Nishtha Gehija

But over a period of time, if you continue believing a lie, it becomes a self-fulfilling truth.

It all begins in the mind. And ends in the mind.

The first tier is for drizzle kinda rain.

The third tier is when it is raining cats and dogs.

It is the second tier where you have to make the decision whether to use it or to switch to first one (if it is not too harsh of a rain).

Funnily enough, my middle class mentality makes me think that I should use the first tier, even when the rain calls for the second tier.

The battle of the first and the second goes on for a while, until it is finally time to go on to the second tier. Then too, each time the wiper moves fast, you undo a bit of your “you deserve less” mindset.

It amazes me that a car wiper also comes with its lessons on our deep grained psychology.

Boys that come from good families.

Boys that go on to have good education.

Boys that apparently their family is proud of.

These are the boys that often go on to damage good girls.

Not perhaps with the intent of damaging them.

But with just the thought of having fun, a side thing, someone to talk to, someone to message, someone to vent out their frustration on, someone to speak to without ever listening to, someone where they just take and take and never give.

Boys that believe that with money and making a few calls to the girl (of course when they are bored) they have earned the right to do anything to this girl’s mental health, emotions and her life. Because hey, according to them, this girl just doesn’t exist. This girl is just a girl who is his “friend”, because you cannot call a less-decent noun to an educated girl.

It is not that these boys intend to damage these girls. But what else do we name this act of selfishness done to cure one’s loneliness temporarily, while permanently damaging the other person?

To do anything wrong to any human being, especially when they trust you is the biggest form of hollowness, selfishness and narcissism. All of which is masked under kindness. And the phone calls this boy makes (always at his own convenience).

Girls, please know that:

1. You are allowed to say no. NO. NO. NO. TEN MORE, THEN THOUSAND MORE TIMES NO.
2. Boys have this habit of saying things to girls to invoke any emotions from them. It is the girl’s responsibility to have an internal compass so strong that it is impossible to fall prey to these words. A kind girl is kind to herself first. If kindness to others means giving up your inner compass, that is not kindness.
3. You might lose a “friend” but you will thank yourself forever. Even after years. Even after DECADES.
4. A boy that respects you will never make you question yourself and your existence.
5. Any relationship, friendship, or even in family — having differing opinions and disagreements is fine. But to morally kill a human being by calling them their friend but using them for your convenience is something not even animals do.

I feel a strange longing, a need to belong there. But the biggest and the best learning of me going to retreats over the years is that you cannot “pay” your way into going there anytime.

You go there only for 4-5 days when a retreat comes up, learn and meditate as much as you can, and come back and transform your life. Our goal, then, is to make our lives so enriched that our transformed life helps others.

I call it the joy of longing your home, away from home.

We should try to get our family and friends rid of it.

Even if they do it out of love, a part of me believes there is an absolute pressure to perform, to make the other person like what you did for them.

I have never done it for anyone else, so forgive me for being so naive, if I am one.

But once-a-year surprises are honestly scary. What if whenever we talk to that friend or family, we really listen and care? What if we are a bit kinder in our messages to them? What if we stop talking about ourselves a lot often and be curious about them?

Isn’t all this better than a once-a-year surprise?

Loving people and making them feel good isn’t wrong.
Just that if you do it on one special day, the weight of it stays on so long that we forget the tiny things of the other 364 days.
Loving people and making them feel good should be our year long responsibility (and joy) for them.

Learn from them.

Let them make you terrific.

Do not waste your pristine present and fruitful future for a pathless and painful past.

Dinner in the golden hour.

Watching birds go back to home (wherever that is).

By the time dinner is done, the pink-blue sky is now laden with darkness, yet visible clouds.

Ah, the joys of a slow life.

A lot of people prefer reading paperbacks instead of Kindle version. I get it. I also do the same, despite having a Kindle device of my own.

But when once a blue moon a good book is available for 2-digit-INR on Kindle and 4-digit-INR on paperback or hard cover, it only makes sense to go for the Kindle version.

Especially if it is apparently a great book and you cannot miss out on that. The risk is lower and the wisdom is often disproportionate.

Having belief systems is good, only as long as they serve you.

This morning we drove at 5.15 am for over an hour to the mountains.

And it was hands down the best drive of my life. Ever.

The wind was so perfectly blowing that I was enjoying my window seat view. It wasn’t too harsh for me to close the window. Just Perfect. In capital P.

The best thing was while the sky was slowly turning blue, the glittery sparkling moon of the last night was still in its full form. Not the white-kind of moon that we see in the mornings, but the glittery moon of the nights was in full form in the morning.

I did not click a lot of pictures, but these are really good. The moon’s picture does not do justice, because a few minutes back it was sparking even more. The kind of stuff you can never prepare for, it only shows up by surprise. But it only shows up when you are willing to access nature all of the time.

Today is 3-year anniversary of me going out on my own.

So, 3 learnings from this stint:

1. If you are high agency, have worked hard in your jobs in the past, and have a bit of savings (at least a year), you are going to do almost fine. I did not need savings, thank God, but just the fact they existed helped me from making desperate decisions.

2. The life of an artist is different from the life of an entrepreneur, with a little Venn overlap. My active choice is the former. You have to keep reminding yourself which one is yours.

3. The best thing going out on your own is you can go 5X your usual speed or slow down just because you want to. The self-confidence that you build through your skill eventually helps you in deciding your attitude too.

Thanks to everyone who chose to work with me, buy my books, refer me to beautiful opportunities, and still continues to do all of these. You bring food on my table and peace to our entire family. And for that, I am truly, truly grateful.

It’s been over 11 years that I qualified CA. Worked as an Internal Auditor for over 5 years, and now it’s been over 6 years that I have not been doing CA specific work.

But the skills I developed in the 2 years preparing for the CA Final exam and the years of my Internal Audit jobs are hands down the skills that I use to date. Every single day.

Nothing good you do or become in life ever goes to waste.

It all ties back to making you the person you were always supposed to be.

Is a (self-created) curse.

It is easy to assume one is miserable because the visible two options did not work out.

It takes emotional effort to get out of yourself in the moment, be quiet, and really think. Often, you are left with either a brand new solution or a brand new way of looking at the same situation. No matter what happens, you develop a muscle of “figure-out-ability”.

Even when you don’t have a choice, you do.

You create it.

1. Close your computer
2. Jot down your ideas, to-do’s, even work in your notebook.
3. Start executing on them in the notebook itself, till the time you are fully energised to go to the computer to execute and not scroll merciless miles.

…All of this, after you have had at least 15-20 minutes of nap.

What a date. To turn 35.

I must be honest. It is way past my bedtime. And I should not be on screen right now.

So I will share just a few life lessons of the last one year and then doze off:

1. If something is a no in your intuition, please try not justifying it. That voice is always right.
2. Your life glorifies when you purposefully move away from all energy drainers of your life. The past 13 months were probably my first of those, after maybe my childhood.
3. Sleep is the answer to everything and all your problems.
4. Workout and eating on time will solve the remaining of your problems.
5. Delegate chores, so that you can focus on your core.
6. Doing what you love is still hard, but way easier than hating your entire existence doing something you despise, only to end up in an appraisal of 6% raise or being the victim of the mood of your boss.
7. Kindness wins every battle and the war.
8. What people do shows on them. What you do shows on you.
9. If you decide you want to get your work done by 12 noon or 3 pm, you will get it done. If you don’t decide, you will continue suffering till the middle of the night.
10. It is good to give yourself some goal, some project, something that you look up to. It keeps you on your toes while you love being there. The idea is to continue working for yourself even if you create work for your clients and customers.
11. Good shopping requires patience. But it solves for a lot of headaches later.
12. Life is all about giving yourself cues. Get into a habit of a clean desk > productivity, dinner at 6 > long walk, sleep at 9 > great meditation in the morning, and it makes so much easier. Thank you, James Clear.
13. Try not force yourself into people. Let them be. The right ones will stay.

Chalo, I am sleepy now. It’s already 50 minutes past bed time. But I wanted the blog to go live today itself.

See you tomorrow.

Ten years ago, I used to be sad that no one in my family read my essays and books. Now I am glad that no one in my family reads my essays and books.

Life time and again proves it that if something is too good to be true, it is. Always keep up your good work, you have no idea how much you are building with it.

Romanticise learning from people when they say no instead of lacing into them.

The satisfaction of creating something because you want to > > >

A cluttered mind is a sign of a body that hasn’t taken a walk for a long time.

All reasons equal, one of the reasons we get tired is because the people we are with have started making us feel irrelevant.

We start questioning if what we are doing even matters.

So each time we sit down to do something, our perceived irrelevance has already made us tired.

Two ways to solve for that:

1. If someone matters to you (at work, home) make it a point to communicate it to them often.
2. Please be doubly careful while giving snide remarks. It is not good for your mind to be that kind of a person, it is never really good to listen. If the problems do arise, it always makes sense to communicate like an adult.

You have more to life than making someone else suffer.

People should feel energised and not tired because of you.

• Charisma without substance
• Loud voice
• Entitlement
• Demeaning others
• Stating your claims as modus operandi of the world

All of the above are masks disguised as confidence.

True confidence includes but is not limited to:

• Being kind (and meaning it)
• Being happy for others’ happiness (even though you might want to be envious)
• Being curious instead of being judgemental
• Letting people be
• Staying true to your word
• Bringing a positive energy into every room you walk into
• Having a standard so high that people run away from doing anything mediocre around you

Confidence is having the courage to show up, each time it isn’t easy to.

• If there is still a chance, there is still a chance.
• Whatever it is you want to do, believe in it and keep dreaming.
• “I’d love to be forgotten completely.” (Author note: Every fulfilled artist, who has given 100% 200% to the thing they are doing, usually feel that way. Every artist who is in the start of their journey are usually the ones that care about being remembered. Says so much about being an artist.)

That are not even true.

As you already know, the art of life is being a good listener.

But the bigger art is when to unhear. For the rest of your life.