that they could bring back live fishes. The fishing boats captured a lot of fish and dumped them fin to fin in the tanks. When they got back, the fishes were tired and dull, but they were alive. Alas, the people could still taste the difference between fresh fish and the fish in these tanks. They wanted “lively fish”, not “sluggish fish”.

“The fishing industry faced an impending crisis!” the post claims. What were they to do? Prices were falling fast and people were getting impatient.

Then the company came up with a plan. They introduced a small shark into these water tanks. The shark ate a few of the fishes, of course, but most of the fishes returned to land alive and lively. The post alludes to their being “challenged” as the cause for them being lively and fresh. They had to be constantly on the move to save themselves from the shark, and this kept them healthy.

Then, in true “WhatsApp forward” fashion, this post had a “moral” in all caps. I usually cringe at the morals on WhatsApp forwards, but thankfully, this one had it spelt out for me because I had misunderstood the whole thing.

The moral goes like this: If you are steadily conquering challenges, you are happy. Your challenges keep you energized. They keep you alive! Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!

 

Your challenges keep you energized and so does intake of Omega-3 fatty acids  

I kept blinking at this ending. I searched for some sort of satirical tone in the post, but it wasn’t there. How did the writer of this story and the sharer of this post miss the point? 

One sitting in a tedious eighth-grade literature class (and one look at the news) taught me that the shark is usually a metaphor for the powerful, the corporates, the rich, the upper caste, and their dominant shared culture; they who use their privileges to their advantage.

What I am hearing is the story of fishes who were minding their business and just swimmin’ around, when a consumerism-obsessed corporate captured fish village after fish village so that they could raise the price of seafood on land.

Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go! Well, they put the shark in the fish tank, and the fishes…they didn’t really go that far. They went straight into the stomachs of the fresh-fish fanatics.

Yes, the fishes have to fight for their lives even in the oceans, but this was not the ocean. This was a tank with the created illusion of freedom. 

It was the image of the live fish in the fish tanks that stuck with me – them being captured and then chased around by the shark; them running for their lives and succeeding, only to then be eaten. Their success was imaginary.

 

Falling into loopholes

This, of course, is a political discourse long screamed from rooftops in the demand for equal rights. But there is something else I want to say about this. Something smaller.

How many times have we been told this story as a child? Not this exact one, of course, but stuff similar to this. Stories where pressure and survival have been neatly wrapped in the shining cover of “challenge”?

 

“Success starts outside your comfort zone.”

“If you take up a job you love, you will never work a day in your life.”

“Work hard and everything you want will come to you.”

“Try your very best and leave the rest to god.”

“If you are truly passionate about something, you wouldn’t mind the overtime.” 

There are gaping loopholes in these idioms, and I fell into them, head-first. These idioms ask you to work hard, but they don’t tell you how much hard work you need. They tell you that hard work will bring success, but they don't give you the tools to gauge success. They tell you to leave your comfort zone behind, but they don't tell you that tolerating discomfort is not the same thing as leaving your comfort zone.

I listened to these idioms; I worked hard and when it didn’t get me what I wanted, I worked harder. When that still didn’t get me what I wanted, I left my comfort zone, even though it gave me anxiety. When that also didn’t work, I worked even harder.

This is true for everything I have done in my life, especially studies. Before my twelfth grade Sociology exam, I developed a high fever. I was thoroughly prepared though; I never left studies to the last minute. Yet, I was convinced that if I do not revise, I would not be working “hard enough”, and I sat up and revised. 

I have refused to give up electives that were giving me anxiety because “what if I haven’t given it my best shot?” I have completed projects and pushed through workouts even when I was physically tired because “challenge is good for me.” I have picked up phone calls when I was not in the mental state to. I have refused to leave toxic friendships and sat put in places that made me uncomfortable because “if I just tried a little harder, just a little more, I will succeed.”

This attitude brought me near perfect scores in class; it won me new opportunities; it gave me many friends.

But I had voluntarily put a shark into my own tank. This became my whole personality. If I wasn't working myself to death, what was even the purpose of life? Who was I beyond a hardworking person?

And so, I continued to do extra readings for classes that didn’t demand it; I sat up late to write essays just so that I can “practise”; I cried when I couldn’t draw or write like I aspired to. I confused exhausting myself for “challenge”, and overworking myself for “hard work”.

I was constantly looking over my shoulder for the shark that was chasing me, ready to bite my head off. I didn’t realise when my marathon to achieve some imaginary perfection had become me running for my life.

 

On mountain climbing and jumping out of loopholes

In the movie Dear Zindagi, the psychologist, Dr Jehangir Khan, tells a story that I had never heard before, in any form. A man, Mr. Pyarelal, wanted to climb Mount Everest – it was his passion, the sole purpose of his life. So, the first chance he got, he took off towards the peak, without any preparation or practice. The expedition group he went with knew only Mandarin. 

Eager to fulfil his life’s purpose, Pyarelal left them behind and marched on as fast as he could. His expedition buddies warned him of the dangers of this mountain in Mandarin, but he kept on, having no idea what they were saying. 

Suddenly, a snow leopard appeared on his path. A panicked Pyarelal began to shout for help in English, but his fellow trekkers did not know his language and assumed he was just joyfully waving to them. Of course, the story ends with the snow leopard eating up our little guy.

Why, Dr Jehangir asks, do we make things hard for ourselves? Why do we force ourselves to take on challenges, especially when we aren’t ready for them? We think that to gain important things in life, we need to do the hard thing – we need to punish ourselves. But it’s not necessary that the hard way is always the best way. Sometimes, the easy way can be the best way too.

 

To ice-cream or not to scream, that is the question

I needed this story; it was permission to recognize that there is a difference between taking up an opportunity that is good for me and taking up a challenge I am not yet ready to conquer. I need to give myself the time to research, prepare, and practise, and to equip myself with the tools to do what needs to be done.

Or maybe I will never be ready to conquer it. Maybe I am ice-cream and not carbon, and I’d just burn instead of turning into a jewel, if thrown into fire.

What those idioms leave out is that when I am truly prepared to take up a challenge, leaving my comfort zone behind would feel organic: surely a bit exciting, perhaps even calming. Not disconcerting and anxiety provoking.

Anyway, there are enough sharks out there chasing us and enough people trying to feast on us fresh fish, without us having to run from our own personally created sharks. I have to learn to weed the shark out.

 

So, hear me out. Don't not put any sharks in your tank. Just take that extra nap and eat that last cookie. The big sharks are going to get us, but in the mean time we can allow ourselves to be dumber by one more Netflix show. Sometimes, the easy way can be the best way too.