I’ve thought company building to be a numbers game. How many users did you onboard this week? What are your revenue numbers? How many years till profitability? How much market share do you have compared to your competitor? Of course, it’s a numbers game at the end of the day, but that is at the end. The beginning and the process is generally a gut decision steering - I realised this in last couple of days through two sets of content.

One - The book

One - this doubt got planted in my while reading the book “Start With Why”. The whole book explains Why of a problem is most important than How or What. Most people try to solve it in the later two, but without a Why you are not gaining good momentum. Though I understood the concept and could relate it to real life, I still wasn’t convinced this could be implemented in smaller teams. This seems to be a company level or country level problem solving.

Two - The trailer

Two - me being interested in mountain climbing, YouTube served me trailer of a National Geographic documentary “Everest: The Other Side”. It’s about a couple who climbed the Mt Everest thorough the North face (which is the hardest to climb the Everest through and is done only by a handful) and ski down same face (which is never done). The trailer goes through the back story of their struggle too. Me, being pessimistic, felt the back story is fabricated to create hype around the documentary. But, as I was watching the trailer, I realised having good stamina and a healthy body is never enough to do such a feat. Your physical strength could take you hardly some portion of the climb. Remaining is climbed through your zeal to do it at all costs. For that zeal to sustain through the whole climb and also through the ski down, you need to have a strong Why.

One + Two = Eureka

That’s the eureka moment. Climbing Mt Everest is a great feat, yes, but many find it just as an entertaining documentary to be watched while eating spaghetti on couch. On its face, the feat doesn’t seem to be contributing a lot to the growth of the society. Yet, it’s a feat the person climbing has to believe in with all his/her might. The person has to believe in a purpose stronger than anything in their life - and that purpose is what documentary is about.

In our corporate life, we could have any number of motives to do the job. Money, fame, comfort, to name a few. It could also be something simple like “My office is close to my house” or “I get free meals in this company”. All these are valid for the person themselves. Such motives will take your far - farther than many, stronger the motive. But, there is a peak to such growth.

However hard you try, that peak is where you struggle. That is where your drawbacks creep up; Could be laziness, spending more money on luxuries, what not. But you are stuck to it. No more height.

Become an incarnation

Having a why changes the equation by a magnitude. You wanting to earn money will get you money. You earn a lot, yes, but you will always see people earn way more than usual - cause you don’t have a why. On the contrary, If you want to earn money, because in your childhood your family couldn’t own a house or buy a car because your father had to keep clearing an older debt and you’ve see your family struggle every night to make ends meet, you become an animal to earn money. Person 1 might stop after 7pm. Person 2 though, with a Why, works through the night, through the weekend, to reach a place of abomination for everyone else, cause they want the number in their bank account rising day in, day out.

Even rich people find their own Why. Bill Gate’s father was fairly rich, owning estates. Gates could’ve bought cars, ate whatever he wanted, travelled wherever he liked all his life. Yet, he found his Why in technology, to become the forefront of it and loved working towards so much that he got ulcers.

I hear people saying it’s not healthy - Of course it isn’t. Olympic athletes aren’t healthy despite looking the fittest. Still we get inspired of them. Every single person we get inspired of had worked through nights and holidays to reach where they are. Reaching such heights takes such a strong Why, you become an incarnation of it; You won’t be a human but closer to either a devil or a god.

In the end, you have to decide where you want to stand. If you want to become Nikhil Kamath, you can’t have eight hour sleeps. You can be inspired of greatness and still create boundaries. But, you can’t complain of not gaining luck while eating popcorn. Successful people were lucky at some point, but they were unlucky too. How do you take the down-phase defines if you will be lucky at some point. If you want to have disproportionate success, start with Why. That Why is gained through your past life. Pick any segment of your past life which you want to overcome now. Either it’s being fat all your life, or being dependent on your family, pick it and become an animal - An incarnation of your best self.

References

• Start With Why - by Simon Sinek - Importance of Why explained in simple English and relatable stories.

• Source Code: My Beginnings - By Bill Gates - This is where I’ve learnt of how he built Microsoft.

• Everest: The Other Side - A National Geographic Documentary - A new documentary about how a couple climbs the North face and Skis down the same face for the first time in history.

• Nikhil Kamath - To the people who don’t know him

This could be coming from the fact that many of my teachers told me I should be doing something productive all the time. I believed it so well that whenever I’m reading about a life history of a CEO, I never feel like I’m wasting my time. A part of me tells I’m being productive. Of course I’m learning some parts from their story which I’ve implemented in my life.

The other half of my brain goes silent though and that’s the creative part. I am moving towards something better yes but at some cost. It’s as if I’m bound by only the ideas others had when I look at those stories. I am improving yes but only to the extent others have tried.

Fiction and Fantasy are also writer’s experiences but they didn’t have a way to put those words straight. Hence they create characters, worlds and stories in those worlds to put forth the learnings through those characters. As if the writer learnt way too many things and want to put it out into the world, but they aren’t able to, because the sentences feel too rigid and immovable. Too much grammar search, too little flexibility. Fiction pulls down all those walls to create whatever they want, whichever learning they want from the mouth of any character they create.

I observe more of it in books cause I read a book for a month and have enough time to live through it in my mind. Movies do it too, just a bit too fast.

Hence I love to alternate between a fiction book and a non-fiction book. As I read, I enjoy it fully while longing for the other. This helps me neither be fully rigid nor be fully vague. Good enough to see growth while seeing magic in others.

“I want to be a software engineer”

Ah! Will you be able to take the pressure.

“Well, maybe if I study enough, a doctor?”

I don’t think you have enough patience.

“An actor?”

To shoot youtube videos?

“Fashion designer sounds good”

Need not even study to become one.

Our planet had become a swarm of questions - even more, a swarm of confusion. Because, when you are in confusion is when people think of you as an intellectual.

Illusion of smartness

We think the most intellectual person asks the most questions. That is how we all grew, to ask more questions, not to find answers. The truth though is that a human has to keep learning and go deep, not broad. You should ask more questions because you want to learn, climb a step, and ask the next question to climb the next step. But here we are pushing everyone to just keep asking questions. Bigger the audience, grandeur the question, the better. This is how news channels have content to display all day. Ask all kinds of questions to everyone, not knowing why. What’s the goal? Well, no one needs a goal; Just fame.

Whenever there is a big event with audience and an esteemed guest, my mind revolves around the best question I can ask. I will stumble on one, ask it in front of everyone, will get an interesting response just to remember none of it. I definitely remember how everyone pats me at how good of a question it was - that makes me proud.

Destination?!

That’s the beauty but also the sad reality. Everyone loves to ask an intriguing question but never bother about the answer. That is how we have landed here. Many of us start being mentally stable. As we break into more of the world, we are asked questions. Of course we don’t have answers to many. But questions lead to more questions, which lead to even more. All of it ends you up in confusion and confusion becomes the destination.

The most confused ask the questions with highest confidence with no regard to the answer. That’s what all of our goal had become. If you are stable, you aren’t thriving. Confused though? You are on the right path. More confused, even more lost? You are onto greatness. How miserable we have become.

Unravel the knot

Learning to come out of confusion is the path we need. Ask questions but be intrigued of the answers. Become a question bank but with a goal in mind. You can step sideways, ask questions of many varieties, but with a destination to be at. If you are going too tangent, sit still to focus on where you want to go. Ask questions to yourself first before you spell it out. Observe how a jumbled up rope is unravelling with every single question. Ask the questions which can loosen the knot wherever possible.

Don’t become such a huge knot that it’s impossible to unravel. However tight it is, given enough energy, the knot loosens. Don’t fall upon the trance of the confused world. Don’t you become part of a bigger knot. All of us should be going from confusion to revelation, not peace to confusion.

For one, I lately realised I can’t jump all huddles by myself. Though that’s how movies show it - hero defeats the villain single handedly - our life doesn’t gave a ‘happily ever after’ end credits. Though we defeat our first villain, there are always stronger villains than this one, badder times than this day.

All that search for end makes us defend ourselves than being part of a group. Either it’s family, or it’s office, at some point we get fed up of fighting for everyone else but you and switch to defending yourself to the absolute extreme.

“I’m a better student than my friend” “I’m a better employee than my colleague” I could fall back on saying that’s how the competition is these days. You competing with every single one around you that you become a stone - rejecting everything.

But that is all how some people planted rules for short term growth. Some leaders see it as a win-win to create a competitive environment among teams or colleagues as one out works the other. But our strength is in working together for the same goal.

For one, you can’t live long in such harsh competition. At some point, either you give up, or you start bashing everyone. You either become a stone or water. You either try to become a rock, immovable and untouchable even by your friends, or water, seeping wherever there is gap between rocks ; You are hard to touch or wiggle away from the touch.

What we all should be are wet sponges - a bit of stone, a bit of water. This way if a wetter sponge gets into your group, you can share their water by learning, or if a drier sponge gets in, you teach your learnings with them. This also adds to the fact that you enjoy being with everyone, cause you don’t bash among stones.

I thought I was a sponge, later to realise all stones around me are moulding me into one of them. I don’t really hate them. Hate is for stones, sorrow is for water. I want to be a sponge of help. People might say I’m too harsh or too soft. Well, I’m me. Others only see one side of me at a time. I need not see only that side, or prove to them I have another side. I can be me looking from within. I can select what kind of a sponge I want to be and become one in time. In the process, who knows, I might meet a lot more people generous enough to help.

That’s one long cycle I’ve described, but the problem is doing the same cycle for way too long. You just want to wake up at 8am for decades, want to keep clicking the same buttons in office for years. Change seems really really hard cause all this built up aggression of work since childhood makes us think all adult life should be easy going.

Why shouldn’t it though? All my schooling, I was said to work hard now to relax later. Pass board exams with good marks, life will be settled. Crack a good on-campus job, you won’t need to worry about anything else for decades. I did all that work to relax now. I demand my right to relax. I demand my right to click the same buttons everyday in office to come back home and watch Netflix. I have all the damned reasons to do it.

Guess all of us are about a century late. Industrial age gave the privilege, not now. Those days, you could press the same buttons all life to have chilled beers at night. Monotony is what was expected then.

Now is a different age. Monotony is hated by all. Growth comes to non-button pressers. But, why do we even want to be monotonous in the first place?

All of it started building from us thinking the grind was only in the school. Grind enough now to reap the benefits later. All that grinding had us compensating every friday to go out. We should’ve been taught how to love the grind. It’s not late though.

Unless I find peace in being half drowned, I’m always flapping my limbs looking for a shore. Exhausted, yet flapping day-in to think about next day’s flapping at night. I just have to let the stillness through, experience the calm of being in water. Cause, there is no shore anywhere for hundreds of kilometres. Hope of a future peace is menacing - finding it now is necessary for a full life.

These are the three variations to achieve a goal

1. What others want you to do

2. What you want to do

3. What should be done

We grow through these variations as phases in the exact same order. I’ve first observed this through my focus on fitness

1

First phase, I’ve seen people doing gym and eating healthy. Followed multiple fitness enthusiasts, a lot of googling, personal friends for a decade in gyms. I’ve followed what people suggested and expected me to do.

2

As years went by, I’ve picked the routines I’ve liked. Exercises I like, foods I like. I’ve seen videos where people said, “What is the need of so much training just to leave the foods you love.” So I ate whatever I wished for, trained whichever way I liked. This is where I was stuck for long and see many staying back.

3

But If I want to be fit, I needed to understand myself. What my body needs, what my gut likes, how I can incorporate which training for my lifestyle, how to be healthy longest. That’s when I understood what should be done one step at a time.

Even now I toggle between all three phases when I need to learn something new. Yet, I’ve found peace in the last stage. Not what others want or what I want, but what should be done. I never stumbled onto phase three directly on a random tuesday, but learnt to understand slowly what I am capable of right now and build on it. This phase keeps changing too.

A different 3 every-time

About writing, I wrote what people suggested in the beginning, to writing whenever I liked, to writing on Saturday afternoons. Cause, for me to be a writer I want to, writing once a week for now feels right. As years go by, that might change and I’m open to it. I don’t want my identity to be a weekend writer but a writer itself. Twenty years later if it means I should write daily, so be it.

In a way, I like the exploration. This becomes less about me, more about being itself as time passes. You might want to water your plant once a week, but she might need water daily. I like to sit with the plant to understand what she needs - to understand what should be done.

I’m the ultimatum

We know how to help others but not how to take it. If you ask for help, it feels as though you are asking for a payback. You are too ashamed to ask. You want to be the ultimate person everyone should come to get help, not the one who asks for one. How cheap would that look? How come you ask for help as a payback for help you did before! Is friendship a business transaction! You are just to be available for everyone, not to expect everyone else to be available for you.

But you aren’t

Reality isn’t a movie though. It’s complex and you might not be able to solve all the problems by yourself. That is why we have friends; to help you get on with life smoothly. You might be a finance freak, saving some money in your account all the time; but this is one of those times where you are out of cash. You are an emotionally strong person all your life, but you just got laid off from your company; you feel lonely and scared as hell. We all have our not-so-great days, and people around us are here to help get over the valley.

How dare you!

Asking for help might feel selfish. I argue, not asking for it is selfish. You are good to help, but they aren’t? All of us want to help each other, improving our friendship through it. The pride you get when you help your friend, how dare you not let them feel it too! Let your people help you climb and you too can be there for them when they need it.

Acknowledge. That’s it.

Business is defined by calculated support. I helped you at your worst, lets write up a bond that you’ll help me at my worst. Friendship is un-calculated support. I’ll help you whenever you need me. As a payback, keep taking my support. No money, No counter help, No thankyous. Only acknowledge the fact that we are in this together, not you alone.

No one said it on my face but I got less and less projects. People didn’t depend on me cause I won’t get the work done either on time or with quality. They don’t do it knowingly, they just do it subconsciously. Well, who am I to blame. Reliability gives predictability, and I wasn’t one.

In corporate though, it is easy; you feel it in your bank account. You might get a good manager giving you enough feedback, but most of the time, you are on your own. World talks with money and I fell behind. I did what any average employee does; blame the system. That is the correct choice, right? That is what every other person does, right?

The fact was, as I said, that is what every ‘average employee’ does. When I’m comparing myself to an overachiever, how come I am doing the average. Out of all, one characteristic of an overachiever is being reliable. However hard the problem is, there are never complaints, only interesting perspectives.

Now, my task is to become reliable. And to become reliable, I need to complain less. And if I want to complain less and take responsibility, I need to produce quality. Average doesn’t beat it. I want to be the best in the game, hence I need to play like one.

To gain that characteristic, one character I need to lose is procrastination. Me being the best in lagging all my life, changing myself was hard. I only know how to put a task aside until last date, not to start doing it two weeks before deadline. And one question which helped me start the change is “Now what”.

I am lazy, but I want to complete the project on time. Now what? Whatever happened shouldn’t affect my action right now. This moment is what I have. I have to plan it forward, not fear it backward.

“Now what” clears me of the past burden. Project had 4 weeks of timeline. I am already 2 weeks in. “Now what”. If I want to complete it, I can’t think how I’ve wasted past 2 weeks, but to plan how I can give my 200% in next 2 weeks.

As Cyril Northcote Parkinson quoted

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

Any work can be completed within time. Could be a month, could be two weeks. It depends on believing, and I started believing in myself.

At the store, I saw pens starting from about Rs.1500 to a peak of Rs.3.5 lakhs. I kept staring at premium pens, thinking how awesome those look, how good their weight feels in the hand and how smooth the ink flows from their nib. There was one limited edition Dracula pen worth about Rs.1.5 lakhs; I was thinking I might buy something as crazy as that at least once.

Well, I knew how much money it is for a simple instrument like a pen. But when you write more and more, you know how good a premium ink feels on a premium paper. It’s like sleeping on a five start hotel’s bed. Though a bed is just a bed, in a premium experience, everything feels exactly in place. Once you experience such heights, coming back to normal always feels as if something is off.

Now, do I only use premium books and premium pens? No, I write on all kinds of books and all ranges of pens. “A writer can write anywhere. It’s not in the tools”. I agree with that too. Sometimes, even a note taking app on my phone serves me just fine.

But writing physical feels more personal. Those words can never be erased. The writing. itself instantly makes it mine. Even the mistakes I write and striking them off rather than deleting, makes it more human. All this experience keeps me sane, makes me realise I can grow word by word, page by page.

All of this starts at holding a pen. As the nib touches a blank sheet, I feel, everything is possible. No boundaries stand between me and my imagination.

Societal greatness

A generic greatness all of human society accept is Financial wealth. Higher the money, greater you are. Though you might get criticism by some, everyone eventually agrees capitalism is a good motivation. But it isn’t evenly distributed.

Most of the wealth people accumulate is through luck. Yes, luck isn’t the only factor; hard work pays off too. But if you do all the hard work but unlucky all your life, capitalism might not be a good target. You might feel that you are not moving at the fastest pace towards that end-line. Hence, we create our own greatness.

Your pick

If you are a company builder, you might find greatness in building more companies. If you are a bodybuilder, you might find your greatness in lifting the heaviest weight. People might have multiple greatness metrics at the same time too. For me, I find my greatness in writing more, running more, eating good - to name a few. And not everyone understands it or accepts it.

The great debates

At first, I used to defend why these are great. Then I used to explain why these are greater than theirs. That’s a debate trigger point. Such debate never ends ; no one picks a greatness goal out of blue and when you say it’s not ‘That great’, you never win.

Now, I accept it’s a different goal we all run towards. You might want to eat more, I might want to eat less. We all find our identity in our greatness. And respecting your greatness automatically makes you realise I picked mine with effort too. Debate about what’s the ultimate greatness never ends. I suppose those debates are not meant to be ended, but to help us realise what we want to be good at. Have a tough talk, find your greatness and look up to it. But also, find other’s greatness and respect it.

With some help

Become a tod bit simple

Yet, it’s yours to make

Do these choices belong with me?

You can keep asking

I don’t want it with me

You can keep saying

But, those choices too don’t have a choice

They were given to you in deliberation

Even the choices look upto you, to get released

Hence, however hard it may be

Right or Wrong

Make the choice

Power of pressure

Pressure is subjective. A scolding could be a breaking point for me, while a full fledged assault could be for you. Hence, pressure is a powerful word. No one knows how much they can take until they lock eyes with the most frightening situation.

I’ve cracked handling pressure. Well, to some extent; Sometimes pressure does get onto me. But the best kind of pressure I can take is the sudden pressure - that blow in the back of the brain you get on a random Friday, that is the pressure I’m talking about. I tackle it by thinking it from the other side.

Question is the answer

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

is the question I ask if I’m panicking because of a problem I’m not able to solve. For example, if I’m given a task to be completed within a day and it had been two days with no progress, manager pings me for an emergency meeting, back of the mind I know it’s about the task, I start panicking. Thoughts in chaos, sweat drops forming under my neck, heart beat in zone 5, breathing like I’ve just run a marathon. In that moment, I ask myself THE question. What’s the worst? I start answering it from there. I might lose the job if it’s as bad as I’m feeling. Can I sustain it? Well, I have my home to go back. Not much debt. Guess I can manage until I get another. I don’t think I’m that bad that I won’t get another job ever. So, I’ll be fine even if this meeting goes to the worst possible extent.

This helps bring my vitals back to normal and think sanely. The whole drill helped me many times not only bring me out of panic, but also solve the immediate problem quickly. And guess what, I was never fired!

It’s not that bad

We generally fall into panic in such scenarios cause our fear takes over our logical brain. What if I lose my salary? Will I lose respect with my family? Will everyone laugh at me cause I make dumb decisions? Am I that horrible of a person? Don’t I really deserve a promotion or a raise? All these questions dance around cause you’ve heard one or the other from someone, saw it on a sad reel, or a youtuber ranted about it.

In all sense, you are fine most of the time. Probability of you getting fired or getting humiliated is quite low if you work well and have good friends. So next time you are facing the panic meeting room, ask the question. “What is the worst that can happen to me?”

When I go back

Even now, It’s not as if I’ve exited instagram fully. I install the app every Saturday to post about the new blog and also to catch up on any new photos my friends and family have posted; and the algorithm works like a charm when you come back after long breaks. As I scroll through my feed, almost every post is of someone I know and a post which I generally look upto. But hardly couple of posts later comes AI slop or random reel to hook me back onto the app. I turn it off.

The app generally stays on my phone for a day or two. Saturday night, as I hit the bed, I get this feeling that I’ve achieved the goal of not using instagram for a week, hence I’m entitled to the reward of using it for one night before I uninstall it again tomorrow. I don’t like that feeling.

Not a reward

As long as I reward myself of social media, it means I look upto it. That isn’t solving the fact that I don’t want to be within the circle of these apps. I plan to move away from that circle, but I subconsciously linger within the borders of that circle for the whole week looking to the point of hopping back in. Am I really pulled that hard back into the circle?

All this happens because I see the potential within, but not without. So, I started looking outside the circle. How did this help?

It helped me with my focus. A Lot.

Fooooocus

That’s a simple sentence, but for a guy who gets distracted very easily, is a strong sentence. I am able to focus on small and large goals quite well. It could be as easy as sleeping early to wake up early, or as hard as working on a dead set goal for eight hours in office. Whichever way I see it, I’ve gained a lot more focus in last couple of months. This also is trickling into me being calm rather than stressing out when things aren’t working out.

Then, what are the drawbacks, Rahul? There definitely should be drawbacks when you move out of all knowing god algorithm showing you the world topics within seconds.

I don’t get news instantly

Am I late?

It could be war or it could be tariffs. I’m at best late by couple of hours, at worst by a day. But, that isn’t a big deal. It was never a big deal to get the news slightly late - just these mega companies made us think it is.

Most of these news don’t affect me in such short span, cause my professional and personal life work in months and years. I am no intraday trader to lose lakhs in monetary value just because I saw the news fifteen minutes late; I’m just a regular 9 to 5 dude. But I do have a good circle of friends who ping me every once in a while talking about breaking news. Guess they are my news reporters.

Glad I’m out

All in all, I haven’t lost much and gained a lot. People who want to reach me out (or I want to reach out to) anyways are connected on WhatsApp - if not, a phone call away. Sending a reel a week to that friend with whom I haven’t spoken to in years anyways didn’t help me to be in contact. A phone call on a random holiday did it much better.

That made me remind of the story I wanted to write couple of years ago. Not a blog, but a full fledged novel. Well, like every other reader, I too went through the phase of ‘I want to become a writer’ and built a thesis around the book I wanted to write. I did start writing it on a Google doc before I’ve realised I’m way worse of a fiction writer (Well, non-fiction writing? Am I good?) than I’ve imagined myself to be.

The story is about my present self meeting my younger self in a dark, damp room. We both hold a book each. My book contains the self I portray to everyone - confident, intelligent, empathetic etc. The kid on the other side says his book has the true meaning of me. He says the book I’m holding is a mask above my true self. But that kid doesn’t even let me have a peek into his book cause he’s too scared that I might judge him. It’s quite ironic to think about the fact that my own younger self is scared of being judged by older self. That Irony is what I wanted to write about.

I tried building upon this plot - where it starts, how it starts, where it goes. I could never think of an end. Though I tried to end the story even before I started writing, none of the ends I’ve thought through were satisfactory. It truly is like how Stephen King said “A story is not like a statue which you are going to carve. The story is already there somewhere in the rock buried. You are just uncovering it.”

As I’ve said, I neither had the guts nor the patience to convert it into a book. Guess the statue was never to be revealed then, or was not to be revealed by me. So, here I am, putting it out into the universe, so that someone might pull it out of the ground.

But there were times where I get angry of my friend’s questions. I can explain once, if not twice, but also thrice if needed; but how many more times does he expect me to do it? How the heck are you not understanding this basic point? Do you even know any of the basics?

These days, I’ve stopped asking such questions. If I get angry of someone not understanding what I say, I’ll take a deep breath, breath out slowly, and smile. Cause, all of us are trying our best, and some of us are taking only two tomatoes, until I convince you need five.

Such a cruel world I must say. Efficiency is bombarded through us. Get it done faster. Learn the whole textbook in a single shot. Become rich overnight. Time is limited, run faster.

Yes! Time is limited - but that doesn’t mean it has to be counted in seconds. Time is counted in memories. Ten years down the lane, you won’t remember how quickly you’ve completed the homework on a random Thursday. You’ll only remember how good that english passage felt, that you read it hundreds of times. Time is of essence, and essence is to be felt - not calculated.

Some of us feel time differently. You might be fast, I might be slower than you, my friend could be the slowest of all. But, we all are trying to do something great our own way. We are building dynasties one brick at a time. If it means it has to be rebuilt again and again as per your liking, I’m here to take a deep breath and Smile.

Not all we do makes sense. We need to do things we don’t want to, cause it is how it should be done. These I accept. Though we don’t want to make some decisions, deep down it is the right decision. It’s like eating healthy is a no brainer and you hate to do it, but deep down you know it has to be done.

But, you realise these are correct decisions only when you understand who you are. If you are among a collection of people who smoke every day and give reasons as if it’s fine to smoke once a day, you don’t even question the problem. You don’t even realise there is a problem. But, when you are deep into the night, awake while the whole world is sleeping and start questioning some of your decisions, you shudder at some of them. You don’t know why, but you halt for a second in that doubt not knowing if the question itself is wrong, or if you are not able to find the answer. Those moments are where you find yourself.

And it is different for different people. Someone might like spending money on books cause it makes them intelligent or happy, while others love saving every penny not even having a tea outside. It is our self, hence we are unique. But finding ourself is crucial. Only when you understand the actions, is when you can rest. Until then, you might throw away food just because everyone around us is doing the same.

Finding yourself is hard, holding onto yourself is even harder. In today’s day and age, everyone around is trying to beat you down. It might not be because they enjoy it, but they might have lived that way. Still, when others stir up your emotions and you crack, you can’t make decisions by yourself. And when that happens, you need a well-wisher you can rely on. Confusion is personal, and it can’t creep that easily onto people who are close to you. Their emotions run separate, yet they can decide for you cause they know who you are.

Relying on others is the toughest. We are taught to solve problems by ourselves. We are never taught how to rely on people. But, when your internal emotions are in chaos, trying to solve problem creates more problems. You are to sit idle while your friend or partner takes over. Need not regret the decision, cause you will stand strong for them later. Right now though, sitting silent is better than creating chaos.

I can’t put what had been going through my mind, and all this revelation started in just couple of minutes. In those minutes, I went into denial, then acceptance, then portrayal of a different self of me. In those mere minutes, I lost a part of me which I am not able to find back. Since then, I feel more neutral to all emotions, including pain, fear, happiness, guilt and regret. All of these have come down drastically to settle into a silent pond.

The older me might’ve kept searching for those emotions. But, I don’t even feel right searching for them. It feels as if I am meant to be here. To go through pain isn’t wrong, but necessary to understand myself.

No joke, I’ve been searching for a quote which describes where I am in this moment. None captures. It’s like I’m looking for that one Instagram reel which appeared only for a second and now is lost for eternity. But, I will try to put my experience in a single statement.

To grow is to feel the pain fully. Not to understand, but to just feel it to the core

I am not even at a state to judge any of my situations right now. Everything right or wrong, just is. That’s it - it just is. I am here to see it through, not to change the course. To be honest, this isn’t hard. This is sad; cause I never felt so open to all I am seeing.

All of what I’ve written seems vague, and I’m sorry for that. But I really am not able to put them to words. One thing I did understand which I can put in words though. If you want to grow fast, you have to pick the hardest path. If you want to catapult the farthest compared to others, you need to pull back on the rubber as hard as you can before release. But in all this process, you might have to sacrifice something. Maybe the catapult itself will be broken to push you forward, but you need to be ready for it.

Greatest sacrifices create the strongest warriors

There could be million reasons I could be fat - but do I want to become fit is the question. If yes, then I have to own it. Me loving sweets or not being able to cook, doesn’t make me fit. They just silence the person about the topic in that moment. Ultimately I’m still fat. Achievement is a lot of hard work and it could mean that I can’t blame anyone else but myself.

Step one in achieving goals is accepting the facts. My resting heart rate is 47 bpm. Quite low compared to many. I can first accept it as a fact - having low heart rate means I don’t burn much calories throughout the day. If I need to lose weight, I have to workout. There is no other choice. Next, eat less calories. Even if it means less fried food or less sweets, it’s fine. Two years down the lane I won’t miss the sweets I’m skipping today, but I’ll definitely feel guilty if I’m not fit.

All this boils down to taking ownership. My life is being steered by me alone. Though there are family, friends and colleagues helping me on the way, I hold the steering wheel. Do I want to steer through rough waters to reach the destination faster, steer through calm waters to reach the destination slower, or don’t have to steer at all and let the ocean decide where I have to go, resides with me. Unless I take hold of my ship, I just drift through other’s blames and compliments.

Did I lose weight? Oh yes! I did. Do I miss eating comfort food? Sometimes, but not much. Do people still thing I’m fat? Yes, but there are also people who think I’ve slimmed down. Do I get affected by those? Nope; I now have a strong grip on which way should my ship go. Even if I don’t reach the destination, it’ll be on my call.

As I was reading my book, I got the drink on my table. That looked classy. Nice. I’ve put the straw inside the glass, gave couple of stirs hearing to the peaceful clinking sound of ice and took my first sip. Then I realised, I don’t like black coffee.

I freaking forgot the fact that I pick coffee with milk just because I love coffee sweet but hate it black. But from my second sip, I ignored that fact.

I might not like black coffee in general. That doesn’t mean I need to reject this drink in front of me. I’ve ordered it to try something new. Something new doesn’t mean good all the time. It could be not-good too. But I picked something new to take that chance.

Taking chances is what I’ve lacked because I’ve been trained to not disturb if it’s already good enough. If cappuccino is good enough, why to disturb that decision. Why should I even take the chance of ruining it, right?

Choice isn’t about ruining your old one, but to stumble on an even better one. One drink ruined, one meal not enjoyed, one book getting bored, one movie getting slacked, one job getting fired, one investment getting dumped, one relationship getting hurt. All these were choices made not because you could hit the bottom, but to find something even more incredible than present. If this one didn’t work, that’s fine; There’s always another. If that failed too, that’s fine too. One more go.

Only when I step out of comfort zone is when I can find better comfort zones. This process will definitely include harsh zones. One harsh zone doesn’t mean everything is worse. Gold buried deep down, but you have to dig through rocks. One speck of gold could make all that digging worth it.

PS: Ignore the bad setup of the picture. I got the idea for this blog after I completed the drink and I couldn’t click another one.

I did enjoy some before, but the prospect that it might not be a good event and it might ruin a big chunk of my predictable day pulls me away from them. Hence I’ve mostly been reading books by myself or talking to friends who has a predictable character.

I thought I’ll give it a try this time and went for the event. Starting 6 30 in the evening till 11 in the night, I even forgot I have a dopamine production facility in my pocket. It was a group of about twenty people playing a board game called “Catan”. Though it was my first time playing the game, and though I’ve lost, I loved being present in those moments.

I thought being with predictable people is better than taking the chance of going out. I suppose it’s the other way around.

Only when I meet new people is when I realise life’s much more than calmness. It could be sadness, happiness, jealousy, grit, silence, sincerity, anger, resentment, and a million other things. We are here to experience everything. We are not to be with predicticality, but to be with just people.

Guess I’ve grown to love the comfort. Comfort’s my safe space. Nothing’s wrong with a safe space. Still, every once in a while, only if I look out for new friends will I have a chance of growing my safe space. I can always come back home. But I can also bring new people in.