Back in school, every teacher, including my father, told me the exact same line: “You’ll start liking it once you figure out how to do it properly.” I didn’t buy it then, nor did I buy it when I managed to score good grades in my O-Levels. High grades never made the work enjoyable. The old numbers remained the same, the steps dragged on, and the second the last exam ended, I happily washed my hands of the whole affair.

The damage really set in back in sixth grade after I failed maths in the final term. Everyone around me, whether I knew them or not, was disappointed in me because I wasn’t exactly the failing student. It threw me off so badly that I picked up this weird compulsion: I started solving every single maths problem twice. Assignments stretched on endlessly and practice sheets felt like marathons that were never-ending, but my brain simply refused to trust my first attempt. Look, I knew it didn’t make any sense, but I was so terrified of screwing up again that I just couldn’t leave anything to chance. I had to double-check everything. It didn’t turn me into a maths whiz or anything, it was really just a coping mechanism so I wouldn’t panic when faced with a hard problem. So when A-Levels finally ended, I thought, thank God, I’m finally done with this nightmare.

Seven months passed without me touching a single equation, and I genuinely thought I’d put that chapter behind me for good. No more formulas, no timed practice sets. I assumed that long break would purge the habit for good and let me move on with my life.

Then university entrance exams hit, and old habits kicked back in overnight. Suddenly I was back to running every single equation twice, endlessly complaining to every single one of my best friends about how much I loathed the quant prep and how I couldn’t wait to be done with it. I spent entire afternoons complaining about the arithmetic to my teacher, constantly telling myself this was just the final hurdle before I could finally focus on things I actually liked.

Then came this one chemistry class in my first semester that rewired my brain chemistry. Normally, I’m just staring at the clock, miserable, counting down every single minute until 2:30. Half an hour in, my brain usually just turns off and tunes out the professor’s boring monologue. But that day, the professor got us to do a routine set of calculations. There was no background theory to read through or soft introduction to ease us into the material. There was zero room to tune out, so I grabbed my pen just to keep up with the board.

I just started moving through it: balancing equations and variables, pushing right past that familiar wall where my brain usually quits. I suddenly found myself completely dialled in. The rest of the room washed out, it was just the pen, the copy, the calculator and me.

I finally made it to the bottom of a calculation and glanced up at the professor’s notes to see how far off I was. Every single decimal matched.

I leaned back, just floating on this insane adrenaline hit. I looked over at the clock, fully ready to suffer through another painful twenty minutes, but people were already packing up their stuff. Backpacks zipping, chairs sliding, everyone walking out. Class was over, and I hadn’t checked the time even once. I sat there with my heart racing over a damn chemistry equation, feeling like I was on top of the world. Those seven months away from maths were basically withdrawal. I was actively craving the tension, hopelessly hooked on the exact thing I claimed to despise.

It’s an addictive rush. You start staring at a page of absolute chaos, spend twenty minutes convinced you’re going to mess it up, and then force the steps into place until the answer lands right where it belongs. The dopamine hits the exact millisecond you realise you didn’t stumble into the right answer by luck.

I’m not going to pretend I woke up the next day suddenly in love with maths, or that I’m switching majors to chase pure equations. The subject is still a slog, and the wall you hit before things click is just as infuriating as ever. But sitting there as the room cleared out, with ink smudged all over my hands, I realised it was never about loving the subject itself. I was just chasing the thrill of the grind and the sudden, sharp rush when that final line lands clean.