Went to Bahari Sons (Saket) today. Masttt mazaa aa gaya. Bought 7 out of 20 books I picked.
This is the shopping from today. Ok bye 🙂
Tag: power
1. Went to the mall after 20 months perhaps. Had to buy chappal. Went to Crossword Book store, got lost there and came back 🙂
2. Good to see life back to normal. I feel good for dahi papdi waale bhaiya, SIM card waale bhaiya, e rickshaw waale bhaiya, shakarakand waali Didi, and all those people whose employment depended on going out.
3. As I was going through the Crossword Book Store today, I also thought of fundamental rules of life. Here we go:
4. A good question for you: What parts of “normal” are even worth returning to?
There are 4 stages of making money:
Stage 1:
Have no money, use your time to make more money.
Stage 2:
Have good enough money, where you don’t know what to do with it.
Still using your time to make more money.
Stage 3:
You pause from using your time to make more money.
Learn to make the best use of your free time.
And are still enjoying the more money that comes in.
Stage 4:
You do less, and you make more.
More than you could imagine.
Also, you have as much free time as you want!
I don’t know if my work sitting in a remote silo is making difference in the world.
I have no idea if the people I care for actually care for me (so I could move on or continue lol)
But you know what…
Sometimes not knowing is super powerful.
Because it makes you do your own thing.
Doing your own thing without the influence of others, makes you more of your better self.
It is under that “better self” that you become stronger and okay with the fact that the world is not okay with you!
- The ability to not press Alt + Tab while working.
- The ability to focus only on the Google Doc you’re working on, and not reach out to your phone.
- The ability to forgive your “friends” who never asked for an apology.
- The ability to grow your people yet be inspiring instead of dominating.
- The ability to sit for 90 minutes straight and only work.
7 life lessons no one teaches you about succeeding at work:
- If you are taking up extra work, it goes without saying that it will not affect your existing work.
- You can be best friends. Or you can do your work without biases. You can’t do both.
- If no one has to follow up with you, you are gold.
- Keeping your commitments and sharing your work status – are the two things that will make you a star.
- It is not the hours of work you put in. It is the heart in those hours you put in – that makes the entire difference!
- When you start giving away credit, you stop craving for it in the first place.
- Read #4 again.
I want to write about pain.
I want to write about pain I felt at a recent trip.
I want to write about the pain only my Mom saw in the photos, while everyone was saying I was having fun!
I want to write about the pain of self-betrayal when you don’t stay true to yourself.
I want to write about the loneliness of being abandoned by so-called friends.
I want to write about how is it even possible for people to wear different masks – of goodness on one side and of I don’t care on the other side.
I want to write about the pain I feel when I am sidelined, because I am not cool.
I want to write about the pain when people reach out to me only because I have access to certain data and information while others don’t.
I want to write about the pain I felt when you thought that just because I am strong, you can walk over me at any time.
I want to write about the pain that how I was so blinded to the truth that lay right in front of me, just because I craved validation.
I want to write about the pain I perhaps brought to other colleagues by running after useless validation.
I want to write about the pain of how I let my “friends” come to my home and take my book, do random stuff, talk loudly, etc., while I was not even allowed a place on their bed when I went to their home. How can I do such random stuff just for validation?
I want to write about the pain of how it is eating me up because from now on, I will show the strong non-vulnerable version of me.
I want to write about the pain of how I pick “familiar” unavailable people – either as ex-es or as friends. Btw, this one is liberating, because that is how I can change my patterns.
I want to write about the pain of writing about pain, just because I did not listen to my intuition.
It turns out, the intuition is always whispering to us to change our patterns. It is up to us to be silent enough to listen, so that we don’t carried away by the noise.
We all have variety of friends.
However, everyone has these common characteristics:
- They make you feel valued
- You don’t have to go beg for attention
- They care about loving you as much as they care about loving themselves, and vice versa
- You have clear communications, even fights
- You feel alive in their company, not left alone.
I tried high rope walking in the morning. Was veryyyy scared. Gave up. I wasn’t even ready to jump off the harness when I decided to give up. Was pushed.
Tried climbing the wall in the evening. Failed again.
But didn’t have even an iota of regret. It’s better to try and fail than to not try at all, I suppose.
Other than that, I really need to work on my looks. Looking way more untidy or it is lack of confidence due to so-called friends not being around.
So much of a normal day. Yet so much to learn.
Life is epic. With life lessons coming in.
1. Staring out of the balcony
2. Writing without editing (this blog is the only place where I write without editing)
3. Blessing those who hurt you
I returned to Delhi yesterday.
Was waiting for this for long.
Still, I miss Mom. And Papa. And kids. And the drama 🙂
Change is hard. However, change is what we must.
Maybe I will go back. Maybe I won’t.
Not pronouncing any decision as of now.
But really trying to spend time with myself.
And telling myself, “It’s okay. You will get through this.”
Yesterday I was feeling typically heavy after my therapy session, which ended at 4 pm.
I went out of my room, and sat in the balcony with my Mom and 3 year old nephew.
We were talking random stuff. And having fun, because – kid 🙂
And then, he randomly went to the kitchen, brought a plate and a spoon, and started banging them against each other.
Nishu Masi, dance!
Somehow, I got up and started dancing. And doing the cartwheel. He stopped banging. I stopped dancing. He started banging. I started dancing.
Lasted for 5 minutes. But something I will remember forever.
No lesson to derive from. All good. Just life. And moments worth remembering.
Exhaustion, even physical, is mental exhaustion.
Btw, today my therapist said something quite cool: Even though you did something that was not legit, your pain, your emotions, what you went through was legit.
You did what you knew best. Now you know better, so now you are doing better. But then that is what you knew the best. And you did whatever you could.
Then what’s the point of blaming yourself for something that you did with lack of awareness years ago?
That was helpful. And exhausting as well maybe. But sort of loving our sessions 🙂
I was listening to a spiritual song this morning, and its words stuck with me.
Here’s replicating it. Enjoy!
Chalte chalte, mujhe koi mil gaya hai, mujhe koi mil gaya hai
Mere saath chalte chalte
Wahi geeta bas gayi hai
Mera bhagya bante bante
Nayi duniya ban rahi hai
Shreemat par chalte chalte
Shreemat par chalte chalte
Chali gayi hai saari chinta, chintaaein chupke chupke
Ye jyoti jal gayi hai, ye jyoti jal rahi hai
Sab intezaam taiyaar, sukh dhaam nahi door
Experience this song here, and you will never be alone ever again.
We both used to be friends once, to the extent that we used to ask each other “kya delete kiya”?
Things change, we change.
Even if we don’t want, we move on.
I wish I could give you a happy ending, but I myself don’t have any. Sorry 🙁
About hiring:
- Don’t make a decision while getting drifted by emotions
- Send a regret email + feedback
- Care, but understand that you cannot hire everyone
- Sometimes wishing for the best for your team means saying a lot of no.
About trust:
- Take a lot of time to trust anyone who has broken your trust before.
- Tell this to them
- Even when you trust again, verify.
About negativity:
- Even if someone in the team is performing negatively, talking to others would NEVER solve it.
- If you can’t resist, write it down. But NEVER talk to anyone about it.
- What you think radiates before what you talk.
The right music
The right books
Getting away from the wrong people
Spending time in nature, working looking at nature
Workouts
Meditation
Saying NO
If I go back to Nishtha of 5 years back, I would be ambitious. having a list of goals, wanting to go to TED, 30 Under 30, and certainly a Maybach.
Right now, I’m enjoying the process.
I’m working super hard.
I love my work.
I take my breaks.
All of this is so fulfilling, that the need for validation just goes away. It just does.
And what is left with, is the feeling of letting go of the need of success.
The success that you feel, when you let go of the need of success, is true success!
Earlier this month my father completed 40 years of his shop.
He’s 67, and had already worked in multiple “jobs”, before “starting on his own”. Here’s a journey of his work, starting from age 6!
1. Worked for FREE in a bakery at the age of 6, used to get crushed powder of toasts as daily “stipend”
2. Worked at two general stores in later summer vacations at school.
He was so much into cleanliness that once the shop owner’s bag of cash fell off from a higher shelf!
Guess what, my father had such a repute of honesty that the shopkeeper never changed its place!
3. Worked at a readymade garments shop as he “grew up” 🙂
4. Worked at a crockery of a relative, created a huge repute and profit for them, however, later the relative had to sell it off due to financial crunch
5. Worked as a typist at the age of 18, at one of the reputed shops in our city
6. Got placed at a factory by his employer, where he almost died by sinking in a pit while riding his cycle back home, and “someone magically appeared from nowhere” and saved him! Yes, he and a friend went to search for cycle the next day and got it 🙂
7. He found refute that day at a nearby factory, which later hired him. That factory was JK Paper Mills. He was even hired by DCM, Waterworks, and all the factories but he was underage!
8. Along with working at JK, he opened his shop on 05 August 1981. Used to work there in the mornings and nights.
9. Quit his job in October 1982, while his kids were 3 and 4 respectively. Talk risk!!
10. When he started, his shop was in a narrow street. His Uncle, in 1983, suggested to buy one of the new shops coming up at the main road. He didn’t have the deposit money. The bakery shop owner, with whom my father used to work “for free”, lent him the advance deposit. Till date, our shop is exactly at the same place.
11. Not to mention, he also used to do “flipping” by getting socks, watches from Delhi and selling them in our home town in Kota. However, he felt he wasn’t playing it ethical by showing a low-quality item as shiny and that was unfair to customers’ money.
Last year, as I was freelancing, I had once suddenly lost a high-ticket client. One morning I was sitting in my room and thinking, I saw my father doing his prayer rituals as usual.
He was as tensionless, as free and as “let life come as it wants to” attitude on his face.
If 40 years of business could keep him tension free, I had no right to get tensed that day.
That day, my father gave me hope.
Today as I asked him this entire story, he gave me the power of resilience.
And every day, he gives me the power of love by getting apples / mangoes for me (instead of bakery stuff that both my parents love :D)
We are not the best of friends, but he accepts me when I’m doing a headstand in the middle of the room, and I accept him when he “turns on auto-download” of WhatsApp forwarded pics, and together, we all are imperfectly perfect!
Just as we should be 🙂
For a few weeks now, I’m pronouncing that Monday is the busiest day of my week.
Resultantly, it does become one.
So next Monday onwards, let’s call it the easiest day.
There must be some way to handle all this in a more productive fashion.
The idea, is to sit still and figure that out!