Nishtha Gehija

If anyone around us wants to be quiet and not socialise, we demolish them.

I have found most people almost take other people’s need for quietness (that has got nothing to do with them) as a question on their character, credibility and even existence.

This makes the quiet-seeking people never say, “I am sorry I cannot come to the party because I want to sit at my home in quiet.” They invariably say a version of, “I am sorry I cannot come to the party because I have XX, YY and ZZ things to do.”

It is high time we understood that people seeking quietness is simply their need to recharge themselves. It has got nothing to do with humiliation, disrespect, our “disregard” to group ethos. Even if it has, then communication is going to solve it. Any offended person would want to run away from it.

What if instead of labelling people with what they have in themselves against you, what if tried to explore what they are actually trying to tell us? The worst that could happen is we go back to our previous ways of living. It’s a win-win, yet we choose to lose every single day.

When your schedule is ripped apart for the next 8-10 days.

When you are going to be facing the toughest battles alone, with a smile on your face.

When you have to be nice to the rudest ones, because your behaviour defines you, not them.

I have invariably concluded in life that fortuitous events in life are like chess pieces purposefully placed in your path. If you treat those like a game and play your next move with stoicism, no one can stop you from winning. If you toss the chess pieces apart calling the game unfair, guess who is the loser? And I am not talking about the game.

I gave up my successful career as a CA to become a writer. Or rather, even more successful writer.

One very common thing I get from people is pity. “Oh, you must be so brave. You gave up a lucrative career as a CA, that pays you really well, in order to become a writer. Poor you (pun intended).”

I smile and do not respond, here is why:

1. Life is about understanding that the more you become valuable in any field, the more money you make. It requires astute business sense, deep understanding of your field, and generous love for your craft. If you have none of these, you could be a pauper CA too.
2. I made a little less money than my last drawn salary in my first year as a writer, but then life has rewarded magnanimously, because I understood whose problems I wanted to solve through my writing, and how. Also, because there have been easily some 12-hour days behind this “easy success” 🙂

We spend our entire youth to study hard to gather degrees that give us education that give us jobs. Wisdom, though, is earned every single day for the rest of your life. Most of which is earned by being open to how others are living their lives. Carrying around sticky notes to label people is so-not-2026.

Lastly, dude I am a Sindhi before I was a CA. Make what you can of this 🙂

Is the answer for every question you are looking for.

What does self-driven mean?

To me, it means not relying on other people to motivate you, inspire you, or guide you where to go. It also means you get your sips of wisdom from books, videos, pods, etc. I also call this being self-dependent person.

If you give people the power to make you better, you inevitably also give them the control to make you worse.

When you are self-dependent, you know it is your job to push you, motivate you, and even to allow yourself walk in the park when you do not know the solution to a problem.

People leaning on others, on the other hand, invariably think the self-driven are cut from a different cloth. No they are not. At one point, they just figured that the only person that can help them is themselves.

There are many ways of becoming the main character of your life. The one thread thing to all of them is sitting on the driver’s seat.

Some characteristics of a safe person:

• Even if they disagree, they respect you.
• The disagreement is on an opinion, not on you as a person.
• Even if they do not like you, they are not going to badmouth you.
• Their life is driven by what they do, not what you do.
• They are easy to hang around with, if at all they choose to hang around.

…especially in business.

I make my business decisions not based on today or a year from now, but based on “what if the world doesn’t work out as it does today and change completely?”

It allows me to not do certain things, to do certain things that don’t look practical, and in a lot of cases, always helps in the long run.

…Gag yourself.

Go for a run. Go for a walk. Listen to music endlessly.

Do whatever you can to make sure you do not blurt yourself out at them.

At one point you will see them suffering, even if it is not because of you or what you said, and you would want to reverse everything you said.

…

That said, when you have calmed down and so have they, please have a communication like an adult. The intent is to come to a point where both parties win.

Life is too short anyway, but it is even shorter to use harsh words with your parents.

Just because they gave you trauma, does not mean you get to level up the karma.

…is closing your laptop after your work for the day is done.

If you really care about more work, you need that time off to let your mind wander.
If you don’t care about more work, stop wasting your time.

What if you tried waking up at 4, opening the door of your room that overlooks the outdoors, while your “jaali waala darwaza” is still bolted, and allowed the natural breeze to soothe you?

I do that every single morning and every single night of summer, for so many years, and I can guarantee no AC or no different weather can replace it.

Summer has its pain points, just like other seasons of the year, but the peaceful pivots it brings are something that you’d genuinely look forward to, if you enjoyed them at least once.

Boredom.

Allow yourself to crawl on the floor, read books inverted or even look out the window for infinite time.

Allow boredom to let you feel yourself.

You will then look forward to loneliness instead of running away from it.

When I had started writing around 11-12 years ago, the kind that was in fashion was writing blogs for companies’ websites and writing Instagram captions.

Over these years, the writing has undergone many changes (with the above two genres almost non-existent).

But this blog and my habit of writing it daily has stayed consistent. Time and again, I think of it as the best decision of my career.

When the algorithms are changing, when you see something that have built with consistency gather dust, when every day you have to work on pleasing the algorithm and not your customers — those are the days you realise building a blog is the finest thing you could do to yourself.

Not too big. Otherwise it might get overwhelming to the reader. Keep it crisp. But fill it with wisdom.

More than changing your career, you will also see how you have evolved as a person.

Especially when you are hyper-independent and ride a self-driven car like me.

You sit at the back of the cab, and you surrender.

You know you will be taken to your destination. You know you cannot control much about the forces you will meet in the journey. You have done your best, and now you are free (doing nothing) while getting things done (going to your destination).

I don’t build these moments purposefully into my life but whenever life calls for them, I have my best reflections.

I also believe it is true for every single one of us who looks out and does not look down at the screen in their hands.

Please try this the next time you are riding a cab (especially alone). Just you. Looking out. No phone. Not judging others. Not losing it out when there is traffic. Just flowing with the flow of life. You will practically feel the calm within chaos.

I think about this often.

Please note that I have not written “the shortcut”.

A shortcut usually avoids the core essence of doing something. A quick and an efficient way is going directly for what you really want, instead of preparing so much that you forget to understand that you are actually procrastinating.

The long route will still get you there, but why not do it quick?

There is a friend of an acquaintance of mine, who always needs people to lean on. Planning getaways, planning a catch-up, coming up with ideas to stay together, he has something planned for every weekend.

The other disadvantage is he mistakes his charisma and chutzpah for competence and confidence.

These kind of people are equally distributed around everyone’s circle. Once a year, I come across such hyper-dependent but visibly independent people.

Some characteristics:

• Always looking for the “next thing”
• Hates a monotonous life
• Questions everyone who doesn’t think like them
• Too much fluff, too little depth
• Too much charisma, too little competence
• They hold others together not by the depth of their thoughts but by the chutzpah of their conversations (this is an extension of the previous point)
• Show zero signs of empathy

When I think about such people, I pity them. What all must have transpired for them to be able to never know themselves. Maybe a lot of successes, because failures open doorways for reflection. Maybe too many failures, that they think someone else is responsible for them. Maybe a lot of fear, because spending time with yourself is scary. I honestly have a lot of sympathy for them.

But what I also know for sure is that most people who are surrounded by a character like this end up feeling they are wrong (and not this character).

And I am here to tell you that the only wrong thing that is going on is you not listening to your intuition. It is rare to be alone and it is often a gem. It is a mark of the highest level of satisfaction to adore your boring life. It is a joy to be a listener and not always speaking.

Of course a man is a social animal. But how will you ever know your inner voice if you are always surrounded by noises?

The loudest things in life are the quietest, if we have the audacity to listen to them.

…being kind to your house staff and the guards of your society.

Even though your rational mind wants to think they might have erred in something, to not stir that err is what truly makes you a great employer.

You do not necessarily need to make sure everyone else suffers in their job as you do. When life gives you an opportunity to make pressure stop at you instead of being a funnel for it, grab it.

What ghostwriting looks like:

I write on behalf of my client. I ask them questions, they answer, and lo and behold, the chapter pours like anything.

What ghostwriting actually is:

• I ask them questions
• They answer.
• But the client is passionate about 10 things related to the topic, so sometimes they divulge.
• Which is fine, because I get a TON of filler content for the book.
• But every chapter like this requires me to write and sharpen things to make the content stick to the point. Only those with focus can do it.
• Add to the above, you have to make sure the transitions are correct, the words are landing where they should, and it should be simple. Again, the hardest part.
• Lastly, do the heavy lifting of taking the filler content to the right chapters.

Writing is hard. Writing in someone else’s voice is harder. Writing to stick to the point while making sure the extra content is meaningfully taken care of in the book is the hardest.

But that’s fine bro. The hard work that you enjoy is the work that creates miracles.

I was in 6^th standard, when I was sitting lonely in mine and my sisters’ study-cum-bedroom, sad of losing my then best friend.

“She has picked up another best friend since last week,” I told my sister.

I don’t exactly remember what she said, but at the end of her monologue, sitting next to me, both her palms on each of my shoulder, she sang a song, “Dil pe mat le yaar”.

Two decades later, as life has gone on to play its unexpected playlist, I have often concluded that this is a cycle of life. Some friends walk along, some don’t. I am sure there might be some old friends of mine that think the same about me too.

But going down the doldrums of anxiety and apprehension is not going to help you. Rather, l have come to these two ubiquitous conclusions each time something like this happens:

1. You must learn to be happy alone.

2. Because when you are happy alone, you do not make others feel lonely the way you were made to feel little and lonely.  

It’s a subtle rite of passage where you have to walk through the path of fire, so that you become your warmth while making sure you protect everyone else from that heat.

I was once travelling to Sonepat from Noida with a few of my friends, and after reaching the destination, one of the friends commented, “You drive really well.”

Like life has been a mixture of compliments and criticisms, like for everyone.

Then when someone commented on a skill that women are usually trolled for, it somehow felt like a validation.

On a different tangent, I think we buy into the usual stereotypes so naturally that when someone tells us we are overcoming those stereotypes in a positive way, we feel elated. We feel elated because we could never expect we could excel, while we were excelling at those things.

Influence determines almost everything we do and how we think, hence it is worth considering what you allow yourself to influence.

This post is not about receiving that compliment.

It makes practical sense to sit together after a big project and talk about feedback to make it better.

What if, instead:

1. We get around the table and make everyone speak one (or three) good thing(s) about the project, but it has to be not from them but about someone else.
2. Then everyone else writes one thing they could do better with themselves in the same project.
3. And then they write the name of the person who needs to do better + how to do it better and more constructive next time (not just “you were bad”). You don’t need to write your name.

It has never been done before, but it is worth testing how we do at a point of cheering for others, correcting ourselves, and correcting others anonymously.

Growth may not always have to be disturbing.

When you choose to write in your journal instead of scroll, you instantly feel better and lighter.

When you choose to invest your money instead of getting that Prada to pin on your Instagram profile, you instantly feel more responsible and reasonable. 

When you choose to call your parents even if you are tired and want to sleep, you instantly feel grateful for a life where you are able to have their blessings. 

We think we are delaying our pleasures, but the highest sense of pleasure is doing the right thing.