Success, at the cost of breath

From the outside, our education system looks disciplined, merit-based, even admirable. Exams are cleared, ranks are earned, seats are allotted. We are told this is excellence. But inside the system, many of us are gasping. Not because we are incapable—but because we are trapped in definitions of success we did not choose.

I say “we” deliberately. I am not an observer of this system; I am shaped by it.

A medical seat is secured after years of relentless effort. For some, it is a calling. For many, it is survival. And increasingly, it is an exit route. We have normalized the idea that becoming a doctor or an engineer is not an end, but a launchpad toward something with more prestige—civil services, corporate leadership, social validation.

Every time this happens, something uncomfortable is brushed aside. One seat occupied by someone who never intended to stay. Another student, often equally deserving, quietly pushed out. We don’t call this loss. We call it “choice.”

But choice is not free when it is socially engineered.

The same pressure repeats across disciplines. Engineering colleges filled with students who were good at science but curious about something else. Medical colleges filled with students who were resilient enough to endure, not necessarily inclined to heal. We reward endurance so heavily that we forget to ask whether endurance should be the only qualification for a life’s work.

Society has created a narrow corridor of acceptable ambition. Walk straight, don’t wander. Aim high, but only in approved directions. Anything outside doctor, engineer, civil servant is treated as unstable, risky, or unserious. Talent is tolerated only if it can be converted into status.

Inside this corridor, people suffocate quietly.

We study not to learn, but to escape uncertainty. We choose degrees not because they fit us, but because they silence questions from relatives, neighbors, and sometimes even from ourselves. Slowly, discomfort becomes normal. Anxiety becomes background noise. And dissatisfaction is reframed as discipline.

What disturbs me is not that people change paths. Growth demands that. What disturbs me is how many of us never had space to discover a path in the first place.

We glorify outcomes so loudly that the process becomes violent. Years of preparation shrink into a single rank. Entire personalities are reduced to cut-offs. And once someone reaches the top, we applaud—even if they arrived there by abandoning something they never wanted.

The system does not collapse under corruption alone. It collapses under uniformity.

When everyone is pushed toward the same definition of success, diversity of thought dies. Artists learn to hide. Teachers are undervalued. Researchers are ignored. Skilled professionals in non-glamorous fields are treated as if they settled for less. Exploration becomes a luxury few can afford.

And so we end up with excellence without fulfillment, achievement without attachment, and success without breath.

This is not an argument against medicine, engineering, or civil services. These professions are necessary, honorable, and demanding. The problem begins when they are elevated into symbols of worth rather than roles of responsibility.

We have confused respect with rank.

Until we make room for honest aspiration—until we stop punishing deviation and start respecting alignment—we will continue to waste seats, exhaust minds, and call it progress.

Perhaps the most unsettling truth is this: the system survives because we participate in it. We comply, we compete, we endure. And in doing so, we pass the same suffocation forward.

The question is no longer whether the system is flawed.

The question is how long we will keep mistaking breathlessness for success.

Baiza Mushtaq , participant GKSC Bootcamp