Nishtha Gehija

Sermons playing from a distant place of worship.

Birds chirping peacefully.

Cold outside, yet not chilly.

And here we are, forgetting all the magic and hugging our screens or our blankets. Magic is found in the moments we show up to, instead of choosing to curse our life like the rest of the world.

If someone suffered because of you, you are responsible. Even if “they could have made a better choice”.

If someone is following up with you but you are unable to do the thing, it makes practical sense to buy some time. Leaving someone hanging even though they are much better off than you never solves the problem.

If you think you can do a task by tomorrow, take time for two days. Just in case the task doesn’t get done, at least you have a buffer.

Accountability is a wise man’s armour to relationships and reliability. People too busy to look beyond themselves cannot usually afford it.

Reading a blog by Seth Godin.

A book by an author who did not want to simply replicate their Instagram ideas onto paper.

Books written because the author could not not write the book.

Short-form online content was made to make your interest quiver and your focus narrower. Depth resists and wins over instant gratification every single day. And with that depth, every short form content (like a blog or one-liners) also come out to be meaningful.

Our existence has to find a destination beyond scrolling.

All my life, I have run away from Sudoku. Like run away. Never ever tried the ones that used to be a daily feature in newspapers. Cringed at people who did them. Never fathomed myself to be able to solve them.

But then some 10-15 days ago I tried a Sudoku (easy version) in the NYT games app, and quite liked it. (Also, because I was able to solve it.)

Doing it consistently over the past few days, and it has taught me some lessons too:

1. There is always a hint. You have to be open enough to look at it.
2. If a number is not showing any hint, move on to the next number. True for life also. But there is a hint, a small door somewhere.
3. If a game could be won, you could be the one winning it too. If you are interested and committed enough. This is particularly true for life because not everything is going to be a piece of cake. You have to be lovingly passionate and committed to the game in order to win it.
4. Look at all the options. Clearly. A hurry is more often the reason for an error more than a wrong judgement.
5. The best part is also the fact that you might gain a sharper brain in the long run by doing Sudoku, but I would happily outsource that to reading good books. Other than that, do it for entertainment. And know the game you are playing. Instead of just blindly copying someone else.

A couple of months ago I lost the keys to my car. It’s a new car. Like 6 months old. Not the fate I wanted to land into.

It reminded me of my previous car too. Whose first pair of keys had landed into the same fate perhaps a year down.

So this time I decided to do something different.

I told myself that I will find the keys somehow. Each time I was reminded of the keys, I visualised myself telling my landlord uncle with celebration that I found the keys. I kept visualising this scenario about “finding the keys and telling my uncle” each time I was reminded of the keys. Other than him, I told no one about the lost keys.

Note that the car was still being used with the other key. The goal was to find the first key back.

Lo and behold, I found the keys at one of the places I used to keep the keys at, but had stopped doing that lately. I don’t know why I had stopped doing that. Also, I found those keys because I knew like I knew like I knew I would find the keys, and never stressed about “not finding it”. I just let go, and I knew.

So much of life is just that. If we just keep manifesting, instead of “not hitting it right in week 1”. You are always manifesting. Why not manifest the right things anyway?

And too little time spending time alone, thinking and going within.

The former makes you confused, entangled and left with “no options”.

The latter gives you clarity, a beeline to the solution, and a joy that most people hardly experience their entire lives. But often this decision is harder than the first one in the short term. So most people don’t even tread that path.

The ones who do, are rewarded with courage, calmness and eventually way more cash.

Divorcing chaos should be a course everyone must be taught in college.

There are two connotations to this question.

One, helplessness. “What can I do?” Deciding outright that you have no power to change anything, and thus, succumbing to victim mode.

Two, responsibility. “What can I do?” You understand things have not been working as expected, and you are curious to help. You know that sometimes one step of help and understanding towards positive change is more than enough.

You can do a lot. Or you cannot. The best thing is you are the one who decides, regardless of what is happening.

Yes someone acted out of character and hurt you badly. They made you diffuse your trust in them. They did something that you know would hurt you.

But till when would you hold your hostility towards them?

It is wise to know better and act better the next time. But for now, just let yourself be easy.

If you think you being easy would make you think you are easy to lose your power, you are making that come true by clinging on to anger. Read that again.

Learn the lesson. Let go. And let love be your forever nature. Someone else’s wrong should make you even more right. It should not turn you wrong too.

Remembering routes

Hosting parties

Being too chatty in a meeting

Organising a picnic

Digging out time to watch movies

This is a small list of things I am bad at. Without guilt. Because I purposefully spend my time writing, doing nature walks, reading, and cooking just for myself and sometimes for my parents too.

Without being pompous, I like chasing excellence in these pillars of life.

Being bad at a few things is perhaps an excellent place to be at.

It is a medical term, where the person suffering from it is not able to pay attention or concentrate on your tasks.

I have an alternate theory for attention deficit disorder. When you do not get attention from your friends, family, life, etc., you end up doing things that make you grab attention.

It is often unintentional, because you are not aware. All your awareness is directed towards making people aware of you.

Wanting to be seen is undeniably a human emotion. But we must see ourselves and make ourselves feel seen, lest we might end up doing things that might give make us gather attention, but rarely be seen.

I’m in a carpool with a bunch of extended family members.
The two next to me start gossiping, so I flesh out my Kindle and start reading some spiritual texts on a PDF. It is a good way to keep your mind in tune with the right wisdom throughout the day.

To no surprise, I am now mocked. Loudly. In a manner that they expected me to contribute to the “tea” too. Cute 🙂
I continue reading nonchalantly.

Which later reminds me that the same people have more than once complained to me that “they do not have time to read books or watch a 5-minute inspirational video because they are too busy.”

Who is NOT busy, my friend?
But we need to dig time from goss and tea and mock to being the student of life. And do that religiously when others do that to us too.

It was also a reminder to me that people are always going to find flaws in the way you live your life.
Whether it is a life where you make time for your inner self.
Or when you are out with others but choose to read instead of gossip.

No one is ever pleased, often for no mistake on their part.

You do you. Because you get to live with your mind 24*7. If you input trash of goss into it, do not be surprised with the output.

…that people will communicate the most important truths to you in the harshest, rudest manner. Your job is still to look for the truth and accept it, instead of clinging on to them to change the way they said this.

…that no matter how hard you try, some people will still hold you wrong for absolutely nothing. Sometimes those are going to be family too. You have to be strong enough to get out of that rut of “making them understand you” and change yourself.

…that some people are never meant for conversations. They will live their lives in hell in order to avoid a conversation and live like nothing happened and create diseases within them.

Accepting the facts is a good point to starting to quieten the fire within yourself.

That you press a button of happiness and the other person is happier than ever.

Relationships are a measure of how much you care. They require effort. Which is why you need to have conversations. You need to make people feel secure. You need to build an environment where we disagree without disarming the other.

It takes work. So we go for the vending machine approach.

But never in the history of food has the vending machine food ever made anyone fit and healthy. It is only the food cooked at home in kitchen.

Unless you have been asked, it is better to not give your opinion.

Because if you are sitting around giving away your unsolicited opinions, you eventually become unsolicited.

Put a price to your opinions. Sometimes that price is being asked.

Too much advice, opinions and points of view are means to show you know better and people don’t. The latter is something no one really really likes.

Respect and love is what we are always looking for. Respect and love is something we must give first.

Earlier this month I got myself a Penguin Box set from the World Book Fair, held in Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.

First things first, I had read some nice reviews about the box set. Also, it was at 40% off with an MRP of ₹6,999. A great deal.

Now, going to the crux. How were the books? Were they worth it? Would I recommend it?

Here is my analysis of it:

1. There are 80 books in the box set. Obviously you are not going to adore every single one of them. But I found myself to be enjoying a lot of them.
2. There is something for every genre. Since I do not read romance, I put those books away. But there are other genres that I would have perhaps never explored had I been buying books in isolation. So that is a huge win.
3. Most of these books are classics. Ideas on life in a manner that the modern world has forgotten how to express. A beautiful, beautiful way to express the most factful yet forgotten things.
4. A book gets finished in less than an hour. It gives you a dopamine burst too. Not bad, if a book it is.
5. A lot of books in the world we live in today are written with the sole intent of capturing more audience, building a brand, or words like that. While that is fine, a true writer writes for the joy of writing, even if they are not a full-time writer. Which is exactly what I discovered in every single one of those books. No exception.

So if you are thinking of it, don’t think. Please get it. It’s for the keeps.

If you work from home or are someone who is in charge of your time, it is a beautiful thing to build your life around taking a bit of off on national holidays. Even if you take an off on weekends.

And on those off days, make some time to do random stuff like knitting, looking out of the window, arranging your closet, cleaning your fan or even throwing out your shoes that you haven’t worn in the last 6 years. Translated: things that do not require screen and teach you to love your time at home irrespective.

You were meant to have fun while making tons of money. And I have hardly seen anyone making tons of money and being superbusy as well as fulfilled, at the same time. True good money is when you make it without killing yourself.

So take an off often. And learn to manage your time still.

Few months back I wrote a piece on “Why I never got married“.

It was my straight-from-the heart quip on why I never followed the society.

Despite being an old post, even as on today at least 90% of emails and DMs to me on this topic have followed a similar pattern:

Women: All of them agree. Congratulate me. “You go girl!”

Men: “I think you should consider becoming a glorified educated high earning bai that makes babies too, you would become such a great mother and partner.” My foot toenail. Less than 10% of men reading it like it too, but the rest comments are exactly a replica of this:

My reason to not get married was not my sister’s marriages. Or because I am keeping myself “busy”. But men leave their ability to use ears and brain together back in their mom’s wombs.

Only someone who has not read this piece to understand it, and to understand how a marriage takes the toll only on a girl’s life by making her a glorified bai would write this. Because men don’t read and listen what is right in front of them, they just thopofy.

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.