I am reading The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and in one particular letter (the novel is all about letters), the protagonist describes a meeting with her aging ex-boss as unfulfilling because the man has lived long enough to lose most of his mental faculties.

She later says, and I’m not paraphrasing here since I don’t have the book handy, that God help her if she ever reaches the age of ninety.

It reminded me of Khushwant Singh, the prolific Indian author, who lived till 99. He once lamented on the unpleasantness of the whole situation. Almost all his friends were dead and there were times when he found the loneliness overwhelming.

Considering that we are in the age of peak health optimization and longevity desirability, thanks to a few billionaires and weirdos who’ve turned this whole movement into a cult, the fact that all the talk on longevity happens on stages and platforms crowded by people far too young to be bothered about it has always struck me as absurd.

Where are the perspectives of ninety and hundred year olds? What is it like to actually live that long and is it worth it?

Longevity as a societal goal may be a noble pursuit and we have steadily made progress. The average life expectancy in almost every nation has increased dramatically in the past few decades. But obsessing over it as an individual while life beckons at you to live it fully is like worrying about finishing hundred books while reading a book. Read the book!

In the movie Anand (1971), there’s lovely line that goes like this: Babu Moshai, zindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahi. Translation: Dear sir, life should be big, not long.

As I grow old, I find myself increasing wanting to live it big. Surprisingly, that does require you to do some of the things that might help you live long as well. For instance, you can’t live big if you’re not healthy. So taking care of your health is a must. So is spending time with people who matter, forging deeper connections with people old and new, being a little more ambitious with your desire to learn and grow, not fussing about the time that is lost, and, most importantly, being fully attentive in the moment.

I suppose living it big could also help you live long with one added benefit: less regrets.

One of my fondest childhood memories is from the times when I was between eight and ten years old. I had two close buddies and we all shared the love of reading comics.

In fact, stating it as ‘sharing the love’ would be euphemistic.

What we shared was a mad passion for the Chacha Chaudharies and Nagrajs and Super Commando Dhruvs. We were among the millions of Indian kids captivated by these homegrown superheroes of that time. Mind you, we’re talking about the late eighties and early nineties when the internet and cable didn’t exist, and Marvel was yet to invade popular culture.

We had a ritual that we religiously followed. It’d start with me visiting the nearby library once a week.

There was only one in the vicinity but it was a good one. As soon as you entered it, you were greeted by a long table that ran along the entire breadth of the room. The library was just a small room.

This table was slightly elevated, like a judge’s bench. Behind it sat two bespectacled, stern-faced elderly men. They looked stoic until you spoke and stated your request. Just as you did, they’d instantly launch from their chairs as if they had spring attached to their bottoms that got activated by your command. They’d then pull out stacks of books – comics in my case – from the myriad shelves scattered along the walls of the room, and bang it on the table with a thud, an act which I am sure would offend the woke me today (so disrespectful, why did he have to slam it) but back then this thumping sound of books getting smashed on the table was music to my ears. I’d have probably been hurt if they did it any other way. My favorite new comics deserved a dramatic entry.

Each of the comics was elegantly bound with brown paper, with a stamp of the library on the top. I’d flip through the pile one by one, looking for the ones on my list while leaving some room for serendipity. The weekly allowance was limited so I could only pick two or three at a time. It was always a tough call but I’d eventually choose, and walk home elated.

The next step in the ritual was to wait. My friends would come over in the evening, like they did every day and they’d be excited too because they knew it was comics day. Yes, we had a day. We were disciplined like that. I would immediately show them the titles and we’d vote to pick one to read first. Yes, we would vote. We were democratic like that.

The final step was the most awaited one. We’d walk to my balcony (we liked reading in the open) and sit in a corner like three monkeys. The friend in the middle, and it was always him, would gaze at the cover for a while (so did we) to savor the fonts and the graphics. Once we were mesmerized enough, it was drumroll time. The cover would be flipped, the first page of the story stared at with awe, and the narration would begin. It was always this friend in the middle who’d narrate it, we wouldn’t have it any other way. He didn’t just speak the words. He expressed them. His intonation was excellent, the pause and giggle timings spot on.

These reading sessions were great fun. They instilled in me a love for words and stories. I vividly remember our shared banter.. the glow in our eyes, the uninhibited laughs.

And then we grew up, like we all do, and grew apart, like we all do.

The collaborative reading sessions gave way to solitary ones. I stepped up to Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie, and newspapers and magazines. The reading habit stuck. My love for words continued to grow. But more than that, there was one specific thing that kept pulling me towards words: Imagination.

When I’d read, I’d imagine. I would see dreams with open eyes. Wonderful dreams. I would act out scenarios in my mind in which I was the hero saving the world. I didn’t have to worry about the uncertainties and mundanities of life outside my head. Inside my head I was free to make my own world. It was my own AI, always sycophantic, always working to please me.

Did you know that Albert Einstein chose to discard Newton’s laws of absolute space and time based on just his thought experiments? He hadn’t even written any equations on paper before he arrived at that conclusion. He developed his theory of special relativity later but it all started with his ability to imagine.

In the book Einstein: His Life and His Universe, the biographer Walter Isaacson writes about Einstein’s extraordinary ability to imagine.

He would think “what it would be like to ride alongside a light beam”

.. and “imagine being in an enclosed elevator accelerating up through space … what kind of effects would one feel?”

Einstein once said that imagination is more important than knowledge. I think this is what separates reading as an activity from most other modes of mental consumption. While it can inform, educate, stimulate, and provoke you, it enables you to do this one thing that, say, watching a video won’t: imagining.

The fact that I’d later start an internet company even though I flunked all college entrance exams (and ended up never attending) can also be attributed to my habit of reading (and imagining).

One fine morning in 1997 I was reading the newspaper when I stumbled upon the news of Sabeer Bhatia selling Hotmail to Microsoft for $400 million. I was intrigued. Who was this man? What was Hotmail? How did he make it? How did he sell it? The story pecked at my mind like a woodpecker on a tree. The questions kept hammering at me and I had to know what this was all about.

Digging for information was not easy back then. No computer, no internet. But I persisted and figured it out somehow. I learned about the world wide web, emails, Hotmail, etc. (Microsoft I knew, thankfully).

All this new knowledge lead to my imagination running wild. I was baffled that one didn’t have to set up a huge factory or build a plane to make so much money. You could make something on the computer that doesn’t really exist in the realm of physicality. You can’t hold an email in your hand, and yet it could have such a huge impact on the world. My young mind would go a step further – if Sabeer, who was also an Indian, can do it then why couldn’t I? All I need is a computer, right? I remember getting goosebumps while imagining this future.

While I didn’t learn to code or make it as big as him, I did keep this promise to myself, thanks to the inception of the idea by that story and thanks to my subsequent daydreaming sessions.

So, why do I read?

I know reading has umpteen benefits and we all need to do more of it in this age of distraction. It makes you more focused, more empathetic and smarter. Nobody in their right mind would question the merits of reading as a habit. It’s like physical exercise. Everyone knows it’s great for them and they should do it, and yet few do.

But I don’t read with all that in mind.

I read, like I’ve always read.

I read to imagine. I read to be lost in a world of my own.

I feel I learn better in this world inside my head. I’m able to arrange all kinds of information neatly in mental corners and easily connect the dots when I need to. For instance, the Einstein example that I shared earlier. I didn’t refer to a notebook for that. The visual of Einstein imagining that elevator bolting into space suddenly appeared, as if I had magically summoned it to unfold. This isn’t the same as remembering some lines you read somewhere, that occur to you as you speak or write. That also happens to me, sure, like it does to all of us. What I am describing here, however, is distinctly different. The way I am able to connect the dots is only through mental imagery, like a movie playing out in my head.

Maybe when I was reading that book, I imagined Einstein imagining. That snapshot must’ve gotten stored somewhere in my mental palace, ready to surface when it sensed its time had come.

That’s also why I like reading widely. Books, short stories, essays, columns, tweets, you name it. I want to build diverse worlds inside my head.

I am not picky when it comes to reading. I am willing to experiment. There were times when “must-read” books didn’t move me. And there were times when a relatively unknown story in some godforsaken blog would lead me down into the familiar rabbit hole of unrestrained thoughts.

I know I should read more. I am not perfect. The struggle is real, the distractions extraordinary. Sometimes, your imagining mind can be exhausting and you must stop its wild goosechase.

But what I know for certain is that I do not read to perform. I do not read to impress and I do not read to memorize.

I read to imagine.

How do you continue if quitting is not an option?

There’s a chapter on finding meaning and purpose in my book, in which I explore this question.

Here’s the longish excerpt:

***

There’s a famous story that has been written about many times over the past few decades. It’s about an interaction between a janitor and the then U.S. President. I couldn't find evidence that it really happened, but here it goes.

In 1962, the U.S. was preparing to launch its first Moon mission. It was a high-stakes event, and President John F. Kennedy visited NASA's space center to see how the plan was shaping up. He saw a janitor carrying a broom. The President walked up to him and casually quipped what he was doing at NASA.

The janitor replied, "Well, Mr. President, I’m helping put a man on the Moon."

The authenticity of the story aside, it carries a profound lesson. While the kind of work you do is important, finding meaning in it has a lot to do with your perception of what you do.

You might argue the janitor was working at NASA after all. Ask a janitor working at a mall and they might have a different answer to the same question. Let me counter this by sharing another story—and this did happen.

It’s about a liftman who sat on a stool beside the elevator buttons in a large office building. He took on the supposedly onerous task of pressing the floor numbers for the daily office-goers. I used to visit this building often for work.

I would observe this man do his part with a smile on his face every day. He would sometimes exchange a few pleasantries with people, but mostly, it was quiet work.

One day, when I was alone in the elevator, and since my stop was on the 24th floor I had a good few seconds, I asked him if he ever got bored doing the same thing day in and day out. I expected a humdrum answer along the lines of "I can't find anything else to do," or "I can't afford to lose this job."

Instead, this is what he said. "Sir, the job is far from boring. I get to smile at people. When you see a person smile, you become slightly happier inside. People come here in all kinds of moods. If my smile can make them happy for a few seconds, nothing like it. I am doing God’s work, sir.”

You can imagine my surprise and embarrassment. My condescension was met with a purposeful response. I was dumbfounded. All I could manage, while feeling sorry for myself, was an idiotic smile before stepping out.

***

I go on to elaborate on how to think about purpose, but the main takeaway from the above is this: Maybe your work, your job is meaningless but what if the way you’re thinking about it and looking at it is the main problem?

What if you could change your perception about your work, like the janitor and the elevator operator did above?

Dig deep and maybe, just maybe, you’ll arrive at a clarity on what might be the certain aspects of your job that could create meaning for you.

Get my book: 7 Rules for a Calm Mind in a Chaotic World

Once, when I was in school, I wore a new denim jacket to a ceremony. It didn’t cost much, but it looked more expensive than it was.

Everyone dressed to impress that day, but my jacket was the star. My friends assumed it to be costlier than its price and I didn’t correct them. I basked in the praise and let people believe what they wanted to believe. As I relished the moment, I was approached by a student I didn't know.

“That’s an amazing jacket! Must’ve cost a bomb … how much?” he asked.

I gave him an exaggerated number.

“Damn, I could never afford that. That number would probably pay for a week of meals at my home. Good for you, buddy!”

My heart sank. I realized the real cost of letting an innocuous lie float around. I gathered the courage to tell him the truth, and he was elated because he couldn’t believe that the cost was actually within his reach.

House M.D., one of my favorite TV shows, has a great line: Everybody Lies.

If there is one irrefutable truth in today’s age of social media, it is this: we all oversell our good times and hide our bad times.

We keep scrolling through wildly amplified portrayals and claims, and can’t help but feel like that friend of mine—admiring what we see, but with a tinge of despair, knowing we can’t have it.

Those amazing houses and vacations and dresses and bodies and relationships that you are bombarded with as soon as you open your favorite social media app are mostly a charade, and sometimes a facade for their broken lives.

I used to run a digital media company, and for the longest time, I had a front-row seat to this show. I’ve seen people lying out of their minds to get that extra ‘like.’ Back then, an old-school chap like me couldn’t wrap his head around it. Why go the extra mile for what’s basically just numbers on a profile? They weren’t real people standing there, praising the new denim jacket. I just didn’t get it.

Soon social media started taking the shape of the monster it is today—and I slowly understood the reality of it all.

We all want validation. And we all want to be entertained. Influencers know it, and they harvest this need of their audience by whatever means they can.

Celebrities and politicians have done it before, but their performances never felt personal. Maybe that’s because now it’s all about the individual. With small screens glued to our hands and our eyes fixated on them, it feels like the person on the other side is talking just to us. And this person is so relatable! She talks about the same things as we do and has the same problems we have, right?

But they’re not telling the whole truth. And why would they? Will you be entertained by it? Would you still care if they showed you who they really are?

I’m not here to diss the whole social media landscape or all influencers. Social media hasn’t been all bad. It has given voice to the repressed and broken the barriers to the creation of art and media.

But the fact remains that a huge percentage—possibly the majority—of what people are saying and showing online is just plain, blatant lies. And at first, we might see it for what it is, but over time, with repeated exposure, our minds start to believe those lies. As soon as that happens, we feel a slight tinge of despair like my friend did because we cannot fathom what’s wrong with us and why someone who looks like us—and has the same background as us—can have an amazing life and we can’t.

This despair accumulates in your heart and mind—with every scroll, like, and share. You slowly start to feel its weight on you. You start thinking that something is missing deep inside you, a void that you can’t fill.

Soon this void starts raising an alarm. It whispers that you are not enough, you are not worth it. The noise starts growing louder and louder. You want to break free from it desperately, but don’t know how.

Let me share what worked for me. This might sound simple but it is super helpful. Start by limiting your social media time every day. You can set a time limit on the app as well as through the settings on your phone. Do that.

Stop randomly opening the social app and scrolling through it when you are on a bus or walking home or resting on your couch. Instead, assign it a slot. Fix a daily time for it and maybe combine it with an existing habit. For instance, do it for 10 or 20 minutes after breakfast or brushing your teeth.

What we’re doing here is bringing order into the sheer randomness and haphazardness of our social activities. We want our mind to feel a sense of control over the time of exposure because right now it has no idea when we’d pick up the phone and start watching the memes.

Once the mind starts getting a sense of how this activity fits into our days, it’ll start pushing us to make it useful for ourselves. The gap of 24 hours helps your mind go over what you watched, break it down with critical thinking and then nudge you toward either steering clear of certain content or consuming more of what’s good for you.

It won’t be easy. You probably don’t know how addicted you are to the constant scrolling. It’ll take effort. You won’t stick to the routine at first.

You’ll catch yourself scrolling at random, on autopilot. Your fingers will do it before you even realize it. That’s what it feels like, isn't it? You are going deep into a thought and suddenly your head is moved down to look at the screen by what seems like an invisible force. You don’t even know when your hand reached for the phone in your pocket.

We’re trapped—and we need to take back control. All it takes is a quick googling to know that exposure to social media has been one of the biggest drivers of anxiety in the past few years. It has overtaken our lives and we need to start pushing it back to a time-limited activity that we do daily for a few minutes just for a chuckle.

After you’ve taken control, you have to see it for what it is—people acting it out for your entertainment. Don’t emulate them. Don’t aspire to be like them. And definitely don’t compare your life to theirs.

You don’t know their journey, what goes on behind the scenes, the sheer amount of effort it takes to create that five seconds of a short video, and the backlash that often follows in the form of hate comments.

The lives of creators are tough. It looks great and all, but they’re under constant pressure to perform and that’s how they sometimes give in to lying and falsities.

They deserve acknowledgment, and sometimes a cheer from us—but from a distance. Let’s look at the nuance and the effort, and appreciate (or condemn) the process instead of just the output.

Let’s not get rattled by content that goes against our beliefs. All it will do is fuel our anxiety.

Create some emotional distance from the content you consume. It’s their truth, not yours. Don’t let their truth affect your mental well-being.

Thanks for reading. If you liked it, consider getting my book.

There’s a recent trend of putting down ambition, and ambitious people. It’s all over Substack and Twitter and other echo chambers I’m a part of.

People are pulling down trends of yesteryears, like “hustle” and “grind.” Nobody wants to be seen working their asses off anymore and nobody appreciates you going on and on about it.

Please feel free to work as long as you want, just don’t talk about it. But hey, don’t forget to talk about how less you work and how much more (than us) you make. That’s certainly music to our new-age ears!

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some merit to this pushback. People who peddled “the grind” were never fully transparent about the trade-offs and the results. They didn’t talk enough about the factors beyond our control, like luck and privilege. They made us all believe that if we did what they did, we’d meet them where they were. Some of us were fishes never meant to climb a tree, but they didn’t care.

So yeah, they deserve it … most of it anyway.

But let’s take a step back and think about ambition and ambitious people.

This app on the phone you’re reading this post on … or the browser on the laptop (big screen users, give me a high five!), where did all this come from if not out of sheer ambition and the grit of ambitious people?

How exactly was this world made? Yes, it was built by millions toiling hard, doing the mundane and yet important work, but who sparked the main ideas, who lit the fire?

Who took that risk to go all in? Who sacrificed their personal lives, their family time, their hobbies, their health and their mental peace?

Before you jump onto, “hey, the world was better earlier” fallacy, please get into the time machine — which might be made sometime in future by ambitious humans — and go back and meet your grandparents or great grandparents and ask them how it was to live through the First World War, then a pandemic, then Great Depression and then Second World War. Ask the mothers who’d lose their babies to preventable diseases, ask the workers who’d just have enough for a meal a day.

The world is better because of ambition, because of people who wore ambition on their sleeves knowing well that it would bring a lot of pain for them personally.

I’m fine with the glorification of an easy life, a life without the burnouts and stresses. It’s good to aspire to such a life. And it’s baffling to me that we might be heading into times where it might be possible to be ambitious while having enough time for the other things life has to offer, so it actually would make more sense to be ambitious now, because slowly we are getting tools (hello AI) at our disposal that make it possible to improve exponentially in far less time.

So why this tug of war? Why the brutal takedown of ambition?

My hunch: Everyone aspires to be ambitious. When they look at someone who has used their full potential, they feel a tinge of despair. Their shattered dreams and compromises are dug up from the deep ditches they were buried into, staring back, right at their faces. They’ve chosen a life knowing fully well that just “being ambitious” doesn’t cut it. It requires them to make extraordinary compromises that they don’t have the stomach for. And yet the other person has made them and chosen to ride through the fire while burning themselves on the way.

Sounds harsh? I fear that’s the nature of truth.

I am one of these people, the kind that I described above. I envy ambitious people who’ve gone all in. I know I have big ideas and dreams but I am also aware what it takes to go all in. So yeah, I’m envious.

But what I will never do is put down someone just because they’re ambitious.

What I’ll never do is throw mud at ambition.

I’ll stand outside the arena and cheer for it, for them.

Maybe they’ll win, maybe they’ll lose.

But what matters is that they chose to fight.

Get My Book (Now Available)

Longtime readers of this newsletter would know that I was working on a book. I’m excited (and scared) to share that it is finally out in the world!

It’s called 7 Rules for a Calm Mind in a Chaotic World.

This is a deeply personal book. Most of what I’ve written in this is drawn from what I experienced and felt and then worked on in some of my challenging years.

It’s available on Amazon in your country.

You can buy the book (or pre-order) in all countries where Amazon is available. The early reviews are encouraging, both on Amazon and on Goodreads.

The Gist

This book attempts to answer the following questions:

• How do you stay calm in a world that seems determined to keep you on edge?

• How do you break free from the noise in your head?

• How do you train your mind to stay resilient in the chaos that surrounds us?

7 Rules for a Calm Mind in a Chaotic World is both a philosophical and practical guide to managing the constant mental noise that weighs us down.

It offers ways to quiet your mind without relying on anyone else, while also helping you navigate your relationship with the world around you.

You’ll discover:

• Why a lack of clarity about who you truly are is the root of your restless mind

• How to express yourself fully and authentically

• What purpose your soul should serve—and why it’s essential to define it clearly

• How to care for your mind and body

• A dead-simple but highly effective way to break free from overthinking

• How to escape your echo chamber and seek information wisely

• How to quickly interrupt negative thought cycles

• The right way to consume online content

• How to communicate with the world like a pro

• How to cultivate great taste—and why it matters

I’ve tried to take a holistic approach to training your mind. The book considers both internal and external influences and offers timeless, grounded advice (most of which have worked for me) to help you deal with the anxiety of the present—and the uncertainty of the future.

I’ll talk more about it and about the process of writing in the next few weeks.. I still can’t believe I finished a book and it’s out there. Phew!

Here are screenshots of some of the reviews:

Here are the links again:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon India (pre-order)

Available everywhere where Amazon is available.

Hope you’ll consider buying.

Happy to answer questions, feel free to email me at abhijeetmk12 at gmail.

Cheers,

Abhijeet

It’s gone today. My favorite table. The only predictable thing in this unpredictable world.

That unassuming table, with its three passable chairs, used to stay put in a corner diagonally opposite the door of this cafe I visit a few times every week. My favorite table.

I even have their bloody loyalty card. Topped up with cash. Fast payments. No fuss. Just let that corner table be, I told them. Well, I didn’t exactly, but they should’ve known considering how many times I sat on those chairs and wrote from that table. It must’ve smelled of me by now.

There was something irresistible about that table. It would look at me with a longing, waiting to be used. When I wrote from it, the ideas would just flow, the din around me notwithstanding. When I needed a break, I had to just lift my eyes and look to the left. The cafe bustling with people and the road in front bursting with vehicles, enough variety for my eyes and mind. Two minutes and I was back at it. Ideas would, again, just flow.

Some days, the table would be occupied. I would sit afar, wait with bated breath, sometimes almost staring its occupants away. It’s mine—just mine, I’d signal. Like a psychopath.

Today it was gone. I walked in and my heart sank. An empty corner. A void. The cafe was still bustling and the road was still bursting, and yet there was something melancholic about it all.

What happened to that table, I asked the poker-faced waiter. It’s gone, sir. Gone to another outlet that needed it. Wait, what? Another outlet needed that particular table, which looked like every other damn table in this stupid cafe? I didn’t say it out loud but the waiter read me. Sorry, sir, he said in a tone that was either conciliatory or condescending, I couldn’t tell which.

But gone it was. Gone to never come back. It was time for me to move on. To build a relationship again from scratch. To forge a new bond. To love once more. To obsess one more time. To set myself up for another heartbreak.

That’s life, I thought. Uncertainty is the only certainty. I wiped off my imaginary tears and reached out to another table. It was the same design. The chairs looked the same too. I put my bag on one chair and sat on the one beside it. I touched the table. Same texture. I looked around. Same cafe, same road.

Everything was the same.

And yet, so different.

Sidenote: My book 7 Rules for a Calm Mind in a Chaotic World is now available.

I’ve been writing a book and it’s almost done but in the past month I was struggling to finish it. In fact, this struggle was the inspiration for my make it to the finish line essay. How ironical, right?

The way I approached it is to write in bursts. I’d write 2000-3000 words on some days and then crash. This crash would last for a few days and then I’d again get back to writing.

This is not a new way of working. Artists are known to work in bursts. But this streak should last for the entirety of the project. A filmmaker doesn’t quit making a movie midway to relax. He might take his time to start a new project but when he is working on a movie, the work needs to happen consistently.

And there’s that annoying word again. Consistency. The bane of my life.

I’ve always struggled with consistency. It’s like something inside my body pulls me back with utmost force when I try to work daily. It whispers in my ears, “You’re not meant for such hard work. Pull back. Life’s going away, catch it while you can,” and I, like an obedient pet, listen to this inner voice.

As Steven Pressfield wrote in The War of Art, this is the resistance, a force that stifles your creativity. One has to fight it.

I’ve come up with an innovative solution to fight this resistance.

I call it Minimum Viable Consistency (MVC).

Ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. What is the minimum amount of effort needed for you to work daily on your art?

2. What can you create every day no matter what life throws at you?

3. What can you achieve daily despite the environment around you?

For me, I’ve decided that it’s writing for 2 hours. I can do it from home, from office, from a hotel during vacation. I can do it while mildly sick. I can do it in the morning and/or at night.

I can devote 2 hours to writing almost every day no matter how much friction life creates.

Writing for 2 hours is my minimum viable consistency.

I’ve tried this for the last two weeks and it has worked quite well. The pressure is off. My first goal for the day is to achieve MVC. Once it is achieved, I take a call on whether to continue or go do something else. Some days I push through. Some days I just give up and read. No matter what the structure of the day looks like post achieving MVC, the satisfaction of getting some writing done remains.

So, what’s your MVC? Figured it out yet? Give it a thought.

Kiran Desai on Fulfillment and Love

Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.

The above is from The Inheritance of Loss, the Booker prize winning novel by Kiran Desai. These profound lines threw me off a bit and my mind, impacted by these words, wandered for a good few minutes.

Notes From My Rambling Mind

You can do anything but not everything.

As we grow older, we seem to travel back in time more than traveling forward. We value nostalgia more than aspiration. We start dying bit by bit gradually over the years and decades, and then, suddenly.

Wake up early Sleep early

What can go wrong What can go right

Save more Earn more

Do more in less time Do less but do better

Change how you think to change your life.

Have a good week ahead everyone!

Cheers,

Abhijeet

Arya Stark stares at the castle across the river. The Hound – the big man who has been protecting her – asks her to not be afraid.

“I am not afraid,” says Arya.

“Of course you are,” says the Hound.

“You’re almost there and you’re afraid you won’t make it. The closer you get, the worse the fear gets.”

– Game of Thrones, S3E9

Why does finishing feel so daunting? Why do we start new projects only to add to the ever-growing pile of unfinished work?

There’s something about nearing the finish line that unsettles us. As we get closer, fear creeps in — slowly at first, then all at once. It appears out of nowhere and starts spreading its tentacles around us. Before we know, it starts strangling us, its force increasing with every step of our forward movement.

We push through, pretending to not notice. But it doesn’t let go. Soon its pressure is unavoidable.

We give in.

“Let me get to this tomorrow,” we think. Then tomorrow becomes next week. Next month. Soon, the momentum dissipates. The pile of great and yet incomplete projects grows bigger.

What is the source of this fear? Why would we give in to it when we have come so far?

Is it about the quality of work? Sure, that sounds plausible. We want our work to be perfect. It needs to improve. We can’t put out a shoddy piece of work out there that we know will be judged harshly, right? Fair. Then we should make it better and ship. What’s stopping us from doing that?

I believe this fear has more to it than what meets the eye. It runs deeper.

It isn’t about the work. It’s about us.

I feel it wants to stop us because it thinks we are not worth it. It whispers, You are not the kind of person who has the courage to get this done. You never see through things. You always back out. Don’t let it be any different this time.

It’s the same dread that stopped us from showing up when life needed us to. It’s the anxiety that stopped us from confessing our love and from speaking up to power. It’s the doubt that led us to imagine a better version of ourselves in an alternate universe instead of taking the action required of us in this world.

It’s the same fear that nudged us to pull back just when we were about to let go and become fully ourselves. It told us softly that this is not who you are.

This fear has become pervasive and entrenched in our lives. No wonder why we can’t seem to sail through hard projects and form tough habits. We quit as soon as the fear gets worse. And it does get worse. Every time.

When you put a pan of water on the stove and ignite the burner, the water stays still at first. It stays like that for some time. Then slowly bubbles start forming. These bubbles start growing bigger. They seem to resist the change. They start pressing at the surface, shouting at you to turn off the gas.

If you were to turn off the heat right at this point, you know what will happen. The bubbles will recede, the molecules will pop off and the water will go back to its still state. Sweet and calm.

But what if you don’t give in to their yelling. What if you raise the heat?

The water transforms into steam. A new state. An invigorating new avatar. More free and more powerful. Who would’ve thought, right?

Don’t let the fear hold you back. Don’t turn off the heat.

Turn it up. Finish the damn project.

Sidenote: My book 7 Rules for a Calm Mind in a Chaotic World is now available.

You have a problem. Sometimes you decide in a jiffy. Your senses get exposed to a thing or an idea and you know immediately, deep in your bones, that you love it and want it desperately. And yet there are times when you just can’t decide. Your mind and your soul seem to be in a perpetual state of conflict over that one decision. You keep swinging from one side to the other like a pendulum, not knowing when to stop and where to stop.

So how does one decide? Where’s the ultimate “framework” for making decisions you’d never regret? (because you know you will, don’t you).

A decision is a weird thing. You couldn’t decide when and how to come into this world. And then for the first few years of life you weren’t able to (and allowed to) decide anything. You were spoonfed like a baby (lest you forget, you were a baby). And then one fine day in one fine month in one fine year, it was thrusted upon you to make “your own” decisions.

The problem is that when you are entrusted with making your own decisions, you are clueless. You don’t know a single thing about it because nobody ever taught you. There was no manual, no rundown. It was always “hey, don’t do that, you will get hurt” or some version of it. No nuance, just fear. No pros and cons lists, no deep dives into second order effects, no Socratic method, nothing. You wonder why it is like that until you grow up and see all the adults winging it. You realize that even the grown-ups are mostly clueless and playing Russian roulette all the time with their lives.

Can one really be trusted to make a decision that they won’t regret? Or is it just plain math? Like picking a probability and going with it, not knowing which side of the equation you might end up at.

Here’s what I think. It’s a simple tip that has, or at least seemed to have, worked for me. And no, I do not claim to have learned it all. I have made my share of impulsive, mind-bendingly stupid decisions and somehow made it out alive.

But I have learned one thing that helps with a crucial decision.

Time.

Yes, take your bloody time.

It doesn’t matter how incredibly attractive the prospect of taking the decision might look. Or how preposterously foolish the option might appear at the onset.

Take your time. Sleep on it. For days. For weeks, if needed.

I am not advising inaction or inertia. I am not saying you should be paralysed at the thought of making the decision. If procrastination is your concern then set yourself a deadline.

But do not skip on the time. No matter how great the signals are, no matter how sure your gut feels.

You might arrive at this same decision after taking the time. You might wonder what was the point of sleeping over it when you knew in your heart that you were right.

Well, you probably were. But let the mind play the devil’s advocate for a bit. Let it show you all the angles, the merits and the demerits. You may not agree with the points but at least you get to be aware.

Maybe talk to someone during this time. Someone who might know better. Get a new perspective, a fresh set of eyes. Let them step into your arena. Ask them how it feels. Let them tell you something that might jolt you out of your fantasy land. Or let them share with you the same excitement and exuberance that you feel.

Maybe you will still make the wrong one. That’s the thing about decisions you see. You don’t know if you made the right decision until you have to live with it. But when you take your time to arrive at it, you can be sure that you gave it the attention it deserved and that’s all you could do and that is something you will never regret.

And remember that it’s better to make a decision than being indecisive. The latter can make you miserable, and unbearable to others. Don’t be that person.

Here’s to making the effort.

Cheers,

Abhijeet

P.S. The only exceptions to the above are: 1. When you’ve had enough training in the field. A chess grandmaster should let instinct take over at times. So should a fighter pilot… 2. When you’re in a life or death situation and need to make an instant decision. Let your intuition direct your response in such critical situations.

What did you read last week? What did you watch? Who did you speak to? What did you do?

Ever get a feeling that you don’t seem to remember much about how your days go by? Not in the amnesia sense, but in the it’s all just a blur sense.

You are not alone.

The other day, while going through my notes, I stumbled upon an idea I had jotted down in the past. I was taken aback. I had completely forgotten about it and it hadn’t been that long yet.

I don’t know if it is about me passing the seminal age of 40 or something else that’s encouraging my neurons to be lazier.

I have a hunch that it’s not my age, not yet. It’s something else, something that we all have been exposed to in the recent years. Something that has dramatically changed how we see the world, so much so that we are now coming to terms with its pitfalls and trying to make amends, albeit with great difficulty.

You’ve probably guessed it. I am pointing all fingers at our humble nemesis: The infinite scroll of text and videos.

We have trained our brain to keep hopping. It’s like our brain would go from one bar to another, savouring the drinks, liking some and hating others, eventually ending up too drunk to remember any of it.

We’re sending it on these drunken escapades every day. Its capacity to drink is certainly increasing but that’s about it. It refuses to remember the bar names or the finer details of the drinks it’s having. Why should it when it knows that the next bar hopping is just around the corner?

In the field of memory there’s a concept called spaced repetition. It says that to remember something you should expose yourself to that thing again after a gap of some time. Just doing it once won’t cut it. You need to space it out, come back and repeat the experience.

The infinite scroll doesn’t allow for such repetition. It wants to get us addicted to the new. It wants to get us used to more.

It interrupts us when we are deeply invested in a moment. It doesn’t want us to savour it and be fully in it. All it needs is one tiny millisecond of boredom during a conversation or an activity and boom, it has sucked you in. Your mind has zero idea what just happened. One moment you were talking to someone, the other moment you’re looking at a bunch of puppies dancing in the rain. It’s damn confusing.

When you do this again and again, the ability of your senses to truly take in an experience is lost. Every moment slides on the surface like spilled water on an iron table. Nothing seeps in.

What’s the Fix

There’s a reason why boredom is good for creativity. When your mind is idle, it has more bandwidth to connect the dots. If you just keep exposing your mind to new dots every day, all it will end up with is a clogged mess that’s too jumbled to be taken apart. Your mind needs a break from this exposure to make sense of the data.

So what do we do about it? Ditching the infinite scroll seems futile. Every platform — including Substack Notes — is part of the conspiracy now. Where does one go after leaving them all? Doesn’t make sense. And frankly, this detox is unlikely to last long, you are too addicted to it. If anything, you will come back to it with an insatiable hunger, ready to devour millions of pieces of short content.

What you need is some strength for the pull in this tug of war. As you get pulled in, you immediately pull back. Each time you pull back a little more with all your power until the opponent gives in and leaves your dopamine-hungry brain to decide for itself.

To gather this strength, start with time-bounding your scrolling. Give it fixed time slots each day. Start with multiple time slots. Something like 20 mins in the morning, noon and evening. Make these happen at specific times. When you get the urge to check in between, remind your brain that you will get to scroll in some time. If 3 slots sound too restrictive at first, make it 4 or 5. But fixed slots and, most importantly, at specific times. No random scrolling during lunch or in between work. Fixed slots, fixed times.

What this will do is make your mind gain a sense of control over this beast. The almost automated phone pick ups and jumping to scrolling will stop. Your brain will know exactly when you plan to do it and for how much time.

As you start pulling the rope more towards you and anticipate victory, start eliminating the slots. The goal is to eventually reduce this activity to fixed times once or twice a day. No less, no more.

This sounds easy but is going to be incredibly difficult. You don’t know how much of an auto-pilot you’re on when it comes to scrolling. It will take time and mental strength to regain the control.

Your mind will soon stop asking for the easy dopamine hits. It is now more likely to accept challenging activities like reading a book or watching a documentary or writing a journal or just contemplating and introspecting on life.

The neurons will no longer be couch potatoes. They’ll get back to working hard for the reward.

Your mind needs a break to rejuvenate. It needs to just be with itself first and then create. Right now it’s defaulting to consuming.

Having your mind step back from the hustle and bustle and letting it create is going to rewire it for the better. That’s when everyday moments will start feeling different. You will be more present and less distracted. And you will remember more because the act of remembering the past requires that you were fully present in the moment that you’re trying to recall.

Here’s to taming our minds to remember much more.

Take care,

Abhijeet

Read Next: You Can (and Should) Take More Risk Than You Think

Sidenote: My book 7 Rules for a Calm Mind in a Chaotic World is now available.

There is a new disease in the air. It’s becoming pervasive .. slowly and yet steadily. Like a sly virus it jumps at you out of nowhere, when you’re least prepared to take it on. You see it, reluctantly embrace and absorb it and then wonder — why?

I am talking about the new trend of ditching the capital letter in our writings. like this. and like this. imagine … in fact, just see how this looks when i write like this. that is what i am talking about.

The innocuous capital letter feels dejected. What did I do wrong, it asks. What unforgivable sin did I commit, it laments. I was here to help you read better, it says. because when someone writes like this, like how I deliberately didn’t capitalize the ‘b’, it feels the words are part of a long train with endless carriages that won’t stop. i have to work harder to spot the pauses and the ahems and the ahas.

Language evolves. We don’t say where art thou anymore. Our children are already slaying and vibe checking and skibidying and we have zero idea what all that is but we have no choice but to accept this evolution no matter how much it hurts.

But this isn’t about language. It’s about the syntax. It’s the arrangement of words and phrases that give structure to sentences, with the goal of better legibility. And that’s my pet peeve with this new fashion of not capitalizing the right letters. It’s in direct contrast with that goal. It just makes your supposedly great writing harder to read.

If there is one irrefutable truth, it is this — humans have always accepted and adopted convenience. The progression of science and tech always points to the direction of convenience. And so does the progression of language. Imagine if Shakespeare were alive today. Initially he would balk at the contorted English we use but soon he’d start loving it. “So much easy to say!”, he’d exclaim.

So tell me, how does ditching the capitalization make writing convenient? You are using keyboards, not typewriters. You don’t have to do anything, your computer or phone will capitalize the first letters of sentences automatically for you.

Why might we change this simple setting then? What exactly has gotten into us? What am I missing here?

I don’t know about you but I have decided to valiantly refuse to toe this new line. I will continue to give the capital letter the respect it deserves. No woke argument (I won’t be surprised if there exists one) can change my mind. Call me an obstinate old punk but I have put my foot down on this.

Long live capitalization of letters that deserve to stand out.

Long live readability.

How much should you work?

It’s a boring question. And yet I can’t remember the last time a question like this dominated our social and professional discourse.

Every other day it seems like a billionaire or a CEO wakes up and chooses to get on this bandwagon.

Recently we had a prominent executive in India talk about 90-hour workweek and the pitfalls of staring at your wife during weekends, which tells me that he never listened to music while growing up because “aankhon hi aankhon mein ishara ho gaya, baithe baithe jeene ka sahara ho gaya” is a well-known song from his time and it clearly encapsulates why staring at your wife might be helpful.

Previously we had a billionaire talking about 70-hour workweeks and prior to that we had an eccentric global billionaire and world’s richest man enthusiastically mandating work from office and long hours.

Since everyone except the billionaires has gotten riled up at the prospect of working hard for peanuts, I thought I will come up with my own set of laws of how much should you work, which explains why ‘how much’ can never be a number set in stone.

Share this article with your manager next time he delivers a sermon on why working long hours always makes sense.

The Law of Passion

Work feels like a breeze when you’re passionate about it. Everyone knows this. One doesn’t need to urge someone who loves their work to work hard.

They will work till their bones hurt. They will work because they feel a sense of bliss in that state of flow. They will work because they care about the quality, the small details, the nuances.

People passionate about their work will work because they want to.

Telling such people to work X number of hours makes no sense. It usually backfires and drains the motivation out of them.

It’s important to throw your perception of hard work out of the window when you’re dealing with a team member who loves their work. You’re not looking at a factory worker here. This is not an assembly line. This is knowledge work. The word ‘knowledge’ is more abstract than it is definitive. You should not expect the work involving it to be definitive either. Focus on the output, not on how and when the input happens.

The law of passion: Don’t set work hours for people with a drive for their work. Let them deliver their own way.

The Law of Optimization

Optimization is the low hanging fruit in every work that’s the sweetest and yet nobody cares to pluck.

Irrespective of the kind of knowledge work you do, your passion for it and how disciplined you may or may not be, if you are not optimizing your workflow then it simply means that you are losing valuable seconds and minutes (which add up to hours and days) in tasks that you should not be doing.

Every company, manager and employee is guilty of this. We get too trapped in the daily grind to question how we are doing what we are doing and how to do it in less time.

Work teams need to be like sports teams. What do they do before starting a match? They huddle. They go through the strategy and the tactics while pumping each other up for the big day. What do they do at half time? Again, they huddle. Players are constantly looking to play the same game better.

How can you emulate this in your work?

Here’s how.

Every week set aside 30 mins for a review of how you worked that week. Not the what, but the “how.” Figure out how to make this how faster without compromising on quality.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• Is there a way to skip a step? Is there a tool that can help you skip a step?

• Should this task be automated? Can it be automated? How to automate it?

• Is this task being done in the best way possible?

Don’t ask yourself or your team members to work longer hours without optimizing your workflows.

The law of optimization: Optimize your workflow to produce the best work in the shortest possible time.

The Law of Momentum

There are times in your professional life when the work feels so exciting that you get goosebumps when you begin working. The sense of energy is palpable, the feeling of joy is evident and the state of flow is easily achieved.

You feel like you are on a roll. You complete weeks worth of tasks in a matter of days.

Your mind and body are aligned and focused on the goal you want to achieve.

This is what I call momentum and it doesn’t come often. It’s as elusive as the snow leopard in the Himalayas. Maybe once or twice a year will you get to see it.

But when you do, do not stop. Leisure and rest be damned, hours be damned, this is the time to work. This is the time to produce, this is time to shine.

The law of momentum: When you sense you have momentum, hold on to it and move. Put all your energies into your work during this time.

The Law of Energy

I feel life is more about managing your energy than anything else.

This applies to your work as well. If you are low on energy, the work will suffer and number of hours you stay glued to your computer screen won’t matter.

When you’re high on energy, you can get even mundane work done happily.

Energy varies in accordance with our mental and physical states. Few of us are willing to make the effort needed to manage our energy. Raising energy levels requires good habits and environment.

The workplace can certainly help with the latter. An office design that prioritises ergonomics and optimal lighting goes a long way. There was a reason why Google pioneered the modern office with its colourful backdrops, cafeterias with gourmet lunches and conveniences like massages and laundry at office. People balked at Google and chastised it for its extravagance. But Google wanted to replicate the high-energy environment of a university and it did it successfully.

You might think this requires capital but there are hacks that can be implemented at fraction of the costs. For instance, having a few standing desks with monitors doesn’t cost a bomb.

Demanding your team produce exceptional work from a workplace that doesn’t inspire only works when your mission is extraordinary. Nobody at Space X or NASA ever worried about the aesthetics or ergonomics of their office. No staff member at Red Cross will complain about the food at the canteen.

There are firms where the vision and the mission overshadows and overpowers everything else. The people there derive their energies from the mission. Such places are few in number.

Every other firm must prioritise creating an environment that contributes positively to employee energy. That’s how the number of hours will be most productively used.

The law of energy: Create a high-energy environment that makes work fun and inspirational, an environment that doesn’t bore and tire you.

The Law of Results

If there is one irrefutable truth of business and capitalism, it is this: you must get results.

Your work must produce the output that achieves the goals it set out for.

There is really no way around it unfortunately. We all know it and yet the problem remains that we lose sight of this simple truth. The number of hours debate is a perfect example of this.

Instead of scratching our heads over how many hours one should work in office, the primary focus needs to be on how to ensure the work drives results. That needs to be the north star.

The law of results: Do not lose sight of the main thing. Focus on what can bring the results.

So, how many hours should you work really?

We are talking about knowledge work here. We aren’t talking about workers at the assembly lines and neither are we talking about professional athletes. The number of hours matter when it comes to the latter.

Number of hours also, almost certainly, matters in knowledge work. But not so much as our beloved leaders think it does, if they care about quality work.

You may decide to stretch it out but your brain will give in after a point and start doing subpar work. Subpar work never yields great results. And great results are what we are all after, aren’t we?

It’s not about the number of hours. It’s how about how you utilize those hours.

Whether you have optimized your work to fit those hours.

Whether you are letting passion take centre stage and whether you are optimizing for momentum.

Whether you have created an environment for functioning at optimal energy and whether you care more about the results than the process.

If you value work and want to do it well, these 5 laws must be kept in mind.

This applies to both individuals and firms.

Firms who follow these 5 laws of how much one should work will attract and retain happier employees. And in my experience, happier employees generally get results.

Sidenote: My book 7 Rules for a Calm Mind in a Chaotic World is now available.

I was scrolling aimlessly on my iPad, pretending to do something worthwhile, getting bothered more by the noise inside my head than the noise in the cafe, when from the corner of my eye I noticed a celebrated founder and ceo sitting a few tables diagonally across from me, chatting casually with someone twice his age.

Exactly what my brain needed. A distraction. Now it wanted to confirm my side-sighting. Did I recognise the man correctly from the side view, with only his left sideburn and 30% of left cheek visible?

I had to confirm. Curiosity killed the cat and I don’t like cats. So I got up and decided to walk across them from the front. Of course an easier way might’ve been to just walk up to them and interject their conversation like a wannabe and congratulating him for his new product that he launched recently with much fanfare.

But somehow I’ve got an ego like a cat. I don’t walk to you, you walk to me. Or I walk across you sheepishly making sure you are you.

That’s exactly what I did. I wanted to be so overt that it’s covert. But it didn’t work. I looked at him for more than the standard split second that one should use for such visual experiences. Our eyes locked. I felt like a tourist trying to photograph a lion in between his meal with my disturbing gaze.

The mental conversation went like this:

“Who the fuck are you? A wannabe paparazzi?”

“No. I know who the fuck you are”

“I know you know so get the fuck off now and let me talk”

“Roger that, asshole … and congrats for the new product, it was so cool.”

That split second of talking with our eyes felt like an eternity. I gathered myself and walked back to my seat like a defeated warrior.

Suddenly I felt so focused. I sat down with a vengeance, ordered a dark roast pour over and locked my eyes onto the screen of the iPad determined to finish my task for the day. And I did!

I came back home to my wife who asked me how was my day at work.

“Extremely productive”, I said with a smile.

She hugged me. I hugged her back while hiding the yearning in my eyes.

I am writing a book. I must tell you, it is an experience like no other.

I know they are all words. This essay, a short article, a long column, a book … all are nothing but a bunch of words woven together in a narrative that the writer wants to impress upon you.

But a book stands out among its peers. It is not just a bunch of words. It is a huge bunch of words. Also, it will be out in the world in a physical, raw form and that demands a special responsibility on the part of the writer.

Naturally, writers end up spending more time writing books than they would on writing the same number of words elsewhere.

As I do that – spend more time writing the book – I am experiencing the sheer joy of spending time with my work and letting it evolve.

On some days I would find myself composing in a supreme flow and produce a few hundred words. It would make me happy and content and let me sleep well. After a few days I will read those words again and realize what I missed. I would realize the abrupt jumps I made to conclusions and see the absurd sentences I used to make those jumps.

It would pain me and pleasure me at the same time to redo the work I did with diligence earlier.

I have also found that forgetting about the book in between can also benefit in unexpected ways. On some days I would get busy with life and then when I am back to writing, I would connect my recent travails to the story I am weaving.

I wonder if spending more time on your work is the secret ingredient to making it great.

I am not sure.

I have seen the advantages of moving fast and getting things done when I was running a company. Peter Thiel has said that ask what you can do to achieve your ten year goals in six months. It might sound preposterous but I have seen firsthand the value in this quote.

We writers like to romanticize procrastination. We revel in our work narcissistically to the point of making sure that it never sees the finish line.

It is this dichotomy of slow and fast that troubles me.

Am I being deliberately slow and losing time?

Maybe good is good enough?

Maybe it isn’t?

I don’t know.

All I know is that when I spend time on my work I am happy. I feel absorbed by the process. I feel time around me slowing down and I feel I am in a different universe where it is just me and my words.

Maybe that’s worth something.

It should be no secret that power runs the world.

It takes power to make things happen and move humanity forward. It takes power to get what you want.

If asked to imagine what power is, you’d probably visualize a strong man holding a weapon and commanding an army, or a superhero single-handedly beating the crap out of a bunch of crooks.

You might also think about men and women getting up on the dais and waving to a raucous crowd of supporters, like Shah Rukh Khan posing with his arms wide open.

The craving for such power is there in all of us. I really mean “all”of us. Some would readily admit it. And some would remain in denial until they feel powerless in a worldly situation which causes this hidden craving to rise to the surface, like a phoenix rising from its ashes.

But not everyone gets to have such power.

It takes a certain kind of courage, temperament and sacrifice to climb to the top of the ladder.

It is not the ultimate power though. People at the top of the ladder are held at their legs by the hands of others. If those hands were to let go, the fall from the top to bottom is often brutal.

So then, what is ultimate power? Is there one?

I feel there is.

It’s the power over yourself.

It’s the power over your thoughts and actions and reactions.

***

It’s the power to listen calmly.

….. to choose your response.

….. to empathize with a fellow human being.

….. to have conviction in your ideas.

***

It’s the power to not assume and judge.

…. to not let your fears decide your future.

…. to not let the words of others affect you.

…. to not let your ego take control.

…. to not catastrophize a minor mishap.

***

It’s the power to help someone with all you have.

…. to forgive and move on.

…. and to live, come what may.

***

Developing this power takes practice and can take your whole life.

What’s clear to me though is that this is the kind of power one should crave for and work towards.

Sidenote: My book 7 Rules for a Calm Mind in a Chaotic World is now available.

I was led by a group of students into a huge auditorium. To my surprise, it was already filled with people. 

In the front row was a group of professors and one of them stood up as I walked in and immediately put a garland of weird smelling flowers around me. The hall broke into a thunderous applause and while it felt nice, I still had zero idea of what was going on. 

“Thanks for coming, Abhijeet. The stage is all yours,” the prof chuckled as he handed over a mic to me. 

“Umm, for what exactly?” I asked with a bewildered expression on my face. 

“Oh, we are all here to see you speak and hear your story!” 

It struck me then. I must have missed an email or two. 

***

The year was 2014. I had come to this college to participate in a panel discussion. 

I was picked up from the airport by a bunch of lively students who seemed more excited than I was for the day’s events. One of them kept murmuring, “Sir, it will be cool, are you ready?” … it was just a panel, what did I need to be ready for? I didn’t pay much heed to his frequent remarks. 

I should have paid more attention to this young chap’s excitement and should have asked him some follow up questions because then I’d have known their plan which was mentioned in their email and which I ended up reading after my session.

They organized a pre-event keynote speaker session and the entire college was already told that today’s the day when they’ll learn how to build a business, from someone who never went to college. 

And then there I was standing in front of hundreds of curious faces, who had taken time out to hear and watch me speak. 

I was, of course, totally unaware and unprepared. Not just that, I had little public speaking experience. I did participate in debates and declamations in my school years, and also won a few, but it all happened after ample preparation. 

This time, my audience wasn’t a group of mellow school students. Instead, I faced a crowd of boisterous college-goers who wouldn’t think twice before breaking into collective laughter if I faltered on the stage. 

***

At that very moment it seemed as if time had come to a standstill. 

I could see the hand holding the mic moving in slow motion towards me and the sound of the professor’s words ringing gently yet loudly in my ears. 

A brain fog seemed to have started to set in, about to pose the impending question: “Now what?” 

***

“Don’t think, just do” 

Remember this line from Top Gun (and Top Gun Maverick)? 

If you’re a pilot in the middle of a dogfight, doubting your instinct can prove catastrophic. The decisions need to be made in a split-second and there’s no room for “thinking.”

"The best techniques are the ones that happen naturally." – Bruce Lee.

In martial arts, there’s a concept called Mushin. 

Mushin refers to a state of mind where the fighter acts without premeditation or hesitation. The mind is devoid of thoughts and it lets the natural reflexes of the fighter take over. 

This no-thought zone is often commonly referred to as the state of flow where you’re just doing it without letting your mind distract you. You do not care about the result in those moments. You do not care about anything because caring requires thought. And when you’re in the state of flow, letting thoughts come in your way can hamper the quest for excellence. 

Great artists and sportspersons often express their unawareness of the process when asked how they just accomplished an extraordinary feat. 

When Michael Jordan was asked how he played so well despite having the flu in the 1997 NBA finals, he said he was in the zone and everything felt automatic. India’s ace batsman Virat Kohli once said, “You don't think much. You just watch the ball and react.”

Serena Williams has said that sometimes when she’s fully immersed in the game, time seems to slow down.

Great musicians have mentioned being in a trance-like state when they’re in the flow. Zakir Hussain once said that his fingers on the tabla can move faster than his mind, beyond his control, when he’s deeply engrossed in a performance.

Beyoncé has described moments during performances when she forgets the choreography and lets the music guide her movements and expressions.

Both Lee Child and Stephen King have mentioned not forcing the story out of themselves and instead letting it unfold as they are putting words on the paper. 

Imagine a story being written without conscious thought. Sounds crazy but that’s what several great writers have claimed to have done. 

Such telling accounts of people describing how they surrendered themselves to a state of no thought and letting their body dictate their actions tells us that there’s something inside us that transcends our minds and we should probably trust it when the time comes. 

When you jump into action, the action itself can produce the thinking you thought you needed prior to initiating it. 

With every small act a new thought to improve the act might come up. And then you improve it in real time. It creates a positive feedback loop of action and thinking driving you forward in your task. 

***

I stood there, in front of that professor, with the mic in my hand. I was frozen and thoughts had just started knocking on the door of my mind, eager to creep in and take over. 

At that very instant, something dawned upon me. I can’t express or describe what that something was. But it dragged me to the stage and directed me from the inside to start speaking. 

I spoke unfettered for almost an hour. I do not remember to this day what my speech was about. 

But what I do remember is an engrossed audience staying till the last minute and then later coming up to me with follow up questions. 

Like Maverick said, I didn’t think. I just did.

Make something that dazzles the world
That shows your soul
and makes you whole

**

Make something that makes you feel
That pierces through the skin
Through the muscles and the vessels
and nudges the heart to make it heal

**

Make something that puts a dent
Maybe not in the universe 
But in that house of conformity
in that stereotypical tent

**

Make something that makes you a living
And try to make not just a living
but a proud living

**

Make something that makes you happy
because happy are the people who make something 

Sidenote: My book 7 Rules for a Calm Mind in a Chaotic World is now available.

They say that once you know who you are, life feels lighter, like a cold breeze comforting your senses. Your clarity of purpose makes every day exciting no matter how daunting your goals might seem.

But it can be difficult to come to terms with who you really are.

We are conditioned and programmed by the world around us, so much so that we jump into things that we think we will like but end up hating them eventually. It’s like wearing layers and layers of clothing and forgetting what you wore (and loved) underneath it all.

We chase fantasies. You imagine something will be great but as soon as you take action reality hits like a ton of bricks.

I think we all must, at some point in our lives, do a deep introspection into ourselves. 

We need to poke around the forgotten corners of memory, into the dim hallways of childhood, dusty rooms of adolescence and into the bitter sweet first few years of our professional lives where we waded through ambition and failures.

Here are some questions one could ask themselves to give some structure to this contemplation.

What kind of tasks did we keep getting back to? 

What kind of environment did we always cherish? 

What kind of emotions do we keep resurfacing in ourselves? 

What do we keep saying and thinking but never end up doing? 

If and when you arrive at the answers, it can be unsettling.

In fact, chances are that you’ll be surprised — either pleasantly or horridly — at this knowledge about yourself. 

But it is important to arrive at those answers and then either accept or change.

In my experience, acceptance is tougher and yet that’s what leads to peace and clarity.

Nietzsche has said that to become who you are you need to be willing to stand alone. Rabindranath Tagore also stressed on finding your path by walking alone (ekla cholo) if the need be. 

I think this is what scares most people. We want to belong. As soon as we figure that committing to what we truly want to do will entail isolating ourselves from the tribes we’re a part of, we flinch and flip.

I suppose becoming who you are requires a sacrifice that most of us are unwilling to make. 

Your work must stand out. 

Either it should grab the attention of discerning onlookers or it should provide extraordinary value to the person using it. Preferably it should do both. 

That’s what great work is all about. 

When we think about ways to stand out with our work, one word immediately pops up in our minds: Different. 

We think our work needs to be different and distinctive. 

We think it needs to have that panache, that aura, that halo around it. 

We want it to be wrapped up in a red satin cloth which people are required to unveil to see it, and when they do see it we want them to go berserk with excitement. 

We want that work to be a masterpiece.

****

There’s no harm in thinking on those lines but let me offer a counterargument. 

I believe the easiest way to stand out with your work is to just do your best work. 

Put that extra effort in thinking and execution. 

Do that painful dance of going back and forth, iterate until you feel it’s perfect. 

Look at it multiple times during the day, go to sleep while thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. Care for the nuances, dive into the details.

Produce an output that’s so impeccable that your boss or your audience forget to blink and breathe while consuming it. 

****

Why I believe this is a better way to go about it?

Because very few people do that. 

Being meticulous and having a keen eye for detail and not compromising on quality is not everyone’s cup of tea. 

If you’re able to consistently produce a high-quality output then you’d automatically put yourself in the top 1% of your field of work. 

In fact, this is probably the most common way the top 1% in the world have stood out. 

People are often surprised when they meet a top performer. They can’t understand what’s so special about them and how they ended up in the upper echelons of their profession. They eventually boil it down to dumb luck. “Look at that lucky bastard,” they say. 

Luck certainly has a role to play. But it’s a percentage. 

The rest of the equation comprises of all the traits I mentioned. 

And, of course, a mad work ethic. 

When you combine attention to detail, open mindedness, great taste and relentless focus on quality with a strong work ethic then you know that your work is going to stand out. 

It may not be “different” or “creative”, and it doesn’t need to be. 

What it will be is flawless. 

How many flawless products or services can you recall? 

You get the picture. 

So, aim for flawless first. That’s the path to distinctiveness.