…intuition is the answer.

When I experimented with full-time freelancing in 2020, here were the challenges I faced:

– How to be confident of my offer
– How to build my credibility
– How to raise my prices
– How to make money
– How to get clients

When I have started freelancing off-late, the challenges I am facing are:

– How to build a go-to doc of all good writing I come across
– How to incorporate more deep work to write my book
– How to build contents of the writing course
– The right time to bring in automations
– When to upgrade the website

The truth is, you don’t strive to run out of life challenges.

You just get to a place of solving better challenges.

Which is when you truly won 🙂
Which is what I wish for you, today, my friend 🙂

You will not get your due.
You will not get that 1:1 chat.
You will not get that raise you know you deserve.
You will not be acknowledged for what you bring to the table.
You will not be promoted for the efforts you put in late nights and early mornings work, that helps everyone to date.

Which is why, your work should not be the only source of your happiness.

Have a life outside of work, and the life inside of work stops taking your emotions for a ride.

No, the night doesn’t change that fast.

It took hard work.

Loads of hard work.

It took missing out on family engagements.

Loads of them.

It took not being able to form meaningful friendships.

It took a ton of therapy sessions.

It took away the kid in you.

It took countless tears on the bathroom floor.

It took questioning yourself more than you deserved to.

And it took one last trial after which you were about to give up.

No, the night did not change so fast.

It takes a decade for change to happen overnight.

When we have not gotten closure from one place, our mind subconsciously looks for other places where there was an open loop, and tries to make sense of it all.

Something my therapist told me. And I’m still pondering upon it.

In the last one week, I happened to reconnect with 3 people who were a part of my past.

And the feeling on connecting with all of them was, to say the least, dismal.

Met an old school friend (along with our third school friend who is a bestie as on date). Then connected with another old friend from college and CA days, on LinkedIn. And also texted a mentor today, thanking them on the occasion of Teachers Day.

Here is something I learnt from the conversations where none of them turned out to be beautiful:

For the context, these conversations were in decreasing order of time – first one – 2 hours of in-person meeting, second one – 8-10 DMs exchange, third one – one DM exchange, respectively.

1. Takers become takers when they are consumed a lot – in their life problems or money or both.
   I am a big believer of being genuinely interested in people, however, when they do not even know who I have become today as a human being, if I am doing fine, what motivates me, etc., and all conversations centered around them, your spirit just moves away from them. Perhaps forever.
   
2. There is a reason why those people are not in your life right now. If they truly had to understand you, why would you all be out of touch?
   
3. When someone reaches out and connects, they don’t do it out of lack of self respect, however, they do it because they care for the bond that existed. Which is why I reached out to the three of them 🙂
   And this is why if someone from my past reaches out to me and I am not in a headspace to reconnect with them, I still send an equally enthusiastic response, or I do not agree to meet them in the first place. Still, in the same tonality.

So the best thing to do perhaps is to not reconnect with people who were a part of your past, in most cases.

This may sound gloomy, which is why I have a corollary: If you intuitively feel there will be love and acceptance in that relationship (unlike these – where I intuitively felt there is going to be no or little acceptance but I chose to give them a chance), you should consider giving those reconnections a chance.

For example, my school bestie with whom I met this other school friend, we got closer again earlier last year, after almost a year of not being in touch. But she never displayed attitude, nor did I – and today she is one of my most comfort people.

This is the thing about heartbreaks. We think it is only in romantic relationships. In reality, it is in so many relationships – friendships, colleagues, past friendships, past colleagues, and so many other relationships.

Because the heartbreak has occurred, you should also give yourself the emotional resources and perhaps the time to heal from it and deal with it. You’ll learn. You’ll figure. You’ll rock.

To bring things home, you intuitively know what will work out and what won’t – and even if you want to give things a chance, it’s okay. It’s totally okay. You lived out to your best version, and that’s fine.

Sometimes you must move on. Because they have already.

Btw, I’m listening to
“Yaad hai mujhko, tune kaha tha, tujhse nahi roothenge kabhi…”

Imagine this…

You wake up in the morning, as light as a feather.

You look forward to enjoying yourself the entire day.

Minor irritations and slight inconveniences do not bother you.

Now ask yourself…

Do I feel this way often?

Do I enjoy the mundane and the monotonous?

Do I really look forward to living my life the way it is?

If no, then when are you going to change it, my friend?

You were not meant to go from one cringing Monday to another, and then land up at your funeral.

You are supposed to go make your own dent in your own universe in your own way, so that the world is inspired by your example.

SRK does not do promotions or interviews for his movies.

He simply does Twitter AMAs and that is more than enough.

But more than the brand he is, what I love is the fan following and the kind of posts he reposts on Twitter – people who are apparently lower income than you and I, people who are mostly from Tier 2 and 3 cities, people who are die hard fans of him – the kind who would create a stampede outside Mannat on 2nd November.

It turns out, true love is recognising true love – including for people like SRK. He deeply connects with people instead of recognising only the elites and not connecting with anyone else, and that gives them an edge above everything else.

Your audience is you. Personal branding lesson 101.

My Mom is 64.
She was 32 when I (her 4th and last offspring) was born.

I am 32 right now.
Single. By choice.

My Mom had 4 kids by the time she was my age.
She was exactly 18 years 9 months old when she had her fist daughter.
Did not get a chance to go to college.
Was only able to complete her schooling.

Yet, she is one of the wisest and broad minded people I have ever seen and known.

She has always supported by unusual life choices.
Agreed to me changing careers.
Agreed to me staying single.
Agreeing to me living on my own, away from my parents, in a different city.
Not giving a damn to relatives when they asked about my marital status.

All of this from her own point of conviction. Not out of obligation because “she must” support me.

On the other hand, time and again I run into super-educated women who reward me with questions like:

“You come from a small town. It’s surprising how your parents have supported your decision to stay single.” – from someone who has travelled 20+ countries, worked with international brands, and was born and brought up in one of the top cities of the country.

“No matter what. I think you should consider marriage.” – from an established doctor.

Honestly, it doesn’t bother me.

The only response it stirs in me is pity for them, on how they have considered old ways as the only norm for girls to survive in this country, whereas their exposure gives them such huge perspective.

And here is my Mom, who could not go to college, not only respects my decisions, rather also understands them by listening to my points of view.

Educated is the person who listens and understands. Everyone else, merely has a degree.

Someone on Twitter asked this question:
If you are 25+, can you share one thing that I should start doing ASAP if I don’t want to regret later in life?

Here is my response:

Sit with yourself, and write 3 pages in a journal daily.

Even if you have nothing to write, write “I have nothing to write.”

NOTHING clears up brain like this. Which is what we all need.