Dysania - when death is not necessarily the worst outcome

This essay is long and tricky to understand. Just want to set an expectation for those who are judgemental not to read in the first place. I want to share my honored finalist essay from World Youth Essay Competition 2018 because of its important message. Hint: I am not writing about a normal disease. Let's find out!

It was a Monday morning, I could hardly open my eyes. My back was static as if it was glued to my bed sheet. Hard as I might try, I could not get up. Of course, it is not a normal condition of somebody too tired to wake up. I had noticed myself closely, for even some morning after a long 8-hour good sleep, I could not get up either. I was diagnosed with dysania. In this essay, I will describe vividly my diagnosis and rehabilitation. Furthermore, I would elaborate on this syndrome as a global epidemic among university students, especially here in my home country and the possible approach to eradicate this once and for all. Primo, let us dive deep into the mind of a dysanian – victim of dysania –  to examine the basic symptoms :

Reflecting on that Monday morning, I could feel the struggle in my thoughts. It was what prevents me from getting up and going to school. I just could not make the decision.    

The first decision was to go to school. Thinking of which, I visualized the teacher talking non-stop on some topic about a subject whose name I do not even remember. I imagined, based on my experience, more than half of my class sleeping facing down the table. The scene is intimidating to me, to the point I have a chill running along my spine when visualizing it. There was nothing scarier than sitting in class purposelessly with plain boredom, along with other frustrating peers. OK, maybe I would rather stay at home.

Staying at home might not be appealing either. Since I have experienced 12 years of passive schooling in which teachers told me what to study and what to do every time. I have become too dependent on it. If I stayed at home then, I would not know what to do with my time. I am afraid of myself wasting time with social media and mindless websites.

This was a dilemma in which it was too difficult for me to make the decision, stay or leave the bed. A few times, I went to school because the teacher checked attendance on that day - simple reason like that. Most of the time, I did not make any decision at all. I just laid on my bed and let the time pass. I overslept until the time when the decision did not matter anymore. Averting my eyes to the small window, it was almost noon, I woke up and successfully avoided the decision. That was how I lied to myself. Until recently, have I been aware of my past condition. That was only the beginning since there were more to come.  

Dysania complication is both acute and chronic because this syndrome does not limit its adversity to the could-not-get-up morning. Its negative effect spread to my afternoon, my evening and suffocate my life even more than cancer does.

However, before going into details about its adverse complication, let us first discuss the young people - future of the world. What is their most precious asset? Is it materialistic ownership I wonder? Of course not, it is nothing else but youth. The word “youth” does not literally mean young but represent the endless energy, purest heart and intense passion coming with it. As seen from any social or technological breakthrough, the youth play the game-changer role. Let us simply see what technology guru Bill Gates and youngest Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai did to the world in their 20s. Obviously, young people possess the power to disruptively transform the world - impacting millions of lives. Thus, each hour, each minute and each second of youth is invaluable. It should never be wasted for any reasons.

This state of finding it hard getting out of bed causes the victims no chance to live their life - their youth in a useful manner. Consequently, their most precious asset would all lose because of it. To have a clear picture of how it loses, I would like to tell you stories of two people who went in different directions but ended up equally miserable.

The first case is a typical diligent female student who teachers found “a good student”. She started university with a positive outlook towards her future. Unfortunately, she contracted dysania. She bravely fought off her condition to her best and managed to go to school quite often enough to survive lecturer’s engagement check. It seemed to be a success story but turned out to be not. In the third year of university, she was too exhausted to fight. She was almost defeated. She wanted to drop out and changed her environment. However, since she had gone so far already, she had no choice but stayed there with the syndrome at least for 2 years, which was a dilemma. I met her a month ago and heard her story. She told me that each day going to school is like a torture - sad but true. Her type of complication is not rare.

The second one is an energetic and curious male student who enjoyed social activities and scientific discoveries. He started university with a warm heart to help other people live better with science and technology. However, since he contracted dysania, everything changed. Unlike the female above, he went to school less and less, gradually became disconnected. His natural curiosity was also day by day deteriorated by mundane lecturers. Since he has been completely dependent on school for the last 12 years, without school, he found little interest in any learning. He sunk into frustration. Eventually, he had no choice but to drop out and search for something else because he knew firmly his invaluable youth was about to lose if he continued to stay there. Dropping out would not promise success but at least a possibility to live better. He is me. This is indeed my life story.

Two stories represent two kinds of stories. Two people represent two kinds of people who ended up losing their youth to meaningless frustration. What if I tell you those two types and their variants may constitute around 80% students in some universities, will you be startled? I was startled but somehow got used to it. Honestly, I do not know whether to add “sadly” or “luckily” to the last sentence.

I was lucky enough to be alive mentally to report the syndrome. I somehow by luck found some light at the end of the tunnel…

From the moment I found out that I totally fed with my major, my world was as if it was about to collapse. I felt there was not big a purpose to live on. However, looking from the outside, I seemed to look absolutely normal like a person who, my friends described, always had plans for his life. Although I did have some plans for my future, most of the time, I did not even bother seeing them again. Even when I had a random mood to follow the plan, I did the tasks without a soul. I obviously made them only to feel secure and impress others - it took me a while to gain enough courage to confess this.  A better way to describe, I was a zombie without everyone realizing. No doubt that my youth was then far from “useful”.

At the time, I tried to seize an opportunity to join an international NGO, with a hope to discover maybe “Promised Land” where I can be more useful, at least to myself. Well, I was lucky enough to discover it. In the organization, whose name I shall not mention in this essay, I first had the opportunity to take on a true leadership responsibility. Of course, I messed up most of the things that I put my fingers in because of my lack of experience. However, thanks to this, I discovered my strengths and weaknesses which nobody had told me before. Then, I started hearing people talking about social issues, along with the actions taken to solve them. I was intrigued because for all those years sitting boring classes, all I heard were about theories I could not relate to, discussion on video games I did not play, gossip from friends I did not know, all. Those people in the organization say they have a “purpose” to live, which amazed me.

I looked around and into myself, for a purpose that those people were always mentioning. I accidentally found a little interest in leadership and management along with the unfulfilled desire to reform society. The reason why I realized this was because they introduced me to the brand-new concept of “reflection” which help to question more about myself. Such method I had never heard of before and had not had time to do because I was so busy cramming for purposeless science exams - nonetheless, I still love the beauty and complexity of science, especially biology. What happened next would be the bravest decision of my life, I dropped out of my current university. Things from then on went rough and tough.

I had only 3-month preparation to retake the entrance exam - the most stressful exam in Vietnam, equivalent to Gaokao in China and CSAT in Korea - which usually takes 12 months to prepare. Beside this goal, I also had a huge responsibility to fulfill at my organization as leader of a big project in HR function, which consumed me around 35 hours a week. In the 3-month period, I woke up at 6:00 AM every morning to read books for an hour and a half, then drew my focus to solving Math, Physics and English problems for the incoming exam. Magically, my dysania disappeared without my knowing. From Vietnamese conservative viewpoint, I might be considered a loser who was going behind my peer one year starting over the university. However, looking back from now, it was ironically the most meaningful period of my life, ever. Thank God I passed the examination and went to the most prestigious business school in Vietnam at the expense of losing 5 kilograms. I was already slim at the time, as always.

Hold your eyes, the journey just began. Next, I applied for higher and more challenging positions in the organization. In early 2017, I got selected to become to Vice President of a branch in Ho Chi Minh City, of course after failing hard several times in other positions - life was not that easy to me though. Responsibility came with power, which meant then I could create impacts - negative or positive - on people life directly for the first time. If retaking the examination was my bravest decision, then the incoming decision shall be the craziest. On a hot summer day in 2017, I jumped on the bus and went to Can Tho City, situated in the center of the vast Mekong Delta, which is 200 km away from my city, alone and afraid, with an attempt of creating a new branch of my organization there. Before this, my parents never allowed me to travel anywhere farther than 100 km from home, even with my close friends ‘protection. At that point, I never thought that later I would have to travel back and forth over a year, with the frequency of almost every one or two weeks.

The big purpose by which I went there was my desire to reform society, in this case, to bring young people the opportunities which I was given by the organization. Let me clarify a few things. In 2017, I was still a freshman in my new university busy with my new study and friends. The members in Can Tho City were also university students, mostly juniors. How can we even have a suitable schedule to meet up? I did have to make some sacrifice. I woke up at 2:00 AM, rode my bike to the bus station and headed for Can Tho City immediately to arrive on time for an 8:00 AM meeting. Dysania then was the thing of the past. I had no difficulty waking up at the hour that everyone was sleeping sound. Now the branch I founded has more than 10 members. I managed to create transformational changes to more than 30 people there, not many but significant compared to an ordinary student like me. I could pull those off because I had a strong purpose to live up to. Let us rewind to see how far I had come:

That was my starting point, a desperate and useless youngster. How lucky I was to be here, having the opportunity to live usefully every day. Finally, my dysania had gone away for some time.

To this point, I need to make some expectation. I am not writing an autobiography but using my own life story as a representative illustration for a bigger issue, dysania. My story was not only personal but also social because there are countless similar stories out there which I do not have the space mention all. Now, we shall continue. As we could clearly see from my journey, a strong purpose could turn a desperate and useless youngster into a president who, I do not dare to say “great” - I still need to do a lot more to be called so, every day gives his best to develop himself and create positive impacts on others by directing the youth energy to meaningful things. Imagining the world where all young people had a strong purpose which could be simply their personal development, environment and wildlife conservation, poverty alleviation to live up to instead of sleeping in the boring classes, how would our world be?

The world would be beautiful then! Yet, that is only the picture of an ideal world where people do not suffer from dysania and always have a purpose to wake up every morning. That utopia will not come true easily - you probably recognize if you notice my usage of conditional sentence type 2. My rehabilitation was just mere lucky. Others are not. Millions of students, from many generations, are still living with dysania mostly undiagnosed. Some millions of others are going to final stage which is the stage of graduating without a purpose of their own. Those are the most vulnerable to corruption by being infected with other’s manipulative purposes or joining unproductive and cheap workforce hiding away their bachelor’s degree because of shame. Such graduates are not elusive here - I just turn on the television and their heart-breaking stories shall appear on the screen. They find nothing but deeper darkness at the end of the tunnel.

It is education and only education can cure dysania if there is a cure because education help victims find their purpose to get out of bed. Another cure may require them to survive after being shot with a copper bullet in the head, which does not sound appealing, does it? Continuing reading then this point will become self-evident. Education should be understood as its broad meaning. It can be from self or family or institutes. What is going wrong with education?

If discoursing on education problems, it could probably go days. Here I only address the root cause of all complication. It is the faulty and misleading way we define education. Therefore, the way we do education will also be faulty and wrong too. Students, parents and teachers ‘expectation go wrong with it as a consequence. It is like the domino effect. If thinking slow, everyone must agree that the purpose of education is to create capable citizens with a high purpose to serve themselves and society.

However, we do not think slow enough when we do education. When being asked about education, vivid of images of teachers standing on the podium, classroom assignments, final examination appear to our mind. Sometimes we do think broader about the term “education” as a child early education, mindset education or self-education. However, it happens only on some rare beautiful days for certain people. Most of the time, we tend to focus only on academia or technical training when implementing, which is a fatal neglect.

A purpose - the soul of a person - is the true driver of development and impact. Relating to Malala Yousafzai, she was shot in the head on the bus by a Taliban gunman, but the Death forgot to call her name, she miraculously survived the incident. The bullet did not kill her but gave her a new life - life with even a stronger purpose to live for. She even fought more passionately for the right of education, especially female education, later received the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of just 17. It is self-evident that purpose is the soul of human which empower us to achieve such an unimaginable goal. It is indeed the essence of human.

Reversely, a person without a purpose even with intensive knowledge cramming will probably end up desperate and useless like I and my friends did or even worse than I can imagine. The essential difference between human and robot is the purpose, hence, education of human must also start from it. Therefore, education for purpose should be on the top of any education agenda. This kind of education may be the mix of theory and experience. However, the experience like what I had, challenging and relevant ones, must be the key driver. Ironically, people are calling such a life-changing experience I had “extracurricular”. It is obviously not any “extra”, just seriously essential.

Students going to university to follow the all-theory curriculum with the naive hope that they will be educated wind up half-educated or “uneducated”. I and my friends were just trapped there blaming for whatever we can blame for without realizing we had the wrong expectation. Teachers standing on podium lecturing and thinking they are educating their dear students but indeed turn out unconsciously killing their potentials with the wrong educating logic. They do not help students to find a purpose to live and study first but only fill students with purposeless theory right from the beginning. The knowledge shall be washed away entirely after examination or never be used after they graduate. Parents sending their children to school also wind up with disappointment when seeing their sons and daughters going home looking like zombies. They may not know that their children are busy chasing ghosts - standardized tests - every day that they do not have time to find their purpose to truly live.

To ensure that you do not miss my point, I need to clarify that I am not writing to boycott academia. Indeed, the reverse is true. I always have a strong desire to reform society by the power of knowledge. What I really mean is that intensive academic or similar kind of knowledge only work when a person had a soul first, simply because we are human. Let us do education humanely and logically.

So, is there a real cure? Yes, there is. It comes with a condition which not only requires efforts of the victims to educate themselves but also the people around them like friends, family and educators to provide proper guidance. Sadly, most people around them also had the incomplete and reverse-logic definition of education. In my case, even studying at the university which people sometimes regard as “Harvard of Vietnam” do not help me either. The fact that I moved to a new university – changing the environment - did not relate to my dysania rehabilitation at all, but other meaningful work did. Therefore, the cure cannot be straightforward. What is it?

No need to take any complicated actions, the first step of all is to make victims and people around them aware of their condition. Because the victims have no authentic life purpose, they adopt the purpose of other people, especially peers as their cover to protect their ego when asked. They usually disguise as “basic” students. In the most severe cases, until 75 do they realize their condition. The reason why this epidemic remains untreated is the fact that it has been going undiagnosed for such a long time. People do talk about education on the news but only focus on the trivial, not the big logic itself. I wonder they are afraid of changes when admitting the whole system is failed. What we need is an education revolution not those little tweaks on the already failed system.

Another cure comes indirectly from other countries that took real actions to cure dysania for their students such as the Netherlands where school provide students with a clear pathway to their future. Good case practices from such developed countries can be valuable to students and teachers to the struggling countries like Vietnam. The reason I wrote this essay is also calling for attention and support from overseas fellows by describing this common syndrome.

I believe this syndrome does not confine its consequence to only Vietnam or but many other corners of the world also. It is never a third world problem, a second world problem or a first world problem but our world big problem. It prevents some students, educators and parents from sleeping at night but sometimes we need to sacrifice some of the sleep time to find the cure which can save purposeful awake time in return.

The earth is still rotating with the axial tilt of 23.4°. During the time you are reading this, still thousands of innocent students started to contract dysania – thousands of invaluable youth are being taken away. Their stories go:

“...reflecting on that X morning, I could feel the struggle in my thoughts. It is what prevents me from getting up and going to school. I just could not…”

P/S: The longest essay I have written so far...However, I found free when expressing myself in this language.