A Labsolute Work in Progress!!

One of the memories of high school that still makes my stomach knot is slipping on a lab coat and stepping into the laboratory. Even today, the thought of standing in that line outside the lab makes my chest tighten. Most of my friends, and nearly everyone I have spoken to since, have told me they loved the lab far more than the boring lectures in class. For them, experiments were exciting. For me, it was suffocating. So if you find this strange… trust me, you are not the problem. 😛

What made the lab so intimidating was the pressure to deliver a tangible result. In my school, every experiment had to end with proof in the form of numbers, colors, or precipitates, signed off by the teacher or the lab assistant patrolling the aisles. And if you did not get the “right” result, there was no escaping. You had to come back during the next lab period, repeat the whole process, and risk failing again, all while the dreaded words Late Submission burned their way onto your record.

I was lucky. Some of my classmates always managed to reach the desired results, and I would quietly copy their conclusions and end-readings into my report. I can still see the lab assistant shuffling down the rows, repeating in broken English one of the only lines he seemed to know:

The only experiments that teach you are the ones you do yourself.

At first I thought him wise. But with time, I realized he was not much different from me. He did not know how to actually conduct the experiments either. All he knew were the correct outcomes, and if your notebook matched them, he would sign without a question 🫠. That was when I stopped even pretending to ask for his help. I just kept cheating my way through… memorizing the results the same way he did.

To survive practical exams, I played the same game: recall the right numbers, let others handle the messy glassware, and present the perfect write-up. Fortunately, I was strong in theory, and that carried me. I scored well enough to stay unnoticed, my above-average marks shielding the quiet panic that experiments always triggered in me.

Growing up, as the constant supervision of teachers and parents slowly faded into the background, I began to experience a freedom I had never known before. For the first time, the choices I made were entirely my own, and with that came an intoxicating sense of control over my life. What once felt like rigid boundaries now seemed to dissolve, and everything appeared easier simply because I no longer needed permission to act. Unshackled by constant instructions and expectations, I could carve my own path. The sky no longer seemed like a distant metaphor. It felt like an open canvas, waiting for me to decide how far I wanted to reach. I could work, earn money with my own effort, and more importantly, decide how to spend it without having to explain myself to anyone. That independence gave me a sense of power, a belief that I was finally steering my own life, no matter where it led.

I had people I looked up to, the individuals whose lives seemed to hold the answers I was searching for. The student within me believed that if I could simply study their conclusions, their achievements, their status and their way of living, I could reproduce the same outcomes for myself. I tried to reverse-engineer their success, applying my limited understanding of life as if it were a formula that would guarantee me the same results.

But this method soon revealed its obvious flaws. For the first time, it failed me, and it failed me completely. I stumbled, not just in small ways, but in ways that forced me to confront the truth I had been ignoring. In chasing the end results, I had dismissed the experiments, the countless trials, the failed reactions and recalculations that made those results possible. I had overlooked the late nights, the setbacks, the persistence, and the learning that shaped those people I admired. I had been so fixated on imitating their results that I had blinded myself to the process, the very journey that gives meaning to the outcome.

There came a point in my life when everything just felt too overwhelming. I have always taken failures very personally, so every setback hit me harder than it should have. The pain was difficult to handle, and I didn’t know how to move forward. The only thing I could do was sit with myself and think. That is when I told myself to Retreat, Reorganize, and Retry.

Over time, I had built a habit of searching for answers whenever I felt stuck. I watched documentaries, read books, and carefully made notes of ideas that resonated with me. These became my personal guideposts, something I could turn back to whenever life pushed me into a corner. And during one such search, I stumbled upon a book that made me pause and reconsider the way I was approaching my struggles, Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff.

Out of everything I thought I needed to work on, three points stood out the most :-
1. The way I perceived Time was wrong.
2. Procrastination was not an honest reflection of my dedication to the task.
3. Perfectionism is an idea that is unrealistically perfect.

I had learned to treat time like a currency that had to be squeezed for maximum output. I rushed through tasks, tried to multitask, and measured my worth by how much I managed to achieve within a fixed unit of time. Recently, I made a tiny shift in perspective: instead of obsessing over how much I can fit into my day, I now focus on the quality of the time I spend. Rather than filling every slot on my calendar, writing long to-do lists, and ending up disappointed when I fell short, I have started categorizing my efforts into three simple groups: a) tasks that require deep focus 💻️ , b) tasks that demand creativity ✍️ , and c) leisure, which though not a task, is just as important 🙃.

Once I started aligning my life with the above categorization and began to feel a little more secure about how I spent my time, it felt like the perfect moment to tackle one of my oldest foes: Procrastination. The first memory that comes rushing back when I think of it is me sitting with my books just hours before an exam, scrambling to finish an entire syllabus (ngl, it still makes me anxious) 😭. When I began exploring different approaches to deal with procrastination, my first step was to throw out all the advice that simply said, “Push through.” Let’s be honest, that sh*t doesn’t work! What resonated with me instead was the idea of treating procrastination as a signal. An indicator that the task in front of me actually needs more attention. Asking myself a few basic questions has helped: Am I clear on why this task matters? Do I genuinely care about it? Do I have what I need to complete it? If the answer to any of these is “no,” I either drop the task entirely, delegate it to someone more interested, or wait until the resources are available. Pairing this mindset with the reminder that asking for help is not a sign of weakness has made a big difference in how I approach my work.

Of course, even when I manage to sit at my desk and get started, there’s always one final boss waiting for me: the pursuit of Perfection. (And honestly, what even is perfection? 🥹). Perfectionism has always made false promises to me. It swears excellence but more often than not delivers nothing but unnecessary burnout. Looking back, I see how often I pushed myself toward unrealistic standards, only to end up hating the process itself. With time and practice, I’ve started to realize that falling short of perfection doesn’t mean I’m sloppy. It just means that “good enough” usually takes me further than “flawless.” Publishing my work, even when it isn’t perfect, has taught me lessons that keeping it hidden on my laptop never could.

When I sit and reflect on the journey I find myself on most often, coming across a hindrance, working to uncover its cause, and taking steps to counter it, I realize it often feels like I am in a laboratory, running experiments and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. The things I’ve shared in this article work for me right now; they may not tomorrow. But what keeps me steady is the fact that experiments no longer scare me. I can even take a few Late Submission(s) along the way without taking them too personally. I’ve grown far more comfortable with putting on that lab coat whenever I need to. To be honest, I can now relate to those people in school who loved being in the lab more than in the theoretical classroom. As I said before, you were never the problem 😄.

This article is not meant to be taken as gospel or some universal truth. We are all unique, and what works well for me may not work the same for you. Even if it does align with your journey, feel free to adapt it, change it, and make it your own.

As a wise man with broken english once said (and I wholeheartedly agree),
The only experiments that teach you are the ones you do yourself.

And if you’ve made it this far into this little letter of mine, thank you. Truly. Take one more step and tell me what you thought of this article. Whether it’s a single line or a long message… I’d love to know. So yes, your response matters deeply to me.

Find me on Instagram at @ankeshkprasad or drop me an email at [email protected]. I try to read and respond to every message because your words matter to me more than you know.

If you haven’t already, please do check out my debut thriller fiction novel, They Would Die For You!
Available now in both Paperback and Kindle editions.