GOLD! So if you are born poor in a 3rd world shitpool, can you still make it? My Story.

[DarkKnight]

This story is absolutely unbelievable. My full respect to you bro. How are you today? You have really inspired me! I would love to know more about how you are doing

Thanks for stopping by and the kind words!
I am living the dream I dreamt years ago -- ended up in a small coastal town where scenic beaches are a 20 min drive away, lots of trails and nature to be found. I've decided to slow down and give myself time to rest and regroup and heal the battle scars that I took on during the first war. After failing 3 times this year already to go fastlane, I realized this is not something you "try and see how it goes". It requires the same level of grit as the previous war -- you don't turn up one day on the Olympic track and "see how it goes". You fix a goal in your mind -- about winning that gold and then you train backwards from that point in the future to the moment you're at -- deliberately, unceasingly until you WIN -- on the days you want to and the days you do not want to. This kind of work ethic requires a very strong WHY and a full tank of gas. I am taking the time to refill this tank as I pick up new skills in the meanwhile. Also going to be welcoming my son next year in this paradise and I hope to spend lots of time with him!

This year has also been one of the most profound years of my life. The "f*ck this" moment that MJ talks about in his book happened to me -- its an excruciatingly painful, core-shaking experience and nothing is the same again once the shift has happened. I don't know what I am going to do yet but I just know that awareness of my current situation has become very very painful -- life is slipping by while my unrealized dreams wander the halls of the underworld and haunt me every waking moment. I cannot die with them unrealized and I will throw everything I have on one stake of events to win, fail, and then try again. I wish there was another way, but I don't see any.

 

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[Harsha Vardhan]

In one his books, MJ makes a good argument: If you are born in a First World country, have a healthy mind and body, there is absolutely no reason for you to not be able to break through the chains of servitude. Now a question arises -- what if you are born on the wrong side of the planet? And you ain't too smart?

I had that puzzle to solve. I was born poor in a 3rd world country where corruption and cast-ism reigned strong. In early childhood, I experienced beatings on a daily basis because I didn't have a f*cking pen to do my homework and the teacher won't believe me. Or not being able to afford a 5 cents worth box of color pencils. Watching hot food being served to paying customers/kids while you starve in a corner, watching kids buy ice-cream and all the other shit a kid wants after-school and eyeing that stuff secretly for fear of being made fun of for being poor again. Not having a soda-pop in 10 f*cking years? Wearing run-down over-sized borrowed clothes to school on your f*cking farewell/prom and being made fun of yet again as the girl you love watches secretly in the background (and secretly returns your calls but is too afraid to socially own you because you are f*cking poor). One disease -- poverty. [I dare anyone who says money doesn't matter].

As much as that hurt me, it f*cking pissed me off and filled me with anger, revenge and a special kind of hate. My 20s at college were a repeat because I lived in a 10$ a month room in a sulphur warehouse where drinking poisonous water caused me to get jaundice thrice in a year. I rode a broken down bicycle to college that made squeky noises and got laughed at by rich kids, every single day. My budget for food was less than $1 a day. I did not have healthcare. I waited months for 'emergency' surgeries because there were too many poor people before me in the line who couldn't afford it either. I once happened to wait for a few hours outside an overcrowded hospital at night only to find out one of the guys I was watching wait the last night, had now died - waiting. How I even got to college is a story in itself.

Anyway, somewhere during the suffering, I dared to dream. A dream where all of this suffering had ended, where I could drink clean water and breathe clean air and not be bothered about where the next meal would come from. I wanted away from being looked on as being of a certain caste, of living in fear in a corrupt country and being humiliated everyday. So, I cried the nights out and started to dream about a mythical place where there was no more pain, no more humiliation, no more fear.

WW1: It finally dawned on me that the only way this shit was changing was if I managed to get to a first world country with a quality education. I inquired about how much it would cost -- about $120,000 was the figure I was told I would need after visiting every 'higher education' fair that came to the city, even if I managed to get in a quality school with my grades, that is. There was only one problem -- I didn't have a $100 to spend and I was stupid and flunking my first semester. But I couldn't dream of anything else, the dream had consumed me like MJ's Ferrari. I had met too many people returning from the fairy lands telling me too many tales about the myth being true, I had watched too many videos, read too many brochures and dreamed too far. When I made it known to my family, I was pronounced a lunatic. I was 22.

I would need to write a book on what happened next, but too keep it short, here's a quick summary.
I got OBSESSED with history's last stands. Where men, CERTAIN of their impending death, instead of running away to save their lives, chose to stand valiantly and face their fears as they embraced death fighting odds too great with open arms. I had made a commitment to march into the unknown and not give a f*ck about the odds. In hindsight, I don't know if I would do again what I did. But I was too hurt and too stupid to care. My room resembled more of a HQ during times of war than a sane 22yr old's room. The walls were covered with maps of my next offensive -- in other words, what I needed to do next to get JUST ONE INCH CLOSER. There were offensives planned out years in advance with 'stockpiles' of skills. There were 'fronts', elaborate defensive operations, even resource allocation towards researching for an A-bomb that could be a game-changer. With military history books, ideas were taken and strategically applied towards my objectives. Many facades were created and dummies planted to save resources on fronts when I could not afford to fight at multiple fronts at the same time.

One guy, after I met hundreds tells me that the secret to getting in a good school is research papers. I was in a school where the CS 'Professors' don't understand English or coding, forget research. Hell, in that college 3 girls were murdered in the last 2 years -- hacked to pieces with an axe by their 'lovers'. What 'research' could I do? So an offensive was planned, in f*cking great detail and 2 years later, I published 7 research papers of dubious quality because that was all I knew. But it was done. I crammed 5,000 English words inorder to take the GRE when I sucked at cramming. I took the TOEFL exam 3 times. I've written the IELTS thrice as well -- each time with near perfect scores.
While all this was going on, a second front opened -- I got a job as a software developer in a place with absent labor laws requiring me to work 18 hour days, 364 days a year. I took shit at my job every day, got the lowest grade possible to required keep my job and indulged in parasitic entrepreneurship. I didn't have time to date or make friends. I worked like an absolute a$$.
After wading through this pool of shit that stretched for miles for 5 years, I applied to a Western School that accepted me with a 100 % tuition waiver + a Research Assistant ship. Didn't have the $5,000 I needed to come up with to even get to that country. I went back to the drawing board, planned a new offensive with the goal to get even that $5,000 as scholarship money and 3 years later applied again, getting into 8 schools with 5 of them extending 100% waivers and assistant-ships. Due to a combination of plain stupidity, poor planning and the general difficulty of getting a non-immigrant first-world country visa when you get a full ride which another native kid could use, my visa got rejected 4 times -- right at the point of culmination of my 8 years of blood and sweat. I had the college offer letter in hand -- full ride, everything ready to go, just awaiting a stamp of approval from the 'system' to leave the bottom-most slave barracks of the ship but was swatted away like a cockroach. No one gave a f*ck. I was broken, depressed, and finished. A regular at the psychiatrist. I tried buying poison online to commit suicide. I had given up all of my career opportunities for this and the war was lost. But I did not die.

3 years post that, I visited a first-world country for the first time in my life on a tourist visa. I wanted to go see first hand if the myth was really true. I couldn't afford Europe, but I'd heard Singapore was a first-world country. When the flight landed and I was on my way to the hotel, I couldn't believe the contrast between where I lived and this place I was in. I managed to keep it together all morning but I broke down completely taking a walk on a street there one night. It was either this or death itself. It didn't matter anymore. I came back home and re-applied with whatever grades that were still valid. I wish I could tell you it was easy this time. It wasn't. Not at all. But good things don't come easy. Another crawl through a pool of shit and 5 years later, today I can write this:

After 12 years of blood and sweat chasing down an impossible dream and many countless battles and failures later, I graduated last year from a top-ranked school in this First-World country I live in now. I work as a software developer in some big-name corporation here and make a decent wage. I drink clean water and breathe awesome clean air. I can have meat or whatever, any day I want. I work less than 8 hrs a day and make 50x the money I made from my first job.
I am a Permanent Resident on the path to citizenship. It is possible. Certainly not easy.

WW2:
The world is F*cked as MJ says. I am still not free. Although I work way less than 8 hrs a day, I still have to look to my employer for a paycheck, deal with office politics and can't just take off to see the world. As grateful as I am, I WILL NOT DIE IN CHAINS. This is my only WHY. FREEDOM.

Oh, and I'm on it. Planning for another campaign for a pivotal war that I will EVENTUALLY win. I will be free in 10 years, or I will die trying. Actually, there is no OR.
My room is again being converted to a war-room. Maps again, stories of last stands, books of entrepreneurs who made it despite all odds. The prize of the battle is my life, the objective to build a SaaS business that eventually brings me $50,000 a month after tax without me having to work everyday. The shorter-term goal is to build a personal developer brand so I can get my foot into consulting to finance my new ventures. It can be done -- just would need a few thousand hours of skills-acquisition.
And it won't happen tomorrow. This is a game of inches. One, bloody, F*cking inch at a time. Crawling through fingernails, desperately struggling to breathe another puff of air. Life or Death. Freedom or Slavery.

So, this was my introduction. I have been lurking here for a long time but never posted. And I guess, this is my way of saying 'Hi Folks!'.

You're an Inspiration bro!!

 

[Mike Stoian]

I remember the first time I left my shit country. I was on a bus at 3 am, in the middle of nowhere. I haven't slept for around 30 hours. The only lights for miles were the bus' headlights and right there it hit me and I cried like I haven't cried in my life because I was finally out.

Thank you for sharing your story. I admire you greatly.

 

[DarkKnight]

This is some of the most bada** imagery I have heard in a while.
Epic. I totally get it.

Back against the wall, enemy at the gate, no guns, no ammo.
Not even any damn rocks to throw at them.
The enemy is advancing towards you.

Like the battle of Gettysburg here in American History. 20th Maine regiment.

You've got nothing left? You're at the end?
You're certainly going to get overrun, overwhelmed, and killed.
And here.they.come...
What do you do when you're at that point?

You attack THEM.

And you surprise the hell out of them, and even yourself.
And you have a chance, just a chance, to turn the tables and win.

Sorry, bit of a ramble, but this is epic imagery. Gave me the chills.

Spot on brother!
In life, before you get to that 'impossible' dream that you so desperately want, you'll have to hack your way through enemy ranks and this ain't easy. Most look the other way and take the path that looks 'easy', a.k.a. offers a slow death. Some of us choose to look right into the eyes of the enemy and advance. Not that we are not afraid, hell no, we are! Our legs shake and our hands tremble, yet we continue the advance. Bullets whizz past our ears, shells fly and shake the earth, yet we continue the advance. We acknowledge the fear and the odds we are up against, and yet we continue the advance.

When we reach the enemy ranks and real fight begins -- hand to hand, desperate, no pity -- when it looks we have lost, yet we continue to fight -- when we look forward to a glorious death on the battlefield rather than a coward's life, then, THEN, in the midst of chaos somewhere, it starts to give way. Is that fate or glory, I do not know. What I do know is that sooner or later the tables start to turn -- for destiny is not served on a platter but is reserved for the warrior who will fight and earn his keep -- Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. Sooner or later the man who WINS is the man who THINKS HE CAN.

 

[DarkKnight]

This is some of the most bada** imagery I have heard in a while.
Epic. I totally get it.
Sorry, bit of a ramble, but this is epic imagery. Gave me the chills.

Exactly. Outnumbered 10 to 1, no rest or food, the enemy heavy cavalry charges and you, a poor Scottish farmer with little more than a wooden spear knows that after they are done with you, the enemy shall attack your home and torture and murder your family and burn your barns. What do you do? If you run away and hide, at best you may live a while -- each day wishing you were dead. You did not choose this fight, you did not set this table. Yet, now that you are here, you CHOOSE to fight and defend your family and die like a man -- if it comes to that. There really isn't a choice. You hold your Schiltron. And there is nowhere else to be but here, in the fight, now.

Thanks for the positive comments on the writing.

 

[cv_guimara]

Man, I'm truly lost for words after reading your story. Even as someone who's from somewhat of a third-world country myself(not even close to being as bad as what you described though), I can't even imagine what that must have been like. As someone else on here just said, "You've been through hell and came back to tell us about it". Massive respect.

Keep on grinding, the payoff will come.

Thank you for sharing your story.

 

[MithilMallya]

South Asia to North America.

In one his books, MJ makes a good argument: If you are born in a First World country, have a healthy mind and body, there is absolutely no reason for you to not be able to break through the chains of servitude. Now a question arises -- what if you are born on the wrong side of the planet? And you ain't too smart?

I had that puzzle to solve. I was born poor in a 3rd world country where corruption and cast-ism reigned strong. In early childhood, I experienced beatings on a daily basis because I didn't have a f*cking pen to do my homework and the teacher won't believe me. Or not being able to afford a 5 cents worth box of color pencils. Watching hot food being served to paying customers/kids while you starve in a corner, watching kids buy ice-cream and all the other shit a kid wants after-school and eyeing that stuff secretly for fear of being made fun of for being poor again. Not having a soda-pop in 10 f*cking years? Wearing run-down over-sized borrowed clothes to school on your f*cking farewell/prom and being made fun of yet again as the girl you love watches secretly in the background (and secretly returns your calls but is too afraid to socially own you because you are f*cking poor). One disease -- poverty. [I dare anyone who says money doesn't matter].

As much as that hurt me, it f*cking pissed me off and filled me with anger, revenge and a special kind of hate. My 20s at college were a repeat because I lived in a 10$ a month room in a sulphur warehouse where drinking poisonous water caused me to get jaundice thrice in a year. I rode a broken down bicycle to college that made squeky noises and got laughed at by rich kids, every single day. My budget for food was less than $1 a day. I did not have healthcare. I waited months for 'emergency' surgeries because there were too many poor people before me in the line who couldn't afford it either. I once happened to wait for a few hours outside an overcrowded hospital at night only to find out one of the guys I was watching wait the last night, had now died - waiting. How I even got to college is a story in itself.

Anyway, somewhere during the suffering, I dared to dream. A dream where all of this suffering had ended, where I could drink clean water and breathe clean air and not be bothered about where the next meal would come from. I wanted away from being looked on as being of a certain caste, of living in fear in a corrupt country and being humiliated everyday. So, I cried the nights out and started to dream about a mythical place where there was no more pain, no more humiliation, no more fear.

WW1: It finally dawned on me that the only way this shit was changing was if I managed to get to a first world country with a quality education. I inquired about how much it would cost -- about $120,000 was the figure I was told I would need after visiting every 'higher education' fair that came to the city, even if I managed to get in a quality school with my grades, that is. There was only one problem -- I didn't have a $100 to spend and I was stupid and flunking my first semester. But I couldn't dream of anything else, the dream had consumed me like MJ's Ferrari. I had met too many people returning from the fairy lands telling me too many tales about the myth being true, I had watched too many videos, read too many brochures and dreamed too far. When I made it known to my family, I was pronounced a lunatic. I was 22.

I would need to write a book on what happened next, but too keep it short, here's a quick summary.
I got OBSESSED with history's last stands. Where men, CERTAIN of their impending death, instead of running away to save their lives, chose to stand valiantly and face their fears as they embraced death fighting odds too great with open arms. I had made a commitment to march into the unknown and not give a f*ck about the odds. In hindsight, I don't know if I would do again what I did. But I was too hurt and too stupid to care. My room resembled more of a HQ during times of war than a sane 22yr old's room. The walls were covered with maps of my next offensive -- in other words, what I needed to do next to get JUST ONE INCH CLOSER. There were offensives planned out years in advance with 'stockpiles' of skills. There were 'fronts', elaborate defensive operations, even resource allocation towards researching for an A-bomb that could be a game-changer. With military history books, ideas were taken and strategically applied towards my objectives. Many facades were created and dummies planted to save resources on fronts when I could not afford to fight at multiple fronts at the same time.

One guy, after I met hundreds tells me that the secret to getting in a good school is research papers. I was in a school where the CS 'Professors' don't understand English or coding, forget research. Hell, in that college 3 girls were murdered in the last 2 years -- hacked to pieces with an axe by their 'lovers'. What 'research' could I do? So an offensive was planned, in f*cking great detail and 2 years later, I published 7 research papers of dubious quality because that was all I knew. But it was done. I crammed 5,000 English words inorder to take the GRE when I sucked at cramming. I took the TOEFL exam 3 times. I've written the IELTS thrice as well -- each time with near perfect scores.
While all this was going on, a second front opened -- I got a job as a software developer in a place with absent labor laws requiring me to work 18 hour days, 364 days a year. I took shit at my job every day, got the lowest grade possible to required keep my job and indulged in parasitic entrepreneurship. I didn't have time to date or make friends. I worked like an absolute a$$.
After wading through this pool of shit that stretched for miles for 5 years, I applied to a Western School that accepted me with a 100 % tuition waiver + a Research Assistant ship. Didn't have the $5,000 I needed to come up with to even get to that country. I went back to the drawing board, planned a new offensive with the goal to get even that $5,000 as scholarship money and 3 years later applied again, getting into 8 schools with 5 of them extending 100% waivers and assistant-ships. Due to a combination of plain stupidity, poor planning and the general difficulty of getting a non-immigrant first-world country visa when you get a full ride which another native kid could use, my visa got rejected 4 times -- right at the point of culmination of my 8 years of blood and sweat. I had the college offer letter in hand -- full ride, everything ready to go, just awaiting a stamp of approval from the 'system' to leave the bottom-most slave barracks of the ship but was swatted away like a cockroach. No one gave a f*ck. I was broken, depressed, and finished. A regular at the psychiatrist. I tried buying poison online to commit suicide. I had given up all of my career opportunities for this and the war was lost. But I did not die.

3 years post that, I visited a first-world country for the first time in my life on a tourist visa. I wanted to go see first hand if the myth was really true. I couldn't afford Europe, but I'd heard Singapore was a first-world country. When the flight landed and I was on my way to the hotel, I couldn't believe the contrast between where I lived and this place I was in. I managed to keep it together all morning but I broke down completely taking a walk on a street there one night. It was either this or death itself. It didn't matter anymore. I came back home and re-applied with whatever grades that were still valid. I wish I could tell you it was easy this time. It wasn't. Not at all. But good things don't come easy. Another crawl through a pool of shit and 5 years later, today I can write this:

After 12 years of blood and sweat chasing down an impossible dream and many countless battles and failures later, I graduated last year from a top-ranked school in this First-World country I live in now. I work as a software developer in some big-name corporation here and make a decent wage. I drink clean water and breathe awesome clean air. I can have meat or whatever, any day I want. I work less than 8 hrs a day and make 50x the money I made from my first job.
I am a Permanent Resident on the path to citizenship. It is possible. Certainly not easy.

WW2:
The world is F*cked as MJ says. I am still not free. Although I work way less than 8 hrs a day, I still have to look to my employer for a paycheck, deal with office politics and can't just take off to see the world. As grateful as I am, I WILL NOT DIE IN CHAINS. This is my only WHY. FREEDOM.

Oh, and I'm on it. Planning for another campaign for a pivotal war that I will EVENTUALLY win. I will be free in 10 years, or I will die trying. Actually, there is no OR.
My room is again being converted to a war-room. Maps again, stories of last stands, books of entrepreneurs who made it despite all odds. The prize of the battle is my life, the objective to build a SaaS business that eventually brings me $50,000 a month after tax without me having to work everyday. The shorter-term goal is to build a personal developer brand so I can get my foot into consulting to finance my new ventures. It can be done -- just would need a few thousand hours of skills-acquisition.
And it won't happen tomorrow. This is a game of inches. One, bloody, F*cking inch at a time. Crawling through fingernails, desperately struggling to breathe another puff of air. Life or Death. Freedom or Slavery.

So, this was my introduction. I have been lurking here for a long time but never posted. And I guess, this is my way of saying 'Hi Folks!'.

You, my friend, are an embodiment of persistence. Can you please tell me the name of your previous country?

 

[DarkKnight]

Wow, what a story!

Have you read the poem "Invictus"? One of my favorites, and describes your situation perfectly, even though its over 100 years old!

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

That's great poetry! Yes, I have read it. Thanks for the kind words.

 

[TheComebackKid]

Thanks for stopping by and the kind words!
I am living the dream I dreamt years ago -- ended up in a small coastal town where scenic beaches are a 20 min drive away, lots of trails and nature to be found. I've decided to slow down and give myself time to rest and regroup and heal the battle scars that I took on during the first war. After failing 3 times this year already to go fastlane, I realized this is not something you "try and see how it goes". It requires the same level of grit as the previous war -- you don't turn up one day on the Olympic track and "see how it goes". You fix a goal in your mind -- about winning that gold and then you train backwards from that point in the future to the moment you're at -- deliberately, unceasingly until you WIN -- on the days you want to and the days you do not want to. This kind of work ethic requires a very strong WHY and a full tank of gas. I am taking the time to refill this tank as I pick up new skills in the meanwhile. Also going to be welcoming my son next year in this paradise and I hope to spend lots of time with him!

This year has also been one of the most profound years of my life. The "f*ck this" moment that MJ talks about in his book happened to me -- its an excruciatingly painful, core-shaking experience and nothing is the same again once the shift has happened. I don't know what I am going to do yet but I just know that awareness of my current situation has become very very painful -- life is slipping by while my unrealized dreams wander the halls of the underworld and haunt me every waking moment. I cannot die with them unrealized and I will throw everything I have on one stake of events to win, fail, and then try again. I wish there was another way, but I don't see any.

Bro, thank you.

I'm very pleased to hear from you, and your post is so deeply moving, I can really feel a extreme inner drive that is burning within you. You are clearly an exceptional man, and I for one deeply wish for your success.

Congratulations on the upcoming arrival of your son. He is lucky to have a winner as a father.

 

[Bekit]

Spot on brother!
In life, before you get to that 'impossible' dream that you so desperately want, you'll have to hack your way through enemy ranks and this ain't easy. Most look the other way and take the path that looks 'easy', a.k.a. offers a slow death. Some of us choose to look right into the eyes of the enemy and advance. Not that we are not afraid, hell no, we are! Our legs shake and our hands tremble, yet we continue the advance. Bullets whizz past our ears, shells fly and shake the earth, yet we continue the advance. We acknowledge the fear and the odds we are up against, and yet we continue the advance.

When we reach the enemy ranks and real fight begins -- hand to hand, desperate, no pity -- when it looks we have lost, yet we continue to fight -- when we look forward to a glorious death on the battlefield rather than a coward's life, then, THEN, in the midst of chaos somewhere, it starts to give way. Is that fate or glory, I do not know. What I do know is that sooner or later the tables start to turn -- for destiny is not served on a platter but is reserved for the warrior who will fight and earn his keep -- Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. Sooner or later the man who WINS is the man who THINKS HE CAN.

This is one of the most poetic, stirring pieces of writing I've read in a long time. Love it!

 

[Adir Barak]

I was on the verge of tears reading your story and metaphors of battles.
Extremely inspiring. Thank you!

 

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[DarkKnight]

This is one of the most poetic, stirring pieces of writing I've read in a long time. Love it!

Thank you. I loved writing it!

 

[DarkKnight]

Bro, thank you.

I'm very pleased to hear from you, and your post is so deeply moving, I can really feel a extreme inner drive that is burning within you. You are clearly an exceptional man, and I for one deeply wish for your success.

Congratulations on the upcoming arrival of your son. He is lucky to have a winner as a father.

Thanks Brother. Appreciate your kind words.
I wish you success as well!

 

[Vikash Patel]

In one his books, MJ makes a good argument: If you are born in a First World country, have a healthy mind and body, there is absolutely no reason for you to not be able to break through the chains of servitude. Now a question arises -- what if you are born on the wrong side of the planet? And you ain't too smart?

I had that puzzle to solve. I was born poor in a 3rd world country where corruption and cast-ism reigned strong. In early childhood, I experienced beatings on a daily basis because I didn't have a f*cking pen to do my homework and the teacher won't believe me. Or not being able to afford a 5 cents worth box of color pencils. Watching hot food being served to paying customers/kids while you starve in a corner, watching kids buy ice-cream and all the other shit a kid wants after-school and eyeing that stuff secretly for fear of being made fun of for being poor again. Not having a soda-pop in 10 f*cking years? Wearing run-down over-sized borrowed clothes to school on your f*cking farewell/prom and being made fun of yet again as the girl you love watches secretly in the background (and secretly returns your calls but is too afraid to socially own you because you are f*cking poor). One disease -- poverty. [I dare anyone who says money doesn't matter].

As much as that hurt me, it f*cking pissed me off and filled me with anger, revenge and a special kind of hate. My 20s at college were a repeat because I lived in a 10$ a month room in a sulphur warehouse where drinking poisonous water caused me to get jaundice thrice in a year. I rode a broken down bicycle to college that made squeky noises and got laughed at by rich kids, every single day. My budget for food was less than $1 a day. I did not have healthcare. I waited months for 'emergency' surgeries because there were too many poor people before me in the line who couldn't afford it either. I once happened to wait for a few hours outside an overcrowded hospital at night only to find out one of the guys I was watching wait the last night, had now died - waiting. How I even got to college is a story in itself.

Anyway, somewhere during the suffering, I dared to dream. A dream where all of this suffering had ended, where I could drink clean water and breathe clean air and not be bothered about where the next meal would come from. I wanted away from being looked on as being of a certain caste, of living in fear in a corrupt country and being humiliated everyday. So, I cried the nights out and started to dream about a mythical place where there was no more pain, no more humiliation, no more fear.

WW1: It finally dawned on me that the only way this shit was changing was if I managed to get to a first world country with a quality education. I inquired about how much it would cost -- about $120,000 was the figure I was told I would need after visiting every 'higher education' fair that came to the city, even if I managed to get in a quality school with my grades, that is. There was only one problem -- I didn't have a $100 to spend and I was stupid and flunking my first semester. But I couldn't dream of anything else, the dream had consumed me like MJ's Ferrari. I had met too many people returning from the fairy lands telling me too many tales about the myth being true, I had watched too many videos, read too many brochures and dreamed too far. When I made it known to my family, I was pronounced a lunatic. I was 22.

I would need to write a book on what happened next, but too keep it short, here's a quick summary.
I got OBSESSED with history's last stands. Where men, CERTAIN of their impending death, instead of running away to save their lives, chose to stand valiantly and face their fears as they embraced death fighting odds too great with open arms. I had made a commitment to march into the unknown and not give a f*ck about the odds. In hindsight, I don't know if I would do again what I did. But I was too hurt and too stupid to care. My room resembled more of a HQ during times of war than a sane 22yr old's room. The walls were covered with maps of my next offensive -- in other words, what I needed to do next to get JUST ONE INCH CLOSER. There were offensives planned out years in advance with 'stockpiles' of skills. There were 'fronts', elaborate defensive operations, even resource allocation towards researching for an A-bomb that could be a game-changer. With military history books, ideas were taken and strategically applied towards my objectives. Many facades were created and dummies planted to save resources on fronts when I could not afford to fight at multiple fronts at the same time.

One guy, after I met hundreds tells me that the secret to getting in a good school is research papers. I was in a school where the CS 'Professors' don't understand English or coding, forget research. Hell, in that college 3 girls were murdered in the last 2 years -- hacked to pieces with an axe by their 'lovers'. What 'research' could I do? So an offensive was planned, in f*cking great detail and 2 years later, I published 7 research papers of dubious quality because that was all I knew. But it was done. I crammed 5,000 English words inorder to take the GRE when I sucked at cramming. I took the TOEFL exam 3 times. I've written the IELTS thrice as well -- each time with near perfect scores.
While all this was going on, a second front opened -- I got a job as a software developer in a place with absent labor laws requiring me to work 18 hour days, 364 days a year. I took shit at my job every day, got the lowest grade possible to required keep my job and indulged in parasitic entrepreneurship. I didn't have time to date or make friends. I worked like an absolute a$$.
After wading through this pool of shit that stretched for miles for 5 years, I applied to a Western School that accepted me with a 100 % tuition waiver + a Research Assistant ship. Didn't have the $5,000 I needed to come up with to even get to that country. I went back to the drawing board, planned a new offensive with the goal to get even that $5,000 as scholarship money and 3 years later applied again, getting into 8 schools with 5 of them extending 100% waivers and assistant-ships. Due to a combination of plain stupidity, poor planning and the general difficulty of getting a non-immigrant first-world country visa when you get a full ride which another native kid could use, my visa got rejected 4 times -- right at the point of culmination of my 8 years of blood and sweat. I had the college offer letter in hand -- full ride, everything ready to go, just awaiting a stamp of approval from the 'system' to leave the bottom-most slave barracks of the ship but was swatted away like a cockroach. No one gave a f*ck. I was broken, depressed, and finished. A regular at the psychiatrist. I tried buying poison online to commit suicide. I had given up all of my career opportunities for this and the war was lost. But I did not die.

3 years post that, I visited a first-world country for the first time in my life on a tourist visa. I wanted to go see first hand if the myth was really true. I couldn't afford Europe, but I'd heard Singapore was a first-world country. When the flight landed and I was on my way to the hotel, I couldn't believe the contrast between where I lived and this place I was in. I managed to keep it together all morning but I broke down completely taking a walk on a street there one night. It was either this or death itself. It didn't matter anymore. I came back home and re-applied with whatever grades that were still valid. I wish I could tell you it was easy this time. It wasn't. Not at all. But good things don't come easy. Another crawl through a pool of shit and 5 years later, today I can write this:

After 12 years of blood and sweat chasing down an impossible dream and many countless battles and failures later, I graduated last year from a top-ranked school in this First-World country I live in now. I work as a software developer in some big-name corporation here and make a decent wage. I drink clean water and breathe awesome clean air. I can have meat or whatever, any day I want. I work less than 8 hrs a day and make 50x the money I made from my first job.
I am a Permanent Resident on the path to citizenship. It is possible. Certainly not easy.

WW2:
The world is F*cked as MJ says. I am still not free. Although I work way less than 8 hrs a day, I still have to look to my employer for a paycheck, deal with office politics and can't just take off to see the world. As grateful as I am, I WILL NOT DIE IN CHAINS. This is my only WHY. FREEDOM.

Oh, and I'm on it. Planning for another campaign for a pivotal war that I will EVENTUALLY win. I will be free in 10 years, or I will die trying. Actually, there is no OR.
My room is again being converted to a war-room. Maps again, stories of last stands, books of entrepreneurs who made it despite all odds. The prize of the battle is my life, the objective to build a SaaS business that eventually brings me $50,000 a month after tax without me having to work everyday. The shorter-term goal is to build a personal developer brand so I can get my foot into consulting to finance my new ventures. It can be done -- just would need a few thousand hours of skills-acquisition.
And it won't happen tomorrow. This is a game of inches. One, bloody, F*cking inch at a time. Crawling through fingernails, desperately struggling to breathe another puff of air. Life or Death. Freedom or Slavery.

So, this was my introduction. I have been lurking here for a long time but never posted. And I guess, this is my way of saying 'Hi Folks!'.

I often skips the long stories but your post really got me.
I wish you a very good luck .

 

[DarkKnight]

I often skips the long stories but your post really got me.
I wish you a very good luck .

Thanks. Appreciate the love!

 

[Fasoon]

In one his books, MJ makes a good argument: If you are born in a First World country, have a healthy mind and body, there is absolutely no reason for you to not be able to break through the chains of servitude. Now a question arises -- what if you are born on the wrong side of the planet? And you ain't too smart?

I had that puzzle to solve. I was born poor in a 3rd world country where corruption and cast-ism reigned strong. In early childhood, I experienced beatings on a daily basis because I didn't have a f*cking pen to do my homework and the teacher won't believe me. Or not being able to afford a 5 cents worth box of color pencils. Watching hot food being served to paying customers/kids while you starve in a corner, watching kids buy ice-cream and all the other shit a kid wants after-school and eyeing that stuff secretly for fear of being made fun of for being poor again. Not having a soda-pop in 10 f*cking years? Wearing run-down over-sized borrowed clothes to school on your f*cking farewell/prom and being made fun of yet again as the girl you love watches secretly in the background (and secretly returns your calls but is too afraid to socially own you because you are f*cking poor). One disease -- poverty. [I dare anyone who says money doesn't matter].

As much as that hurt me, it f*cking pissed me off and filled me with anger, revenge and a special kind of hate. My 20s at college were a repeat because I lived in a 10$ a month room in a sulphur warehouse where drinking poisonous water caused me to get jaundice thrice in a year. I rode a broken down bicycle to college that made squeky noises and got laughed at by rich kids, every single day. My budget for food was less than $1 a day. I did not have healthcare. I waited months for 'emergency' surgeries because there were too many poor people before me in the line who couldn't afford it either. I once happened to wait for a few hours outside an overcrowded hospital at night only to find out one of the guys I was watching wait the last night, had now died - waiting. How I even got to college is a story in itself.

Anyway, somewhere during the suffering, I dared to dream. A dream where all of this suffering had ended, where I could drink clean water and breathe clean air and not be bothered about where the next meal would come from. I wanted away from being looked on as being of a certain caste, of living in fear in a corrupt country and being humiliated everyday. So, I cried the nights out and started to dream about a mythical place where there was no more pain, no more humiliation, no more fear.

WW1: It finally dawned on me that the only way this shit was changing was if I managed to get to a first world country with a quality education. I inquired about how much it would cost -- about $120,000 was the figure I was told I would need after visiting every 'higher education' fair that came to the city, even if I managed to get in a quality school with my grades, that is. There was only one problem -- I didn't have a $100 to spend and I was stupid and flunking my first semester. But I couldn't dream of anything else, the dream had consumed me like MJ's Ferrari. I had met too many people returning from the fairy lands telling me too many tales about the myth being true, I had watched too many videos, read too many brochures and dreamed too far. When I made it known to my family, I was pronounced a lunatic. I was 22.

I would need to write a book on what happened next, but too keep it short, here's a quick summary.
I got OBSESSED with history's last stands. Where men, CERTAIN of their impending death, instead of running away to save their lives, chose to stand valiantly and face their fears as they embraced death fighting odds too great with open arms. I had made a commitment to march into the unknown and not give a f*ck about the odds. In hindsight, I don't know if I would do again what I did. But I was too hurt and too stupid to care. My room resembled more of a HQ during times of war than a sane 22yr old's room. The walls were covered with maps of my next offensive -- in other words, what I needed to do next to get JUST ONE INCH CLOSER. There were offensives planned out years in advance with 'stockpiles' of skills. There were 'fronts', elaborate defensive operations, even resource allocation towards researching for an A-bomb that could be a game-changer. With military history books, ideas were taken and strategically applied towards my objectives. Many facades were created and dummies planted to save resources on fronts when I could not afford to fight at multiple fronts at the same time.

One guy, after I met hundreds tells me that the secret to getting in a good school is research papers. I was in a school where the CS 'Professors' don't understand English or coding, forget research. Hell, in that college 3 girls were murdered in the last 2 years -- hacked to pieces with an axe by their 'lovers'. What 'research' could I do? So an offensive was planned, in f*cking great detail and 2 years later, I published 7 research papers of dubious quality because that was all I knew. But it was done. I crammed 5,000 English words inorder to take the GRE when I sucked at cramming. I took the TOEFL exam 3 times. I've written the IELTS thrice as well -- each time with near perfect scores.
While all this was going on, a second front opened -- I got a job as a software developer in a place with absent labor laws requiring me to work 18 hour days, 364 days a year. I took shit at my job every day, got the lowest grade possible to required keep my job and indulged in parasitic entrepreneurship. I didn't have time to date or make friends. I worked like an absolute a$$.
After wading through this pool of shit that stretched for miles for 5 years, I applied to a Western School that accepted me with a 100 % tuition waiver + a Research Assistant ship. Didn't have the $5,000 I needed to come up with to even get to that country. I went back to the drawing board, planned a new offensive with the goal to get even that $5,000 as scholarship money and 3 years later applied again, getting into 8 schools with 5 of them extending 100% waivers and assistant-ships. Due to a combination of plain stupidity, poor planning and the general difficulty of getting a non-immigrant first-world country visa when you get a full ride which another native kid could use, my visa got rejected 4 times -- right at the point of culmination of my 8 years of blood and sweat. I had the college offer letter in hand -- full ride, everything ready to go, just awaiting a stamp of approval from the 'system' to leave the bottom-most slave barracks of the ship but was swatted away like a cockroach. No one gave a f*ck. I was broken, depressed, and finished. A regular at the psychiatrist. I tried buying poison online to commit suicide. I had given up all of my career opportunities for this and the war was lost. But I did not die.

3 years post that, I visited a first-world country for the first time in my life on a tourist visa. I wanted to go see first hand if the myth was really true. I couldn't afford Europe, but I'd heard Singapore was a first-world country. When the flight landed and I was on my way to the hotel, I couldn't believe the contrast between where I lived and this place I was in. I managed to keep it together all morning but I broke down completely taking a walk on a street there one night. It was either this or death itself. It didn't matter anymore. I came back home and re-applied with whatever grades that were still valid. I wish I could tell you it was easy this time. It wasn't. Not at all. But good things don't come easy. Another crawl through a pool of shit and 5 years later, today I can write this:

After 12 years of blood and sweat chasing down an impossible dream and many countless battles and failures later, I graduated last year from a top-ranked school in this First-World country I live in now. I work as a software developer in some big-name corporation here and make a decent wage. I drink clean water and breathe awesome clean air. I can have meat or whatever, any day I want. I work less than 8 hrs a day and make 50x the money I made from my first job.
I am a Permanent Resident on the path to citizenship. It is possible. Certainly not easy.

WW2:
The world is F*cked as MJ says. I am still not free. Although I work way less than 8 hrs a day, I still have to look to my employer for a paycheck, deal with office politics and can't just take off to see the world. As grateful as I am, I WILL NOT DIE IN CHAINS. This is my only WHY. FREEDOM.

Oh, and I'm on it. Planning for another campaign for a pivotal war that I will EVENTUALLY win. I will be free in 10 years, or I will die trying. Actually, there is no OR.
My room is again being converted to a war-room. Maps again, stories of last stands, books of entrepreneurs who made it despite all odds. The prize of the battle is my life, the objective to build a SaaS business that eventually brings me $50,000 a month after tax without me having to work everyday. The shorter-term goal is to build a personal developer brand so I can get my foot into consulting to finance my new ventures. It can be done -- just would need a few thousand hours of skills-acquisition.
And it won't happen tomorrow. This is a game of inches. One, bloody, F*cking inch at a time. Crawling through fingernails, desperately struggling to breathe another puff of air. Life or Death. Freedom or Slavery.

So, this was my introduction. I have been lurking here for a long time but never posted. And I guess, this is my way of saying 'Hi Folks!'.

You've come a long way and I truly believe that the worst is already behind you.
While some might find your background too confronting or even surreal to WW1 it can be as much of a blessing as a curse. Most people will never understand what you've come through but they don't have to as you're made from a different type of cloth. I think that your story alone deserves a place on a TED stage as it can be mind opening to some about how majority if the world lives today and how real it is.

You have learned so much along your way and have much to give.

No matter the odds or challenges you definitely got this.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[DarkKnight]

You've come a long way and I truly believe that the worst is already behind you.
While some might find your background too confronting or even surreal to WW1 it can be as much of a blessing as a curse. Most people will never understand what you've come through but they don't have to as you're made from a different type of cloth. I think that your story alone deserves a place on a TED stage as it can be mind opening to some about how majority if the world lives today and how real it is.

You have learned so much along your way and have much to give.

No matter the odds or challenges you definitely got this.

Thanks for sharing.

Thank You for taking the time to write to me. Wish you loads of success in your journey.
And thank you to all you folks who took the time to post your positivity in the comments. Wish you all health and happiness.

 

[Martin.G]

Great story, and a great example of overcoming. That kind of experience could be very helpful to accomplish anything. It could say that you have your "f*ck this" event very early in your life.

Can I ask you where you were born?

 

[DarkKnight]

Great story, and a great example of overcoming. That kind of experience could be very helpful to accomplish anything. It could say that you have your "f*ck this" event very early in your life.

Can I ask you where you were born?

Thanks -- I was born in India.
I wouldn't say I had a "f*ck this" one time event back then. My entire life was excruciatingly painful and I just refused to accept that this would be all I would ever amount to. Living with this ever present pain 24x7 literally drove me insane and I took it all out on making another push, then another and another. Extreme pain can drive you to make insane suicidal charges into the unknown and sometimes these charges succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

 

[Everyman]

Hi @DarkKnight ,

I have to say... I wanted to write your story is impressive, but it is YOU who is impressive.

I cannot even imagine what you have been through your life but, if this means anything to you, your story, and YOU, are important to me.

I think someone already have called you a badass

Anyway, I just wanted to drop a post here and also let you know I wanted to DM you about one of your replies.

Have a great day Man!