A guide to living a happy #OneLife — How I changed my own story after a divorce and how you can too despite any kind of mid-life crisis

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Almost 2 years ago (Aug end 2016), my divorce was finalised. At that point in time, none other than me knew about it. Not my best friends. Not even my parents. I had gone through hell trying to cope up with my situation 6 months prior to the divorce and was anticipating on how the world around me was going to fall. I was just turning 38. It was the 10th anniversary of a marriage that was going to end. I was going through one of the toughest phases at work too. All my health parameters were either on the border or crossed over the red territory due to all the stress. Things were clearly going off track from what I had planned as where life would head towards.

And just when everything was falling through the cracks, I spent the next 2 months coming up with a story on my own life. I developed this story by reading a ton, listening to a lot of podcasts, talking to a variety of people, and just letting loose in terms of exploring the different aspects of life. I call it #Onelife and have been trying to live by the various aspects of what I have defined in it. It’s still Work-in-Progress, but with 2 years of living this now, I can vouch for one thing — I have never lived a fuller, happier and more positive life ever in my lifetime of 40 years. It’s not just impacted my personal life but has also positively rubbed off on my professional life. My health parameters are all back on track in full green! If you are part of my friends’ circle, you will already realize I talk a lot about it.

I am writing this post so that you don’t really need a particular life stage event like I had to be able to live your #OneLife. (P.S: this post is not as much about coping with divorce, this applies for anyone in any stage of life or having a bit of a mid-life crisis on any front; there are some sections though where I have gone in detail on how I handled my specific situation)

The concept of #OneLife starts with the following 3 universal truths —

  1. Your life is for you to live. Everyone else, despite their best intentions, can only be a passing spectator. It could be your parents, your kid, your spouse, your best friends, the society around etc. They don’t live your life. They can be concerned and empathetic. Some of them can pass judgement. But they DO NOT live your daily life. Only you do. The emotions, the thoughts, the feelings, the happiness, the pain, the suffering, and all else — is yours. Yes — this is quite a selfish thought (and contradicts the first construct of #OneLife you will read about soon in Part 2), but this is an important truth you need to realise since worrying about what others think or feel is the single biggest reason why many people do not take the right decisions.
  2. Your mind is the most powerful tool out there. You may be a person who keeps things to themselves; or you may be a person who shares everything with your close relationships and derives joy, meaning or sympathy out of that. I personally have found out that the human mind (at even the 5% potential that we actually seem to use it at) is the most powerful entity out there. The mind is a terrific learner. It’s a great counselor. If there’s enough knowledge that it takes in, it can be a great teacher. It can make you self-aware on what you are good or bad at. The mind is a great sink for good or for bad. The mind can be programmed to be elated and happy and laugh despite all the struggles. The mind is completely under our control — only, it’s not that easy, and it needs a good amount of exercise on various fronts to be able to achieve that level of mastery. But once you achieve the mastery, there’s nothing that can bog you down ever!
  3. The world is filled with abundant possibilities that will take more than a lifetime to experience. Cultures. History. Media. Art. Food. Places. People. Games. Laughter. Music. Skills. Professions. Hobbies. Experiences. Stories. Etc. And while there’s no single answer to ‘What’s the purpose of life’, the closest one having read a lot of literature on that is — to experience this fantastic number of possibilities out there. We are all alive humans today, and that automatically makes us special compared to those that are not alive or have not been born humans. Make sure that you experience everything that you ever want to and have minimum or no regret at the end of it.

As I was re-writing my own life story in Sep/Oct 2016, the one quote that came and stood out for me was by Confucius, and it possibly the most powerful one that I have ever tried to live by —

Everyone has two lives. The second one starts when you realize you only have one”. I was going to live my second life, within the same physical life.


#OneLife has 4 critical components to it —

1. SOCIAL — Fulfilling Relationships

Humans are first and foremost social animals. Right from the time we are born, we require almost an army to raise us and be around us. We develop some of our first social connections right from the moment we come out of our mother’s womb. There’s enough literature out there in the form of Harvard studies and the Ikigai construct in Japan that study the longest living people and tell us that great relationships are the key to long life.

Let’s talk about the 3 key kinds of relationships –

Family — Family consists of parents, siblings, partners and kids (if applicable!).

  1. Parents — I have been fortunate that despite a divorce, I have had the most mature and understanding of parents that anyone can possibly have in life. They have not just taken this in their stride, they have actually helped make the friendly and amicable divorce work by being there for the kid. My brother’s family as well as the extended family and cousins network have also quickly come to peace with the situation. The important aspect w.r.t. family that you need to solve for is this — it’s not always about keeping them happy. It’s about configuring for your happiness (look at Universal Truth 1 above in Part 1 of the series) in terms of your #OneLife and then making sure that they are made aware of how you are living life. Don’t expect them to change at 50s and 60s to your philosophy — that’s quite difficult. They will also come into a conversation with the power of age and wisdom but unfortunately, those are not as valuable in the changing times with infinite options, fast-paced technology, attention-deficit living and a more equal home and workplace. All you need though is their support, so being at it helps. Parents are the only ones in the world who offer no-strings-attached love, and with time, they understand your new-found happiness, and let their social status and view on life be adjusted for the new situation.
  2. Partners — I had been a single-woman man till 38 (never dated anyone before) and have had some of the best moments of my life with my ex-wife. In the last 24 months, I have experienced for the first time what it is to go on dates! I have used Tinder (and I can tell you at 38, it’s quite different from the perception / judgement that people have of why someone uses it!), and the whole dating experience has been outstanding. I have met some strong, independent and empathetic ladies and whether it was for one dinner date, or a sustained relationship for a longer period, it’s been a great set of people I have been privileged to meet. For me, being honest about my ‘experiences’ (or the lack of it!), my feelings (or sometimes the over-thinking) and having fun and going with the flow, have been the most rewarding. We have shared some fun moments together, and I now have quite a few friends for life. And I do believe, if you are there to find love, it will happen again! (more of love, and relationships in detail in later posts) The friends list specifically also includes my ex-wife, and I thank both of us a lot on being able to maturely handle the situation and move to the next phase of our relationship and be friends almost immediately after the divorce!
  3. Kid — Last but not the least, my daughter Rhea, has been absolutely mature and accepting of the situation, at a tender age of <6. There was a time period when it would be extremely painful for me to digest what she would be going through, but quickly with time, and consistent effort towards making sure that nothing changes for her (from the time she gets from me / time with both parents on vacation and family events / time with both sets of grandparents etc.), we have been able to make sure that it’s been no different for her. I have now consciously spent a lot more time with her (and so has her mother) than ever before, and she gets an environment at home which is devoid of cold shoulders or relationship woes. In hindsight, I believe this was the best decision for her. A lot of people postpone or side-step relationship woes thinking it’s the right thing for their kid, but I can tell you it’s probably the silent killer for the kid to live in a loveless laugh-less house. Now, in addition to a couple of weekday evenings, I spend Saturday evenings and the whole of Sunday watching her grow into an independent, empathetic and creative lady that both her mom and dad will be super proud of.

Friends — While I have always had friends from school to college to workplace, I was quite an introvert and bookworm in school — and have never been the social kind — someone who was the connector and brought people together. It changed once in 2003 with an IIMB alumni fest that I had organised during my summers, but it changed at a bigger scale much later in Dec 2016, when along with a bunch of my batchmates, I could get 60 people (half the batch) from across the globe for a school reunion, many of whom were seeing each other after 20 years. From then on, the social angle in me has only grown from strength to strength. I have organized numerous parties with friends and colleagues. I have to be thankful to all my friends who have been around me, have given their time, have provided so many fun moments, and just been there! I hosted a birthday party for the first time in my life at 40 last month and I had 125 good friends attending it!

Society — A connect with the society is formed by living a responsible life — whether it’s to fellow citizens on the road, or just about people out there. There’s also a deep relationship you form with society by supporting specific causes that you feel strongly on. I have done a bunch of donations on health-related items, the woman child, abandoned homes etc. but the one that I feel the strongest to is feminism and the empowering growth of women in all spheres of life. I have to thank the wonderful ladies that I have met professionally and personally, and for my daughter in my life, to have gone this angle in the last 4–5 years (and I am still learning!). I have participated in fierce debates, sometimes against both men and women, to forward the cause. Whatever is your cause — it could be around veganism or environmentalism or any of the other ‘isms’ — if you strongly believe society moves forward, then standing by a cause is a powerful way of connecting with the society and people around you.


2. SELF — Health as a strong foundation

Once the social connections are established, then it’s time to take care of the body and mind. A good body and mind are the foundations to living a great life, devoid of illness and worry, and having the emotional energy to laugh in the midst of people and live worry-free despite all odds. Once you near your 30s and 40s, you realize the flexibility that the mind and body used to give on many counts has reduced with age. But with conscious effort on all these 3 fronts, health can become a strong positive foundation -

Physical — consisting of good sleep, daily activity and good food.

  1. Sleep — The physical body’s well-being starts with having good sleep. For people in their 30s/40s, 6–7.5 hours is a good time to sleep! Anything lesser has impact at a later time. Anything more, is just way too lazy  Waking up at the same time daily, has proven to be a far better strategy than trying to sleep at the same time every night! I can also tell you from a bunch of theory that late night productivity is just a myth — the early risers always get the better of this world than those that are late risers.
  2. Exercise — Exercising and at least covering 10k steps every day is a great way to make sure that the body is active. I took to Cult and Zumba like a fish to water (though I had to stop it last 4 months after a lower back disc bulge). Games such as squash, tennis, volleyball, weekend cricket as well as swimming help in the entire body getting a good workout. Yoga is something I discovered too in 2018 and has been phenomenally helpful in patches. Whatever it is your activity that gives you fun (and if that’s running or the gym, then wonderful!), make sure you regularly commit to it first thing in the morning. This is one part that I have personally found the toughest to do but will again try with a renewed vigor given the magic 40 just hit me! We all give reasons that we are busy at work or busy with other things, but we all personally know that’s the biggest load of bullshit that we fool our mind with. If you can’t make 10 hours a week for exercise in a 120-hour active week, then you better get your time management fixed.
  3. Food — Food is the 3rd component of the physical health — eating healthy and a bunch of protein is useful. Food is a double-edged sword — it’s extremely critical that you experience the best of the tastes out there as a sensory perception but hogging on food or over-eating is a bane that needs to be avoided. I have also figured that diets are largely fads and become almost unsustainable — especially if you are living #OneLife, it’s quite silly to not taste certain kinds of food at all for long periods of time. A cleanse here and there might be useful, but diets should be avoided other than as a test for willpower! Eating a lot of protein (eggs, chicken, fish) helps on every front including key vitamins and keeping the body have more energy. There’s no one standard answer for food though as people know — it’s a very individual choice based on metabolism and genes, but thankfully there are now enough sound options and advice on food across the country and on social media.

Emotional — The power of the mind to handle emotions is one of the biggest components of strong health. There are two extremes that people associate themselves with — being mighty emotional (crying, laughing, elation, disappointment) or being an absolute dud on emotions (not reacting at all). I have figured out over time that it’s possible to achieve mid ground, where you are super happy and positive on the happy moments, and you are forgiving and absorbing of the negative ones. Living with positivity and optimism requires sometimes effort, and the conscious mind needs its chemicals to be able to handle these emotions. While I have never personally gone beyond 5 mins of meditation, I have seen the power of it for people who have been able to diligently do it. People think that conditioning the mind to positivity and absorption of negative events is a fake mind — that’s just a viewpoint stemming from a worry, specially where vulnerability is touted as the only true emotion. If you take a larger view of life that we are all here for a fraction of a second of life, and things will come and go and the earth itself is a 4.5-billion year-old object, and we at max are here for 70–80 years of it, that single perspective will make you start appreciating experiences good or bad. There are friends and people around that I have also seen undergo depression, and it’s a medical condition that certainly needs expert advice to solve — so if you feel you are tending towards that, it would be mighty useful to right away go and see a qualified person to help.

Financial — All of us have different responsibilities and wishes that we want to fulfil in life. Whether you have a ton of money because you were born rich, or whether you had absolutely none, it’s important that humans are financially independent with their own means (so even if you have millions, please move your ass to stand up for yourself!). I come from a lower middle-class family and we know the value of using the hand pump for water, and 4 of us on a Bajaj Scooter. Thankfully, that’s also made me lot more level-headed on money instead of thinking of it as the big thing or the only thing for success and or living. Having said that, financial freedom — the ability for you to earn and decide how and where you want to spend your money — is one of the biggest factors in deciding how independent your foundation is. The previous generation, for whatever reasons, could not unfortunately get enough women to work, but thankfully that situation is drastically changing right now. Whether you are a man or a woman, it does not matter, it’s extremely important to be financially independent. It’s funny how we keep increasing our wants as we earn more and keep having to always earn for a living — I will talk about ‘Minimalism’ as a value which helps you not go down this path of having to always earn a crazy ton of money to be able to live a good life!


3. SIGNIFICANCE: Finding Meaning

Once the basic levels of relationships and the self are taken care of, we all strive to do something of significance and meaning in our lives. Thankfully for me, I got a head start on this front given the personal choices I made very early on a strong values system and the professional choices I made on becoming an entrepreneur 6 years back –

Values — Every single person in this world needs a core values system that they will abide by, irrespective of good or bad times. Values match is an important aspect of who you form relationships with personally or professionally. Here are some of the values that I abide by (some of them may be true for you too). Focus on reading (5) and (6) if not anything else –

  1. Honesty — ‘Honesty and ethics’ is a basic value — the world will be such a better place if only everyone followed this universal principle.
  2. Respect — Respect for the individual — irrespective of their background or profession, is a fundamental human need and I see people sometimes in their anger or in positions of power flouting this, and it pains me no end. Being nice and courteous to other humans around is a fundamental duty for all of us.
  3. Humour — Whether it’s a conversation with friends, or even a meeting in office, I will always make sure there’s a small laugh out there, cause life is too short to not laugh.
  4. Minimalism — I am not saying everyone should denounce retail therapy, but I now don’t even have a car and live on Uber and a rental home. The only ‘assets’ I have are a big screen TV, some coffee table books on travel, and of course, a lot of furniture from Urban Ladder :). It helps to not have too many angles on which you need to spend — I still spend on gifts for people or on experiences including travel.
  5. Living in the Moment — One of the single biggest changes for me is to live in the present moment, and not worry too much about the past or the future. The past is anyway done and dusted, and nothing in our ability can change that. Even the good nostalgia (like Dhoni hitting a 6 to win the world cup :)) is only worth 5 mins of your current time! The same holds true of the future too — in March of 2016, I could not have predicted an iota of what life was going to turn out to be, despite having a reputed degree and a house and a marriage and a kid and great people around! So stop trying to predict too much of the future. Currently, I live largely for the day, or at max for a week, or for a quarter where professional commitments or travel visas have to be procured :)
  6. Living Without Judgement — This is the toughest one amongst the lot — especially because of the religious community I belong to, the city I come from, and just internal wiring for 38 years had made me judge everything! But this is the one that I have changed the most on and the one that has the maximum impact of all things in what I have changed. We all judge everything from what people wear, to what they say, to the phone they have, to what they do, to which car they own, to everything about them. We judge people when they use the word ‘divorce’. We judge people if they are poly-amorous, or they never married. We judge them if they support a particular political party. We judge people the moment they do something different from what we believe is right based on our own misguided or ignorant education. Once the human mind brings in empathy and the power of meditation into its fold, it’s possible to take a step-back view into every single kind of choice out there — and not pass judgement on it. Judging the self is one of the biggest side effects of it — we quickly hold ourselves back or chide ourselves on our mistakes — stopping that too can make us explore a ton of different options out there.

There are times when your entire values system is tested, or occasions when you flout it, but if you are at it continuously, you will surely come out of those periods of rut and back to your own true self.

A lot of us also misconstrue life choices — being a teetotaller, being a non-smoker, or being a vegetarian, or dressing prim and proper etc. as values. Those are just tactical choices, and it does not make you a better or a worse person because you chose those (I was in that camp) Just be careful of health effects of some of these and don’t misconstrue these as values! There are times when even I have gone on excess last year but have always found my way back.

Learning — Being entrepreneurial is the most humbling experience you can have in life. It improves your self-awareness enormously and gives you so many ups and downs in life that you start becoming humble a lot more (even for the Leo in me). I have rewired myself over the last 3–4 years on my professional side, specifically over the last 2 years on my personal side. A lot of rewiring has been conscious effort from the brain — it’s quite easy to hide back into a veil that says — “Hey I am 38. And I will only be this way now”. I can vouch for one thing — if you open up your mind to different ways of living, different views to life, different kinds of people, different philosophies, different reasons and ideas for existence — this core skill of a combination of self-awareness and empathy can make the brain exponentially more useful and adaptive than your default state.

State of flow — Professions will not stay as ‘work’ if we can do a lot more of what we love, than what we have to just get done. Personally, I love values, vision, cultures, productivity, org-building, product, design, technology, strategy and consumers. At various points in time, including my current day-job at UL, I am doing exactly that. I spend a lot of time with my teams and ensure that we are constantly keeping pace with the needs of the organization. I am lucky to have a fantastic leadership and team that works with me, so my job becomes more of facilitation and enablement than doing (that’s what any co-founder would strive to do in the ideal case). I also love teaching and academics (have done quite a few guest lectures now across IIMB and more institutes) as well as sharing my experiences and story with young potential entrepreneurs (pretty much addressed around 50+ gatherings across many corporates). I am also trying to re-develop my passion for writing (and sharing experiences) as you can see from this attempt! Spreading #OneLife is my new passion which I will devote considerable amount of spare time too, since I believe human potential and happiness can be achieved at a lot grander scale if people live it. Go build your skillsets in whatever you like — right brain or left brain — analytics or people or customers or marketing or finance or construction or art. Gone are the days when engineering was the only thing around — moving away are the days when parents are stressing for an IIT or engineering degree. Go out there, explore different fields, and build careers in what gives you fulfilment and drive.


4. SENSES: Experience the world

Once we feel fulfilled on social, self and significance, that’s when we get free time to explore what’s out there in the world. The world is a beautiful creation — with abundant possibilities in terms of places, people, art, media, and experiences. It would be sad if you did not have enough time for the amazing experiences it offers across these 3 fronts –

Travel — In the last 30 months, I have traveled to Spain, Iceland, Paris, USA, Cambodia, Bali, Singapore, Hong Kong, Hampi, Calcutta, Mysore etc. experiencing the different cultures, history, people, food, wonders of the world etc. (I have been lucky financially, with my family and with my team to be able to do this). Travel makes you feel at some level highly connected to everyone out there, as well as so insignificant and small in this massive world. I use every single such trip to refresh myself and connect with self as well as friends. (this entire series is borne out of my current annual big vacation) A lot of people postpone travel to much later in their life thinking they will get the time then, but it’s a big myth. Big or small, travel as early as you can, since it opens up perspectives like no other.

Media — I would have seen every single big-screen movie in an IMAX in the week of release, in the last 3–4 years. Most of these movies — I have seen alone — and marveled at the creativity and precision of these movie makers. I have seen some series and TV films too (not GOT please, but Silicon Valley, some Black Mirror, and Lust Stories — Yes:). I have gone to a ton of concerts and standups. I have listened to completely new genres of music — everything from jazz to techno to rock — none of this, I have remotely even listened to till 38. There’s so much creativity and content out there — if you can develop your muscles to genuinely appreciate good work, you will have an infinite supply of it in the form of movies, music, sports, TV, radio, comics, standups, art, design, books, experiences etc. A lot of people become too rigid as they grow to be adults, on what they like or don’t like, and miss out on beautiful things across fronts — it’s not to say you should not have favorites, but once you start getting too rigid about your likes, you are just missing the variety and beauty of this magnificent world.

Bucket List — Everyone should have a bucket list — after all it’s #OneLife and if you can strive for some of these items ticked off, then why not! The bucket list can include travel, experiences, fun, erotic, dream professions, weird items and so on! For me, Burning Man was a bucket list item from 5–6 years back which I have been able to fulfil. There are weird ones too like driving a Uber someday, and becoming a cricket umpire! There are plausible ones like Chennai winning an IPL final (and me watching it live) and throwing a party for 100+ people which I have been able to do considerably well:) Whatever it is in your bucket list — whether it’s 1 or 100 items, try ticking some of them off before the life becomes older. Not having a bucket list too is fine, but it’s nice to have one!


Summarising — (1) Social — Fulfilling relationships (2) Self — Healthy foundation (3) Significance — Finding Meaning (4) Senses — Experiencing the world — These 4 constructs that everyone can live by, almost every single day of their life, can truly make you live your #OneLife. The examples that I have given on what’s worked for me are purely mine — it may be quite different for you. But the broad contours of priorities and your time will still fall in one of these 4X3 = 12 buckets.

All of us have some dependencies or the other (unless you are truly a hippie — and that’s an awesome choice if you can sign up for it!). But the best lives are lived when you have freedom over much of your decisions in life despite or beyond these dependencies. Or you co-opt these dependencies as your passions and love. It’s easier said than done for people with varying backgrounds — for e.g. abject poverty, or life threatening illness, etc. I know some of the above may not apply to them at all. But the idea is even if only a small sliver of this is something you take away, it should land you in a better zone.

A lot of people think of life as successes and failures. I don’t believe that’s true at all. Life is just a wonderful series of experiences. You need to go through the ups and downs — all the experiences are useful to get a perspective. I can vouch for one thing (and no this is not a politically correct interview answer!) — I would have not changed ANY of what I have been through in life. It required me to live 40 years of the way I lived and build experiences and finetune life to be able to be where I am today. I am sure there will be many more ups and downs going forward, hopefully more ups than downs, but I cannot have been happier, more fulfilled, more satisfied professionally, more experienced, and more excited about life as it is today.

The latest disease for a lot of people is ‘FOMO’ or the fearing of missing out — on some experience, or some open option. While it’s great to have a lot of options, not choosing any, or just postponing the same is also not an outcome in itself. Sometimes, when you choose certain options, in careers or relationships, certain others may close. Just make sure that you choose the one that you really love on multiple fronts — then the chance of happiness and success is far higher. And it’s OK to not have to experience every single thing out there, and not be in FOMO! And in the worst case, as life has shown for me time and again personally, there’s always new routes and options out there and the sum total of all your experiences is always additive.

For people that know me from childhood, specially from IIMB, Infy, Cognizant and Yahoo!, I have always been a jack of all arts, master of none! I have reveled in being broad and balanced than being super in-depth in any aspect. I have chosen my #OneLife in a way that’s quite balanced amongst the top 4 items (leaving aside momentary spikes on some aspects). Different people can adopt different strategies of course based on where they are (new parents and people in live may spend a lot of time in (1), people recovering from body or mental ailments may spend a lot of time in (2), aspiring entrepreneurs may spend a lot of time in (3) and super rich or mighty fulfilled folks may spend a lot of time in (4) and so on!) The idea is to ensure that whether you are balanced or whether you spike on one or two of the above, you don’t neglect the others!

One last pointer — please do not say ‘Sorry’ to someone who has gotten divorced! It’s the end of a relationship that was causing unhappiness anyway. Give them your happy wishes, spend time with them and distract them to newer aspects of life, and build in enough fun and empathy and experiences so they can very soon forgive, forget and move on, since the default human mind does a lot of work to make them not do that! (I will write a separate post on the emotions and coping with a divorce and update the link here soon)

One super last pointer — if any of the above #OneLife way of living strikes a chord with you, I request you to share the consolidated Medium article (will share soon) / or the anchor FB post (Part 1) with others in your network that might also benefit from this. People of all ages in my friends’ circle, and in my teams come and ask me what’s #OneLife. Here, finally I have written something on it!:) I hope to continue this series in the coming weeks and months with next levels of detail on all of the various aspects above.

For more on different aspects of my #OneLife, and for reaching out to me in case you have any personal questions on the above —
www.instagram.com/telljeeves
www.facebook.com/telljeeves
www.twitter.com/telljeeves
www.linkedin.com/in/rajivsrivatsa

Biggest Impact articles / literature that went into creating this philosophy of #OneLife —
1. 3 podcasts, all by Naval Ravikant, 2 with Tim Ferriss, and 1 with FarnamStreet (search on Google for all 3 you will get it)
2. Sapiens, the book by Yuval Noah Harari
3. The concept of ‘Conscious Uncoupling’ popularized by Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin
4. A ton of TED talks on Happiness, Love, Meaning, etc.
5. Philosophies by J Krishnamurthy, Stoic Philosophy, Confucius, etc.

Rajiv Srivatsa @telljeeves

Written by

Human! Write from my learnings on Startups, Work & Happiness. @telljeeves on Instagram, Twitter & Facebook. Jack of all trades, master of none!

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