Rock Star Problems, Hospital Rooms, and the Metrics We Choose
- Prateek Khanna
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
I am writing this from a hospital room.
Not from a quiet study.Not from a café.
Not from a place of physical strength or mental comfort.
I am undergoing a medical emergency—one that is largely beyond my control.
And yet, as always, I find myself choosing the only thing I can control:
where I place my attention.
So I write.
There may be errors.
There may be broken sentences.
There may be pauses dictated by machines, doctors, and fatigue.
But this is my attempt to do justice—within my limited capacity—to something I have believed for a very long time.
Before Life Became Serious, There Was Music
During my college days, I was in a band.
Music was not a hobby—it was an identity.Distorted guitars, long conversations, borrowed CDs, endless debates.
One of my closest friends and bandmates, Prasun (6322), introduced me to Metallica, Megadeth, and Iron Maiden.
Seniors like Ashwan Sir would occasionally step in, not to lecture, but to narrate stories of rock—stories of rebellion, discipline, failure, and survival.
At the time, it all felt like music.
In hindsight, it was education.
I didn’t realise it then, but those stories quietly taught me something that would later shape how I deal with failure, ambition, health, and uncertainty.
The Problem Was Never Failure—It Was the Metric
The story of Dave Mustaine is often told as a redemption arc.
Kicked out of Metallica.Humiliated.Sent home on a bus.Angry.Driven by revenge.
And yes—he built Megadeth, sold millions of albums, and became one of the most influential figures in heavy metal.
But what struck me the most—especially now, lying in a hospital bed—was not his success.
It was this:
Despite everything he achieved, he still considered himself a failure.
Why?
Because his metric never changed.
He didn’t measure his life by:
Creating great music
Building something of his own
Longevity
Impact
He measured it by one brutal standard:
“Am I bigger than Metallica?”
And by that metric, he always lost.
We Are Not Broken—We Are Just Measuring Wrong
We like to believe we are rational, evolved beings.
But the truth is simpler.
We constantly measure ourselves:
Against friends
Against peers
Against people who once shared our journey
And when the yardstick is wrong, even success feels like failure.
Sitting here today, dealing with something as fundamental as health, I realize how fragile these metrics are.
At some point, life quietly asks:
Can you breathe easily?
Can you sit with yourself without resentment?
Can you find meaning even when progress is paused?
None of these show up on leaderboards.
Another Musician, Another Ending
Then there is Pete Best.
The drummer who was:
Handsome
Professional
Popular
And then abruptly removed from The Beatles—just days before history changed forever.
Unlike Mustaine, Pete Best did not build a musical empire.
He struggled.He fell into depression.He nearly lost everything.
And yet—years later—he said something extraordinary:
“I’m happier than I would have been with the Beatles.”
Because his values shifted.
He stopped measuring life by fame.He started measuring it by:
Family
Stability
Simplicity
Peace
By that metric, he won.
What This Means to Me—Right Now
Right now, I cannot control my medical condition.
I cannot outwork it.I cannot outthink it.I cannot hustle my way past it.
But I can choose:
To write instead of spiral
To reflect instead of resent
To measure myself by effort, not output
Today, success is not productivity.Success is showing up—mentally—despite physical limitation.
If this blog reaches someone and makes them pause, that’s enough.If it helps me stay anchored to meaning while my body heals, that’s more than enough.
The Quiet Lesson Music Taught Me
What music, bands, and rock stories taught me long ago—and what life is reminding me now—is simple:
Pain is inevitable. But suffering depends on the metric you choose.
Some values create problems that evolve and heal.Others trap us in endless comparison.
From a hospital bed, the lesson feels clearer than ever.
I don’t need to be the biggest.I don’t need to win every race.I don’t need to prove anything to the past.
I just need to keep choosing meaning—one paragraph, one breath, one honest attempt at a time.
Written imperfectly.
Written slowly.
Written with intention.
