Nishtha Gehija

Should only be for positive actions. With a clear intention.

A positive action with an intention of FOMO and not of self growth often translates into a negative action.

…for anything in particular.

But most of all sending them a message.

“Can I send you a message?” is a message that shows less about your politeness and more about your polite disrespect of their (and your) time.

Get to the point in the first message itself

At worst, you don’t get a response. At best, you do.

Everyone does charity. In bits and pieces. As per their shraddha. As per what seems right to them and their goals.

But expecting people to do charity in the name of business is not the classiest act.

Do not support it. Do not think “at least I must be grateful for work”.

If you won’t respect yourself, no one else would.
If you don’t respect any other artist, you won’t ever be able to create good work on your own.

It works both ways. As effectively.

Be gentle with yourself.

Remind yourself why the past is the past.

Give good wishes for everyone who comes to your mind.

And move on. The past is prevented from being vast by not making it last.

That is exactly how your life is.

If you want to change your life, fix those two hours.

I once wrote a detailed post here, but time and again it keeps on proving itself correct.

Change your beginning. Own your day.
Falter at the beginning. Fight throughout your day.

Someone takes time to help you, and all you do is walk away. Without a thank you. Or if you are kind enough, an emoji. Phew. Must have taken all night 🙂

It makes the other person guarded against you. They now see you as someone who is here for a transaction and not for help. If you were for help, you’d be grateful and also say a thank you.

The reason we don’t give (thanks) is the reason we feel entitled. And entitlement rarely led to fulfilment. Ever.

I sometimes come across clips of Eras Tour of Taylor Swift where she is being grateful for the tiniest things like being served water or needing help with a fan (while singing My Tears Ricochet) or so many instances in the Eras Tour docuseries.

I might not have a thesis to prove this, but the ones who give gratitude are always always given more things in life to be grateful for. You cannot prove physics wrong. The least you can do is start with being grateful today.

Perhaps we are creating a fake world?

A singer doing a lip sync in a “live” performance.

A brand manufacturing “organic” products mixes synthetic products.

To never deliver your deliverables on time.

An elder sibling saying that they care.

To say sorry when all they are doing is passing on the blame in a manipulative manner.

The world is built by one person at a time. One action at a time. You can take care of your part of the world. (While of course not being cheated on.)

One person at a time. One day at a time.

1. Copying someone else blindly, without applying context to your own life.
2. Forgetting that often people don’t change, especially if that is not their intention
3. Having meetings more than 2 days a week
4. Working every day and not taking an off every weekend
5. Filling your off days with movies and mall visits instead of reading, reflection and nature walks.
6. Skipping exercises, meals and calls with your family.
7. Staying indoors all day.
8. Getting distracted every 2.4 minutes.
9. Giving with the intention of receiving.
10. Still getting hurt from what someone said on a Thursday morning at 11 am when all they were was hangry.
11. Blaming someone else for the chaos in your life.

The list is endless, but we can tick items off our list, bird by bird.

We all need it each time we have lost our self control.

We lose our self control when we have not paused even for a moment to give it to ourselves.

We don’t give self control to ourselves because we think if we keep doing things for others, they will reciprocate and then we won’t need to fill ourselves up.

People might reciprocate but the only thing that is going to make you self-reliant is filling yourself up. The only way is books, nature walks, meditation, talking to yourself, morning pages.

Give to yourself. So you control yourself. You have the need to control. Fulfill it with yourself. So you don’t need to control others.

You give yourself dopamine.

But you give yourself dopamine through creation (not consuming).
Walking (not wiping the thumb through screen).
Dancing (not doomscrolling).
Cleaning (not comparing).

Give yourself what your brain needs. Just through the right means.

Life happens. Things happen. People act out of character (where they are already acting into their character.)

In an ideal world you would want to sit with yourself and figure out a solution. Or go for a walk. Or leave things as they are for a bit. Meditate. Or perhaps a combination of all.

But when you interact with people, it is important to remember that you show up as a composed human being. Someone who does not allow any mood swing to swing their behaviour too.

Our bad mood must have no bearing on the goodness we ought to offer into the world.

Deal with your crisis. But don’t download it to others.

I am putting my heavy suitcase in the overhead rack of a train. After asking a gentleman if I could slightly move his backpack, to which he nicely agreed.

And then, stopped me from picking my bag.

When I tried again, stopped me again.

And then he put the suitcase in the overhead rack.

The would would be such a nice place because of more people like this, people who saw where they could be of help around them. Not because I needed help. But humanity per se becomes grander when we practice who we are: kind and human. I don’t think the world needs anything else at this time.

If you narrated everything you did in a day to yourself, would you be proud? Inspired? Ashamed?

Why?

Self controlled

Happy without devices

Suck in a loop of dopamine

Making sure all the internet is off at most times

Logging on with intent and integrity and not with inertia of inability to ignore.

2026 has not even officially started and I have made one of the best decision of my year so far.

A couple of acquaintances booked a Traveller bus and wanted to go for a 14-hour trip to a nearby city, just for fun. Offered me too.

And I decided not to go. Because chatting in a group drains my energy. I may go to a wedding or a party of someone I absolutely love, that too because it is no more than 1-2 hours. And I am not under any pressure to perform. In a social gathering I can sit quietly for 10-15 minutes and get back to performance again.

Edit: I was even happier the next day of their trip, because I could show up for my meditation and spiritual class with energy.

Not judging anyone, but to stand for what we want the most is something we should try doing in 2026.

• That it catches up. If not immediately as expected, but over time it grows in its audience.
• That it might sometimes be an outcome of effort, but often it is also an outcome of an instant low effort post. The only irony is that the latter often pops after working hard on writing.
• You are pulled towards it instead of pushing yourself to do it.
• Yet you must push yourself to do it because otherwise the social media would pull you towards itself.
• Learning how to write is a continuous process, something that only compounds with practice.

It puts food on your table. You and I and no one would survive without that.

If you work has put you in a place where you are complaining, pause for 15 minutes, step away from everything, perhaps in a nature walk, and think how you can solve it.

Complaining is for people who love being miserable more than responsible. Misery makes you a victim. It relinquishes the responsibility of you having to make a change.
Responsibility makes you a master. It reminds you that you are in charge, even when you are not.

What you do then determines whether the customer would return or not.

If you are grumpy and lose 100% of the eye contact just because the customer did not make a purchase, then they are certainly never coming back. Even when they need something.

If you are generously kind as hell despite the customer buying less than what you wanted them to, they will give you sales and referrals beyond your imagination.

Plus, karma is an important, invisible yet important component of life.

Is to get off work. So the work gets better. When you do return to it.