Realizations from 2016

Year end invokes a lot of emotions in everyone and I am no different. This time of the year I sit back in my bed and just go back month by month trying to pen down all the things that happened, the good and the bad, which left an impact on me, and more importantly how will I remember this year when I am old.

This year was big in terms of learnings, people events as well as life decisions. I left my first job at Morgan Stanley. Ended my long running job hunt. Got a new job in Manchester. Did go through some hospital time during the Visa process. 3–4 months of nothingness between job switch time. Moved to United Kingdom. A close friend got married at 23. Learned to cook chapatis and many other small things. Here goes the list;

Know what matters and what shouldn’t bother you but it does…

Silly things like maid didn’t come, your courier didn’t arrive on time, your bank account creation or transaction took more time than what you expected etc. bothers us when they are running in the back of your head. Get rid of them, because they are not important, instead focus more on the things that really matter to you.

I was moving to a new country, for a new job. Everything was going as planned, the packing, dates, etc. But among all these things, I didn’t get the flight I asked for, and got the next best one. This little thing bothered me and was spoiling my mood, was reducing my excitement for the big event of my life. It shouldn’t but it did for a while, till I decided to let it go, because it wasn’t something that mattered, it was just the control freak in me…

Know your bias, and also know how they influence your decisions and judgement. Ignoring their existence makes you a bad person.

My dad has a bias for Virat Kohli. He doesn’t acknowledge it and won’t agree to the fact that he has one. There was a match in which he got out early and India was struggling to win the match. In the end we were about to win because of a new comer in Indian team, but we lost. Now, his statements are as follows, “Did you see the condition of Indian team if Kohli doesn’t play…?”

I was silent through out the match and wanted the team to win and then tell him that Indian team can win without him too, but as we didn’t I couldn’t say my dialogue, but here is what I suspect would have happened in case India would have won

“Did you see, how much did they struggle and won by chance because Kohli didn’t play”

Can you win against such innate bias? No, I did learnt to accept them and now it doesn’t bother me like it used to do.

No coffee after lunch time if you care about your sleep

I did have one shot of espresso and that made me stare at the ceiling till 1 am in the night…

You can’t sleep if you feel cold or thirsty, you need to be warm (get up and wear the damn socks…) and your throat shouldn’t be dry in order to fall asleep

I always sleep with my bottle with me, my friends know this and also know how much angry it makes me if I don’t find my bottle near me.

Secondly, if your feet is cold, get up and put on your socks or another layer of clothing, will make you sleep faster.

If you can control your anger and have patience, you don’t need anything more to achieve your goals.

I learned it the hard way and might not hold for you but I come from a family of hot heads and anger runs strong in my blood. So, if you have anger as the cause of numerous fuckups in your past then learn to control it, other things in life will get better on its own.

Value your time, if you won’t, don’t expect others to do so

Always have something to do. Read. Write. Code. Walk. Run. Do pushups. Eat. Cook. Watch. Listen. Wonder. Dream.

Don’t sit idle. Your fun time, entertainment time matters too, just do something and make the most of your time. Don’t over use your fun time and know when your time is not being utilised properly.

Age and time won’t matter, unless you quit mid way. If you don’t, no one will care, but you will have to stay till the very end to see it for yourself.

These parameters are created to keep you in control and stop you from working on your dream. They will matter to you if you let them bother you.

It doesn’t matter if you come last, it isn’t a race. You have to do what you have to do, listen to your self, not the one who won’t see your dream like you do.

Family and friends care about you. Don’t take them wrong, don’t yell on them and ask for forgiveness if needed.

Youth is the time when we often think our family doesn’t understand our problems, our goals, and our dreams. Sometimes we also think that no one understands us, not even our friends. We are all alone, and sometimes that is the only way forward, but take a step back and try to make them understand what matters to you.

They will understand, they care, that’s all. They are worried, they are weak and think you won’t have the strength to deal with failure. Make them understand, you are ready to fail, but not without trying.

Boiling eggs or potatoes is not as simple as it looks. You can blame your moms for never telling you that…

There are more obvious and intuitive ways of getting it wrong than you think. I tried them all before I got it right. It is okay, learnt by doing. No regrets.

Don’t hold onto something or someone just because you can’t imagine your life without them, letting go is the first step to attain peace.

Past is beautiful. But you can’t live in the past. Better things will happen only if you let go of the good things of the past.

Don’t be shy, ask for help. It is okay to not know (how to use a microwave?)

Gadgets, appliances are meant to be intuitive, but what if your intuition is counter intuitive to the creator and other users. Just ask for help, simple.

Oats packet said keep it for 2 minutes. I kept it, followed perfect instructions, but it spoiled the entire microwave as it was over heated and the internal energy of the particles got converted into kinetic energy….relax I don’t care what happened or the physics behind, but that wasn’t what I expected. I fucked up.

Did 1:30 seconds next day, worked perfectly.

Health comes first. Period.

Words of wisdom from the old. Took my time to get my head around it, but now I do know its importance.

Find your fears, overcome them, live with them and please don’t bury them.

Future is robots. Artificial Intelligence etc. They can never be human, lots of theories behind it, but my one is simple. Humans fuck up, we are are not perfect, we make random decisions, poor choices and have weird fears. These all things are the ones that makes us human, our fears, our insecurities and their pattern isn’t the same for everyone. Accept the fears you have, it is within you, cherish them, be true and live with them.

Be bold, because truth often won’t be what you expect it to be. Improvise and be courageous enough to do the right thing.

I was expecting to start my new job couple of months earlier than I actually started. Things didn’t work according to plan, Visa process, medical process for TB turned to be more complicated than I expected. It tested not only my patience but my family’s too. But all worked out for the best and I did get more quality time with my family.

More importantly we followed the right path, boldness came naturally because I had my family standing firmly behind me.

If you follow the right path and get rejected, you will be fine after some time. But if are not on right path and you fail, you will have to live with that guilt all your life, don’t do that to yourself.

Needn’t say more, it’s enough to make sense.

Don’t get entangled in the web of instant gratification. Get rid of your notifications, smart phones and use within limits at your own time.

We feel happy, get pleasure when we get a like/comment/text from someone. It is easy to get used to this kind of instant gratification. Hold yourself before you are addicted to it. (P.S. Watch this 15 mins video)

Know your guilty pleasures. Limit them, else your life would be nothing more than paying bills and guilty pleasures.

I love House, GoT, House of Cards, Friends, Koffee with Karan, every TVF show and I am pretty sure there are more of them which I haven’t seen. They are good, and who doesn’t often feel like not doing anything and just keep watching them one after another. But you will get bored, and more importantly you will have to live the guilt with not doing anything and just enjoying the lives of other fictional characters. You want to be a hero of your life or just a spectator?

Better, learn to make yourself as interesting as those characters which you love.

Memory is weak, more than you think. Trust me on this one. You won’t be able to remember anything from yesterday, or the day before unless you try hard and dig in your memory stack. You are just piling them like a old storage system, often without pointers or triggers and hence there will be no way to recall them. Write as much as you can, if you are the one for little things in life.

I don’t feel like writing my diary every day because I often feel nothing worth noting happened that day, I am sure all the people who don’t write diary at all feel the same.

Some days I don’t want to but I force myself to do so and end up writing couple of pages when I assumed there was nothing to write about.

If I don’t write, there are often so many details about the day which are lost once I sleep and get busy with the next day. The effect is compounded if I write about more days together and end up not remembering anything from the days before the last day.

People are good unless proven otherwise. Be kind, makes this world a better place!

I have always believed people are good and we as a human race are moving forward even though we have limitless differences and contradictory opinions. Being in a new country made me realise this even more. The kindness of the people here is astonishing, they go out of their way, do more than their minimum duty to help a complete stranger.

There are always bad people, but I just want you to think of everyone as good unless they do something to prove otherwise.

Happiness isn’t what others feel about your job or designation. Rather, happiness is what you feel when you get the news of getting the job you wanted…

During my job hunt, I got a job offer from another company which would have been like my previous job and for some reason I wasn’t happy when I got the job offer. It must have been a better name and brand on my resume, but I was not sure. When you not sure, it doesn’t sound right.

In some days, I got another one, from this independent Scala consultancy, and was really happy when they said I got the offer. For some reason I wanted to try and see if this kind of job works for me and I did go for it to find out for myself.

Simple as that, sometimes you have to look beyond the short term and find answers for yourself.

Persistence and self discipline are the building blocks for long term goals.

You do 1 pushup a day. Next day you do 2. Then 3, then 4..then 5. And now your body can’t do 6 and there is no way you can imagine yourself doing 20. So you give up thinking you can never do 20. But if you keep doing 5 for a couple of days, then you might be able to do 6 the next day and then 7. That is what persistence is all about. Just keep going without caring where you have reached. Destination will come and go, but you will still want to keep moving forward…

I reached 32 today with the same principle. I never saw myself crossing 20, never. And after 20 each day, going got tough. But you have to keep going if you want more. When you are facing more resistance, you should know that you have reached next level and to cross to the next you gonna put in more efforts than you ever did.

Same concept holds for developing any skill or habit. To learn a new language, or to reduce weight or to get better at writing, persistence is the way to go.

Know what sails your boat! It might not be a big thing for anyone else, but if it matters to you, its good enough reason to celebrate your happiness.

You don’t have to think that your achievement is small if you think it must be small for other people. You don’t have to explain anyone why it matters to you, because it just does. Celebrate life because it is your life, not theirs…

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