#13 If Hard Problems Make You Feel Stupid, Read This

You've been staring at the same problem for 40 minutes.

You've read it four times. You've tried two approaches.
Both failed. The page in front of you is full of crossed-out attempts, and you have nothing to show for it.

And somewhere inside you, a quiet voice has started whispering:
"Maybe I'm just not made for this."
"My Friend solved it in 3 minutes. What's wrong with me?"
"Maybe my parents are wasting their money on me."
"Maybe JEE or NEET is just not for average students like me."

If you've felt any of this, "even once", this blog is for you.

Let me take you back to one of those nights. 

It's almost 2 AM.

The tube light hums above me. The fan is doing that lazy half-turn.
My sheet is half-solved, a coordinate geometry problem refusing to fall in line.

Maa is asleep next to me.
One hand resting close to my notebook, the way she used to keep her hand near my crib when I was a baby. She never said it out loud, but she would never sleep before me.
"Tui aage ghuma, ami pore." (You sleep first, I'll sleep after.)

I'm 17. I'm tired. I'm angry at the problem.

And I'm scared.
Scared because I've been on this question for over an hour. Scared because the more I stare at it, the less sense it makes. Scared because Mriganka my flatmate, sleeping in the next room probably cracked it in 10 minutes flat.

And then, the same thought that's been haunting me for months slips in again:

"When will this JEE journey finally end? And what if I never make it?"

If you had told that 17-year-old boy that almost a decade later, he'd still be sitting at a desk, with the same kind of notebook, solving the same kind of problem, by choice, he would have laughed at you.
Or maybe cried.

But here I am.

Some habits don't end with the exam. They just change rooms.

After cracking JEE, I did what most KGP kids do.

I explored everything.

Machine learning. Data science. Design. Competitive coding. Software development. Half-finished side projects. Late-night CP contests. Internship interviews. PPTs full of buzzwords I didn't fully understand.

But somewhere deep down, I knew all of these weren't my calling.

Then, slowly, I started noticing a pattern.

Competitive coding excited me. Building a project presenation didn't.
Cracking a tricky problem at 2 AM felt like Diwali. Pushing a feature to production felt like a chore.

It took me a while to admit it, but the truth was embarrassingly simple:
The dopamine of the answer matching with the answer key — that was my drug.
Not money. Not titles. Not even validation. The match. The click. The "yes!" moment.

That's why I came back to Agartala. That's why I'm still teaching. That's why I'm building Faction.

Not because it was the smart career move. But because it's the only thing that still gives me that same hit my 17-year-old self felt when a long, ugly integral collapsed into a beautiful answer.

Why I'm still that JEE kid at night

Here's the funny part.

I cracked JEE long back. IIT-KGP is behind me.
Convocation photos are framed.
The "JEE journey" my 17-year-old self was so tired of, technically, ended.

But the habit didn't.

Even today, after a full day of teaching, after classes, after the noise of 1000+ students, after operations meetings and faculty calls, when Agartala finally sleeps, you'll find me at my desk.

Maths. Physics.
Sometimes a random geometry problem from a book that has no business being on my shelf.

It doesn't matter.

Every time I crack a new technique, that same little JEE-kid pops up inside me:

"Areh, shundor Question! kaal kaau-ke dekhate hobe."
(Hey, beautiful problem! Have to show this to someone tomorrow.)

For years, that "someone" was my friends — Mriganka, Nimesh, the hostel batchmates.
We'd nerd out, fight over approaches, argue for an hour about which solution was more "elegant."

Time passed. Friends got busy. Geographies changed.

And gradually, my "someones" got replaced — by my students.

Now when I crack something new at 2 AM, the first thought is:
"Tomorrow afternoon. Batch. New Challenge. This is happening."

The thing I keep telling my students

You'll hear me say this in class, and I'll say it here too.

Fall in love with problem solving.

Most students today are stuck in lectures. Hours of lectures. Endless theory. Notes filling three registers.

But ask them: "This week, how many problems did you actually struggle with? Not skim. Not see-the-solution-and-nod. Actually struggle?"

Silence.

Here's what nobody tells you:

Lectures give you knowledge. Problems give you mastery.

A great problem is not an obstacle. It's a journey. It twists, it turns, it makes you doubt yourself, it makes you flip back to a chapter you thought you understood, and then suddenly one observation cracks the whole thing open.

And that single moment of "Oh… like that?!" is more rewarding than any Instagram reel, any Valorant win, any web series binge.

I'm not exaggerating. Try it tonight. Sit with one good problem. Not skim. Not skip. Sit. And notice what happens inside you when it finally cracks.

That feeling.
That's the whole game.

Reframing frustration

I know what some of you are thinking.

"Sir, it's easy for you to say. When I can't solve a problem, I feel stupid. I feel like quitting. I feel like maybe I'm not made for this."

I get it. I've been there. Many times.

But here's a shift I want you to make. And honestly, this one shift can change your entire two years.

Don't feel demotivated when you can't solve a problem. Feel grateful that you just learned something new.

Every unsolved problem is just a problem introducing you to a technique you didn't know existed. Every "I had to see the solution" is a new weapon being added to your inventory.

I genuinely think of it like a game:

• Every new technique = +1 weapon
• Every concept = +1 spell
• Every mistake = +1 immunity against making the same mistake in the exam

You're not losing when you struggle. You're leveling up.

JEE is just the final boss. Right now, you're farming XP.

The students I've seen crack JEE Advanced, almost all of them have one thing in common.
They enjoyed the grind, not just the result.
They didn't sit at the table because their parents asked them to.
They sat because they genuinely wanted to know how this question worked.

One last thing

Problems will scare you at first.

They'll look intimidating. They'll mock you from the page. You'll feel like the question setter designed it personally to humiliate you.

Lend them a hand. Sit with them. Don't run.

Because slowly, those very problems.
The ones that scared you on a Tuesday night in October become the strongest weapons in your hand when you walk into the exam hall in May.

The questions you fight with today are the ones that save you tomorrow.

So today, before you scroll past one more Instagram story, before you start one more "motivation" video, before you open Valorant for "just one game"…

Open your sheet. Pick one problem. Give it 30 honest minutes.

I promise you — that one habit will outlive your JEE journey.

It outlived mine.

And honestly, I'm grateful it did.

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P.S. — Maa still peeks into my room sometimes when she sees the light on at 2 AM. She doesn't say anything. She just smiles and shuts the door. I think she figured out long before I did that this was never just about JEE.

Happy Mother's Day Maa :)