“Is this her milestone birthday?”

“No” I replied.

“Actually, in the times we live, every year is a milestone.”

“Surviving every year of the 2020s is like one achievement,” I chimed in!

Satya vacchan, came the reply. True words.

I’ve been sitting with that exchange. Because it named something I’ve been hearing across many kaapi tables, in many conversations, with designers and leaders and founders at very different stages of their lives and careers. A feeling that has been difficult to articulate - and that difficulty itself has been part of the problem.

Name it first

In 2022, I wrote a small time capsule on this very Substack. The year was ending badly for many. Layoffs, recession, tech-winter, anxiety. A dipstick poll among friends then revealed the top sentiment: “Wake me up when it’s 2024.”

It’s 2026 now. How did that go?

The 2020s didn’t arrive gently!

Or with the poetic promise they seemed to hold. Let me name what arrived instead — because being named is the first relief.

Pandemic. Over-hiring. Then the correction: layoff waves since 2022 that never quite ebbed the way the Covid waves did. WeWork. FTX. SVB. Credit Suisse. Byju’s. The Middle East. Ukraine. Hybrid, remote, back-to-office, repeat. Enshittification - platforms optimising for extraction over value. Quiet quitting. Goblin mode. Delulu. AI arriving not as promise but as displacement. AI everything: AI overload, AI slop, AI anxiety, the dread of being replaced sitting quietly under every conversation.

Richard Saul Wurman wrote about information anxiety decades ago. In retrospect, feels like the teeny tiniest tip of the iceberg.

And underneath all of it - something quieter and harder to name. Young people opting out of relationships entirely. Couples living parallel lives under the same roof. Trust in institutions, in leadership, in the system working - quietly hollowed out.

The ground isn’t just shifting. It’s shifting beneath everyone’s feet, simultaneously, in every direction.

If you’ve been feeling the weight - you’re not imagining it. You’re not weak. You’re simply paying attention.

The patterns underneath the weight

Across many conversations over the last several weeks, three patterns keep surfacing. I wrote about them briefly on LinkedIn. They deserve more space here.

The first is the widget job.

David Graeber wrote about Bullshit Jobs - roles so pointless even the people doing them can’t justify their existence. As industries scaled and design empires grew, the bigger picture got smaller. The deeper purpose lost focus. Increasingly, people are doing one thing for money and something else entirely - unpaid, unseen - for meaning. That split is exhausting to sustain. And it shows.

The second is the gap that finds you.

Some of the people I’m meeting were made redundant over an email. At 4am. In just the third year of their career. Not a performance issue. Another wrong row on a giant spreadsheet. Layoffs are visiting people faster and with a greater air of normalcy.

The third is the decision that haunts.

Someone moved cities for the right opportunity. Uprooted family, gave up a network built over years. The role disappeared in a restructuring eight months later. The decision wasn’t wrong. The outcome was - based on scenarios that were impossible to predict. But that experience leaves a mark. A quiet loss of trust in your own judgment, precisely when you need it most.

These aren’t complaints. They’re patterns. And if you can see the pattern, you’re already slightly ahead of it - not trapped by it.

What actually helps: acts of resistance, a personal inventory

I want to be careful here. I’m not going to give you a framework or a productivity system or a morning routine to optimise. What I can offer is what I’ve reached for, points of resistance when the mind (and life) effortlessly slips into the hum of default. These points of resistance are antidotes—and how you might find your own personalised version of each.

01. Gratitude: specific, not gloss

Not gratitude as a concept. Gratitude as a daily practice of naming specific, concrete things. The jaggery coffee this morning. The message from a friend who checked in. The fact that I woke up. The Buddhist tradition I’ve been deepening my practice in - more on that in a moment - teaches that suffering arises from taking things for granted.

What, specifically, are you grateful for today? Not in general. Today.

02. Nature: the direct antidote to information overload

Wurman identified the problem decades ago. The solution, I’ve rediscovered, is embarrassingly simple and almost impossible to monetise: go outside. Not to exercise. Not to vlog. Just to be in something that isn’t a screen. I’ve found myself paying attention to ducks on a campus lawn, to the quality of morning light, to the specific sound of wind in different kinds of trees. Sidestepping screens, to sketching.

03. Contemplating mortality - the clarifier

There’s a chart that circulates occasionally - the one that maps how many summers you have left with the people you love. Most people scroll past it. I’ve found it useful to stop and look.

My father passed away four years ago. We spoke the night before - by chance, by instinct, by something I can’t name. That conversation has shaped how I think about time more than any book or practice.

About what matters. About what doesn’t. About who you want to call today rather than tomorrow.

The Buddhist tradition has a practice called Maranasati - mindfulness of death. Not morbid. Practical. A reminder that the present moment is the only one you actually have. I wrote about this in an earlier piece - Time is Always Now - which feels more true in 2026 than it did when I wrote it in 2022.

04. Mindfulness - failing less than before

I started meditating seriously several years ago. I’ve did it approximately 939 times - and then another thousand times or more, since I stopped counting. Which might be the point.

Meditation didn’t exactly make me calm. It hasn’t eliminated anxiety. It just helps me scratch away the anxiety to access a pre-existing ocean of calm. Again and again.

What it has done is also create a tiny gap - sometimes a few seconds, often less - between the stimulus and my response to it. In that gap, occasionally, I make a slightly better decision than I would have otherwise.

I wrote about this in more detail: Giveaways, not Takeaways: Learning from 939 Meditation Sessions - and everything in that piece still holds. The practice is simple. The commitment is the hard part. Start smaller than you think you need to.

05. Move - the body knows things the mind doesn’t

I’m not going to tell you what kind of movement works. Walk, swim, dive, dance, stretch.

The 2020s have been, among other things, a decade of extreme cognitisation. We’ve been asked to process more information, faster, with fewer breaks, than any previous generation. The body is not incidental to that processing. It’s part of it. Move it. Without optimising it.

06. Community - belonging as survival strategy

Isolation amplifies everything. The anxiety, the self-doubt, the loop of unanswerable questions. Community doesn’t solve those things - but it reminds you that you’re not alone in having them.

I built DesignUp partly because I needed it to exist. A room where designers could speak honestly - about failure, about doubt, about what the work actually costs. The kaapi conversations I’ve been having last month are a smaller version of the same thing. Sitting across from someone who is carrying the same questions, even if their specific answers will be different, is not nothing. It is, in fact, quite a lot.

07. Stand for something unpaid

This one is harder to explain but I believe in it completely. Find the thing you would do even if no one paid you. The cause, the community, the work that has no invoice. Not as a side hustle. Not as a personal brand play. As a reminder that you exist beyond your economic function.

In an era of enshitification - where everything is being optimised for extraction - the act of contributing something freely is quietly radical. It also, in my experience, tends to be the work that matters most.

Satya vacchan

The 2020s aren’t over. The ground is still moving. The waves haven’t stopped.

But here’s what I’ve come to believe, across many kaapi conversations and meditation sessions and morning walks and honest conversations with people I love:

You don’t need to wake up when it’s 2030. You need to be here, now, in this particular Thursday evening, with this particular cup of something warm.

Time is always now. That was true in 2022. It’s more true in 2026.

Satya vacchan.

*
Images, and sketches, from our April 2026 to Southern Thailand. That little red sketchbook is another of my little acts of resistance!

Not all gaps are equal

The Bardo Thodol - loosely, and a little misleadingly, translated as the Tibetan Book of the Dead - describes the gap. The in-between. Not death, not rebirth. The state between one thing dissolving and the next thing forming. The Bardo Thodol describes 6 Bardos, including our conscious waking state, dream state and meditative state.

I’m in one right now. And it’s quiet, calm.

It wasn’t always like that.

The thirty days countdown

In 2001, a gap found me. Not the peaceful kind. Nine-eleven, the dot com bubble bursting, our org going from a vibrant creative space to being sold-off for almost nothing. My work visa in the UK now had a thirty day countdown to expiry. Thirty days to relocate, give up an apartment we loved, dismantle a life we had built, and face a question we didn’t know how to answer: is there a place for me, for us, here?

The storm in my mind during that gap was something I’ve never quite forgotten. The anxiety wasn’t abstract - it had a deadline, a timer, real losses accumulating daily. The question wasn’t philosophical. It was urgent. It always is, when the gap finds you rather than you finding it.

This also wasn’t the last time that the gap would find me! It found me again between leaving Flipkart and starting up, then shutting down, and moving to the next. It found me again as Udaan went through it’s round of layoffs. Each time it has found me less anxious and more assured. I have had a lot of practice.

This time around, I found it first. I left Deutsche Bank intentionally - dates circled, plans made, and enough self-awareness to know what I wanted the gap to feel like. I have been filling it with kaapi conversations, daily sketching, family time long postponed, short breaks. The calendar dissolved. The timeline became terrifyingly, and happily - free.

I tell you this not to contrast my calm with anyone’s storm. I tell you this because I know what the storm feels like from the inside. And because across many coffees in the last few weeks, I’ve been sitting with people who are in it right now.

Mind the gap

Three kinds of people keep showing up at my table.

The first is early career: three to six years in, made redundant over an email in the middle of the night. Still has hope and enthusiasm, which is the right response, even if it doesn’t feel like enough right now. The wound is fresh but the clay is still soft.

The second is mid to senior: fifteen to twenty years of experience, left because of politics or incorrect levelling or caregiving or some combination of all three. Has been trying to get back for a year, sometimes two. Finds that the landscape has shifted in ways that are hard to name. The skills are real. The confidence is shaken. The industry feels unfamiliar in a way it never did before.

The third is senior leadership: twenty-five years, managed large teams, delivered outcomes. Left, or was made to go, with the kind of vagueness that is its own particular indignity. Now finds that the leadership ask has changed fundamentally. It’s no longer about managing tasks and outcomes and holidays and increments. Something else is being asked for, and even the people doing the asking aren’t entirely sure what it is.

Three different situations. One shared question, asked in different ways, with different levels of concealment: Is there a place for me?

A place for me?

Here is my honest answer.

No. There isn’t.

Not one waiting for you. Not one with your name on it, held aside while you figured things out. The industry is not a waiting room.

But here is what I’ve also come to believe, sitting across from these people, kaapi going cold, neither of us noticing:

You don’t find your space. You carve it.

And to carve it, you need to know - with some precision, not just a feeling - what you uniquely bring. What the world might actually need. Where those two things intersect in a way that only you can occupy.

Most people in the gap don’t know this about themselves. Not because they lack the answer, but because they’ve never had to ask the question in stillness. Work fills the space where the question would live. Until it doesn’t.

The Bardo, if you let it, is where the question finally gets asked. And the answer realised.

Fill the gap

So here is where I’d start. Not with a CV update. Not with a LinkedIn refresh. Not with a flurry of applications.

Start with your inflection points.

Go back to go forward

Go back. Look at the major decisions of your career and your life — not just the professional ones. The choice of what to study. The city you moved to or didn’t move to. The job you took for the wrong reasons. The one you left too early or stayed in too long. The relationship that changed how you worked. The mentor who shaped how you thought.

For each one, ask: how did that actually happen? Not the official version. The real one. Who influenced you? What were you afraid of? What did you want that you didn’t say out loud? What did you decide, and why?

Most people have never looked at their own decision-making pattern with any honesty. They’ve lived it, but they haven’t examined it. And until you understand how you actually make decisions — not how you think you do — you can’t trust the next one.

This is not a comfortable exercise. It will show you things about yourself that are inconvenient. It will also show you things that are genuinely surprising — strengths you’ve been carrying without noticing, values you’ve been honouring without naming them.

Do this first. Before anything else.

Blind spots and open skies

Then, once you have some sense of the pattern, do the harder thing: ask the people who know you.

Not “what am I good at?” That question gets you compliments. Ask instead: “What do you see me doing that I don’t seem to see myself?” Ask your peers, your former colleagues, the people who have watched you work. Ask them to help you find your blind spots.

This requires a particular kind of courage - the willingness to hear something that doesn’t fit the story you’ve been telling yourself. But the blind spots are often where the most useful things live.

Then read. Go for walks. Go to meetups and conferences - not to network in the transactional sense, but to feel where the energy is, where the conversation is moving, what problems are becoming urgent that nobody has solved yet. Understand where the industry is headed. Not to chase it, but to find the intersection between where it’s going and what you genuinely bring.

Where does your value lie? What does only you see, because of the specific combination of things you’ve lived and chosen and survived?

That’s the space you carve.

The storm passes

There are no easy solutions here. I want to be honest about that. The gap is real. The landscape has changed and will keep changing. Some of the roles that existed five years ago won’t come back. Some of the ladders have been pulled up.

But I’ve also sat across from enough people in enough gaps to know this: the ones who come through it with something better than what they had before are not the ones who waited for the space to open up. They’re the ones who got quiet enough to hear what they actually had to offer - and then found the courage to offer it, in a form the world hadn’t quite seen before.

The Bardo is not the enemy. The storm in your mind is not the enemy either - it’s information. It’s telling you that something real is at stake. That’s correct. Something real is at stake.

But the storm passes. And in the quiet after it, if you’ve been paying attention, you might find something you didn’t know you had.

I did. Each time.

PS: A coach, a mentor, and a financial advisor are always worth seeking in your Bardo. Not to tell you what to do - but to help you hear yourself more clearly, plan with more confidence, and move with less fear. You don't have to navigate the gap alone.

With this passing year, we age a a little and embrace the brand new. A new year, a new hope and a new promise: of renewal, the closing of one chapter, or a diary, and the start of another set of empty pages.

Move

Change is constant, but with age, our movements, the flow of our lives, start to slow down. The movement of the body and of ideas. The turning of pages and narratives, the movement of pen on paper. Increasingly, in a post pandemic world, we stay home, work from home, meet friends from the familiar comfort of our screens, order food and groceries at home, exercise at home.

The roaring river becomes a trickle. Or worse, a stagnant pool. We start to hold on tight - to beliefs and ideas, narratives and conditioning, unwilling to let go. Unwilling to examine them. Unwilling to move them around, turn and look from different perspectives and a fresh pair of eyes.

So I wish you, and wish for myself: movement. The curiosity to move about and examine new ideas and to revisit the old. Move through pages, move around things to learn by doing, and move lightly through discourses and discussions. Not weighed by past beliefs, and shaped rigidly by unconscious patterns. Curious but never crusty, or calcified.

I wish you, and wish for myself: the strength, agility and curiosity that moves you to explore new terrains and new lands, new cultures and new places, new food and new languages.

I wish for you and myself: may we move to the postures of tai chi or yoga, move weights, move muscles, move to music, move with (or without) headphones, dance, walk, hop, swim, skip and jump (with rhyme, but without reason). And wonder at the quiet intelligence of this human body that we inhabit.

Movement is a rebellion against the growing tendencies of the body to slump into stillness. To fall into a chair or a sofa and scroll away, to stumble into a another episode, into the next dopamine fix or onto a daydream.

Be still

Stillness is a rebellion against the natural tendency of the mind to move. Move across time and space, jump like a drunken monkey, uncontrolled and unpredictably between hurts and regrets of yesterday and the hopes of tomorrow. The mind ceaselessly grasps at desires and wants with a hundred hands, running away from hurt and fear. There is a tendency to constantly run towards something or away from something, at the speed of thought.

Stillness of the body comes easy and gets easier as we age, but the stillness of the mind is very tough. Age does not change its’ inherent nature - in fact, it adds more layers of anxiety and fear or even forgetfulness and delusion.

Freedom lies in being able to see your thoughts arise and literally try to sweep you off. The path to liberation is not to get swept away or drowned in the tides and waves of thoughts, but stand knee deep and see the vortex growing and calming away.

I wish for you and for myself, this super-power: to be able to stand still and see the workings of the mind. To quietly and gently see the worries, fears, insecurities and our hopes, dreams and desires. With curiosity and calm.

I wish for you and for myself, this ability to be still, to not be swept away in the raging currents the mind unleashes - of desires or aversions.

I wish for you and for myself, to find joy in the stillness of the only moment we live in: now. Not the yesterdays that feel like dreams, or the tomorrows that never arrive. But the now that is always present.

The delicate dance

So here is my wish for 2026 for us: May we cultivate the paradox of a wild body and a quiet mind. May your feet be restless enough to explore the world, and your spirit still enough to truly see and savour it.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year!

What's that one word that sums you 2024 for you? Kakistocracy, BrainRot and Enshittification are amongst the official winners, but what's your deeply personal word-of-the-year? Would love to hear your what and the why, please add them in the comments below.

Here's mine, but before that, a little story.

Rewind back some 18 years. To a cosy little studio of our own, in Northern England, Manchester. Sitting tight between the famed Manchester United's ‘Theatre of Dreams’ and the the iconic Old Trafford Cricket Stadium. David and I founded IdeasFoundry there, and organically ended up doing less and less of traditional design work, ie, the website/brochure/branding kind. And leveraging more on the user research, insights, strategy, blueprints - and sometimes handing these over to our client’s pre-existing agencies for "execution”. Behavioural Design, Service Design, Business Design, User Research weren't still titles in circulation, but these were our playgrounds - without sharp demarcations. Oblivious, we dabbled and often times, jumped across these.

One of our clients had a peculiar problem: headquartered in Europe, their focus was on surrendering complex insurance policies and restructuring these to unlock value. Part of the word "surrender" figured in their name and as they looked to expand to another geography, the word was a blocker. It had negative connotations.

Their dilemma was our brief—retain or change? Could we quantify loss of brand value vs opportunity? If change, what should it be and why? But, this isn't a case study about them.

It’s about the word with seemingly negative connotations: surrender.

But in spiritual parlance, surrender has a whole new layer and dimension.

And nothing sums up that layer of meaning as this quote by the Buddha.

Letting Go…

Surrender, in spiritual terms implies faith, reassurance and an ocean of belief.

It takes me back to a bright, sunny day in the Andaman seas. To a peeled, tanned white-and-orange boat bobbing on the clear turquoise waters. I’m sitting with my son on the opposite ends of the boat—to be specific—on the wooden ledge. Our back is towards the sea below. Our feet inside—flippered-up (if that’s a word). We are wearing the usual heavy, body-hugging, uncomfortable scuba gear. There were oxygen tanks on our back and a heavy belt around our waist. But the most uncomfortable and scary part was this: our instructors urging us to let go and simply fall back. “Do nothing, just fall back, back on your back”.

Simply put, the instruction said: “let those oxygen cylinders pull you down”. To the sea below!

You won’t drown

“Don’t worry”, they reassure repeatedly, “you won’t drown!”

We did not step back into the comfort of the boat. Nor did we take off our heavy, uncomfortable gear and head back to safer shores. We refused to surrender to our fears or the voices in our head. Instead, a couple of seconds later, we simply obeyed the orders—surrendered to the moment and let go. We fell backwards, into the sea below.

Trusting.

Believing.

Surrendering to the here and the now.

Of course, the surrender had it’s own amazing reward. After those first few seconds of discomfort and confusion about which side was up, an amazing underwater world opened up for us. Below. Up. Below.

New colours, new contours, new creatures. A whole new world. An almost alien world hidden in plain sight, that we had never seen before.

So, why surrender?

In a year characterised by words like ‘deadname’, ‘deepfake’ and ‘dystopian’, characterised by the increasingly declining trust in public institutions, brands, apps and services—the words ‘belief’, ‘trust’ and ‘surrender’ seem counter-intuitive.

But hear me out—Who you are is not dictated by Facebook or Twitter/X. You are not defined by the anxieties, the sense of lack, emptiness, FOMOs brought to by the images you see on Insta or the millions trying to get a slice of your attention—and your wallet. The idea of surrender is beautifully summed up in these words from a guided meditation that speaks of letting go:

This surrender to the stillness, to switching off the noise and frenzy that is bent on defining who I am and how I fit into this world is what has been a really tiny insight that has continued to grow over the years. This year, paradoxically, the word surrender, has been added to the series. Surrendering to the journey of understanding and discovering who I truly am.

A word to set you free

Here’s to being and becoming, and to new beginnings, in 2025.

I look forward to hearing your very own deeply-personal word-of-the-year! May the word free you! Free you from your fears and the weight of expectations. And take you beyond the noise, and the uncomfortable zeitgeist…

Images (in order of appearance) by Mohamed Amine Gdoura, Patrick Venegas, and Mohamed Amine Gdoura

Notes

Enshittification “In 2022, Author Doctorow coined the word “enshittification”, which has just been crowned Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year.” https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/nov/26/enshittification-macquarie-dictionary-word-of-the-year-explained

Brain Rot “Our experts noticed that ‘brain rot’ gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media” https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/

Kakistrocracy “The Economist has crowned 𝙠𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙮—“rule by the worst”—as its word of the year, inspired by its opposite, aristocracy (“rule by the best”).” https://www.economist.com/culture/2024/11/29/the-economists-word-of-the-year-for-2024 (behind a paywall).

My occasional photographic posts on Instagram over the last couple of months prompted a friend to comment that we seemed to be on a roll. And she couldn’t have been more accurate. We were on the roll - sometimes up, sometimes down. And sometimes deep deep down. It just depends on which slice of the journey you see us in or what we choose to show. That’s the nature of social media, it conceals more than it reveals.

If Vipassana is about seeing things as they are, zooming out stripping away the layers of illusion, then social media is just it’s very opposite. It’s selectively zoomed-in and tightly cropped to show things we wish to - ranging from over-zealous sharing, to deliberate misdirected marketing.

But her comment, and my partner’s journey of last two weeks+ with debilitating pain, followed by more episodes of illnesses in the family, acted as a reflection point and a trigger for this post.

Up we go, down south

Sometime is late May, our son finally decided to apply to 2 of the new age liberal-arts colleges in India. And he got into both, and in one - with a full merit based scholarship. And that called for a celebration. Though there’s a long back story on the reason for the celebration - and for inserting that little word in there: ‘finally’!

But that’s for later.

At the spur of the moment, we trooped over to the tiny island nation of Mauritius, ringed by corals and clear crystal waters - a place we once called home over 2 decades ago. The gamble we were taking was leaving behind our frail, ageing moms - but the flip side was there were friends and neighbours (and doctors amongst them) who were more than willing to checkin. The week flew like a breeze - we drove hundreds of kilometres around the island, swam, ate, fed cats, walked with lions (really!), lazed, more than dipped our toes in the Indian Ocean, and ate more. And helped our son see a slice of our lives, before he was born.

Coming back after an intense trip is a guarantee for withdrawals. That sliding down part. Made worse by the debilitating migraine that hit my partner - and our son’s impending departure to college, that future empty-nest awaiting us, and an immediate and ever growing list of to-do’s.

Up again, north by northwest

A little over a week later - we were headed to a picturesque green valley, located between the green, gently sloping Sahyadris - a 1600 kilometre mountain range that winds along the western edge of India, across 6 states. Spread across many acres, blocks, playing fields, stadia, a massive library combined with a liberal arts curriculum boasting over 300 courses to choose from - its the kind of place we wish we had, when considering an undergrad degree. Registration day was long - and in some ways, very short. The time to say goodbye and leave the campus came too fast, it felt. The pain of parting, mixed in equal measures by the tinge of uncertainty and the delight of seeing him take his first steps towards independence.

And down we go

Then came Esha’s pains - following a week long viral fever the muscles rebelled and every time she lay down, the intense shooting pain woke up from it’s momentary slumber. Sleepless nights, hospital visits, intravenous injections became part of two intense weeks that seemed to last much longer. Until we found refuge in acupuncture with it’s distinctively Eastern approach to treating all pains: don’t fight it, don’t suppress it, but understand and embrace it. Only then can you let it go.

And this post does just that - embraces the pains, the losses, the heartbreaks and scars. Mixed with the joy of unapologetically seizing the moments which make life special, memorable and meaningful. Enjoying the coffee and not lamenting an empty cup left behind.

Out of syllabus?

In January this year, we were on tenterhooks. Our son was recuperating from a surgery. He had two large health scares the year before - one resulting in multiple appointments with oncologists and several complex tests and probes, some of which made us wait for 4 weeks to come from a city far far away. And he was a few months away from the Grade 12, the dreaded critical Higher Secondary Board Exams.

This series of illnesses marked a new low in cycle of a year that brought irreplaceable losses and pain: my dad’s sudden passing away, my mom’s hospitalisation and a long road to recovery, a job loss owing to funding winter.

Many Indians believe this Board exam is life changing and gives shape to our career trajectories. For us, it was a question of whether he would be able to even take it, given the multiple tests and exams life has been throwing at each of us. None of it came with prep-time or dates. Not all of it was supposed to be in syllabus, or was it?

Joseph Goldstein has this thought-provoking dharma talk that I have gone back to several times - on impermanence. We often say: why me? We live in denial, kick and scream in our minds, in resentment and anger - why me? He reminds us of an everyday Buddhist prayer, which helps to underline the inevitability of pain, losses, grief and impermanence, in our lives—

What is subject to age, will grow old
And I am not exempt

What is subject to illness, will become ill
And I am not exempt

What is subject to death, eventually passes away
And I am not exempt

We live our lives hoping for the good times to last forever. We see death, illnesses, and old age all around us and somehow believe that it won’t touch us. And this is a reminder that none of us are exempt. The lives of haves and the have-nots follow the very same x-axis of time, with joys, sorrows, pains and pleasure going up and down the y-axis, unravelling like a sine-curve.

This calm, stoic, embracing of the duality of life makes the pain bearable and suffering optional. It’s a deep gratitude for and a celebration of the little joys and ‘normal’ everyday life, with people we love, in places we enjoy. Here, and now.

Finally

Supported by some of his teachers - our son took the plunge. Deep down in the murky waters of the raging, scary ocean that is the Board Exams. Not only did he not drown, but he also found the strength to swim and come out with a score to be proud of.

That’s when he decided that to take a gap year, rest, travel and rethink the way ahead. Little did we know things would change. After all the twists and turns, it looks like a happy path which he didn’t realise he wanted to commit to. Right now, as Esha recovers from her pains, I am in a different city watching over a recuperating boy - recovering from another illness, which, after a point the university struggled to manage or contain.

The image below is taken from our breakfast table on the morning of the day we were scheduled to fly out from Mauritius. We discussed what would break if we decided to extend the holiday by a 2-3 more days? It was obvious that 3 days later, we would still come back to this very same moment - time to stay goodbye, and the wanting to hold on. And quietly the 3 of us sat there, enjoying this moment, watching the pool, smelling the salty sea air, sipping coffee, biting into the crispy croissant, soaking in the sun, the views, the sounds. It was extra special because it would never come back again in the exact same way, with the same people, at the very same journeys of our individual life trajectories.

So we marinated deeply in the moment, sighed fondly, and let it go.

And freed ourselves.

All pics are by yours truly and a high-res version may be available soon to download via unsplash. Attributions are always encouraged and welcome.

Despite my earlier resolve to write to you weekly, I have skipped close to 13 weeks.

Thirteen.

In my folder, reside several unfinished drafts. But the return to this letter only meant that I should write afresh, share a small slice of my 13 weeks. I would also love to hear how your 2023 has been so far, so please do add your comments below.

Sliding doors and closing gates

In these 13 weeks, I have just kept hearing the noise around jobs and careers grow louder. Friends and colleagues reaching out with news of abrupt endings. My own journey in a promising young unicorn came to an end on the last day of February. Maybe, more on that, someday later. In my meditations I keep reflecting on impermanence, and find solace in the thought that just like good things come to an end - all those that are troublesome and painful also come to an end. Those are the joys of impermanence. ‘Every exit is an entry somewhere’ - a large typographic poster with a door proclaimed at my alma mater. As you step out of somewhere, you step in somewhere too.

My son would agree, his exams (and the sleepless nights prepping last minute) also came to an end. We managed to take some time out, the three of us.

So, I have been stepping in and out, and in through a lot of doors. Many of them of the sliding kind, at airports and the unusual kinds (below). But it’s not just been doors, windows and frames have been a part of the journey as well. Apart from a brief break, personal work kept taking me back to the city I was born, and back to the city I now call home.

And in midst of it all I discovered 2 airport bookshops. A disappearing breed.

The magic of Airport bookshops

There’s something magical about airport bookshops - stumbling upon them accidentally, with limited time to browse and a whole lot of physical books stuffed in a limited space. For me, it sharpens my senses - makes me focus, scan faster and hone in to a handful. And maybe find something special that no amount of search on e-commerce sites could unearth.

The first one was at Kochi airport. Unlike shops that also sell books with chocolates, TSA approved locks, neck pillows, soft drinks, strawberry wafers and other paraphernalia - this one just sold books. A bigger rarity.

The second was at Bangalore airport’s Terminal 1, near the end gates. This bookshop had the paraphernalia, and a respectable collection of books. So from each, I came away with one book, which accompanied me up in the air and in the journey beyond.

My two finds: the first, a neat fit for the uncertain times we live in; the second - magical, absurd, funny and poignant reflection to our crazy times, complete with reflective AI, chats, and cats.

48 Lessons in achieving calm

Written by Shunmyō Masuno, a Zen Monk, Priest of the Sōtō Zen temple Kenkō-ji, and a Garden Designer - Don’t Worry is a compilation of 48 lessons in achieving calm. A companion for the tumultuous times we live in.

Good news—it’s a book for beginners and not a book to be read from beginning to end. Open any of these 48 lessons (eg., lesson 9 - Reconsider the obvious or lesson 34 - Don’t wield logic), each are around just 3-4 pages long. Read and reread. It’s also a book for people who are already aware, and simply need a handy compilation. Don’t compare this to the likes of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. This one is about breadth, adds in the occasional corporate angle, and collates scattered goodness we may have already encountered.

I read a review that said this book “did not lead me towards any enlightenment” - if you’re expecting that in about 200 pages and sub $10 price tag, you’re in for disappointment. IHO, Don’t Worry is a rather unimaginative title but it may be a victim of being lost in translation. Indeed, this English version likely suffers from a rather stiff translation (for the lack of a better term) from the intended Japanese original.

I loved this small handy hardbound book size—a tad bigger than my open hand, and perfect for keeping beside the bed or desk. The design of the pages, the typography, the paper thickness and texture, illustrations, all of it adds up nicely. And it also does something that I have never been brave enough to do in all the years of designing: most pages have centrally aligned text.

The birth lottery and other surprises

Written by the 2022 Booker Prize winning author Shehan Karunatilaka (for his book The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida), The Birth Lottery is a powerful collection of short stories. Powerful, because often in a matter of a few pages, or just lines, the plots/setting or scene changes in unexpected ways - often melting the boundaries between reality and absurdity, humour and tragedy. And each of these short stories are distinctive, sometimes as short as a page.

The first few paragraphs on reflections of a self driving car facing imminent accident is what got me hooked, and made me swipe my card at the airport bookshop. Apart from a rather quirky introduction on ‘How to Read This Collection’ (the answer to which is: “Never in sequence. I don’t with other people’s works. Why should anyone with mine”), Karunatilaka does offer some themes to help make choices. Though I happily ploughed through without much consideration for thematic choices, and for most of my flight.

I later found this description from The Hindu that seemed to describe Karunatilaka’s writing so aptly - “He is able to pack in substantial details, both emotive and tangible, with a graceful economy of words that is not quite subtle, nor flashy.”

Two books and a giveaway

While Don't Worry by Shunmyō Masuno and The Birth Lottery by Shehan Karunatilaka are quite different in terms of content and style, they both share a common theme of exploring the human experience. Both books offer unique insights into the challenges and joys of being human, making them valuable reads for anyone seeking to better understand themselves and the world around them. For April, they were both handy-sized, compact travelling companions that don’t need to be read end-to-end. And I am offering 2 copies of each book to my readers, as giveaways, details below.

A book posted to you

Tell me, via the comments, which book resonated with you and why you’d want a copy mailed out to you. I’ll choose 2 recipients for each of the books over the next week and get it sent to your preferred address, anywhere within India.

For now, I will pare down my weekly ambitions and make sure it’s not another 13 weeks of waiting. I’ve got to go - the gates are open for my next flight. I’ll see you in 2 weeks.

Keep moving, stay still and stay curious…

Kumar was tense, frustrated, dejected. His mind racing around like bullet trains without tracks. Finding a new job, monthly expenses, school fees, home loans, and repeatedly questioning his own self worth. Trains on endless loops. Loops that kept him up sleepless - reinforcing a vicious cycle in his increasingly exhausted brain.

But most of all Kumar was angry.

Angry isn’t something I could ever associate with Kumar. Quiet, humble, understated, with a shy smile - it was an antithesis of all I had found him to be in our multiple interactions.

We explored the different perspectives, and paradigms of what he was going through but we kept coming back to the deep anger. It was like a volcano had awakened inside of this kind, gentle, patient man - and it refused to calm down.

At the end of the conversation, one thing that Kumar decided to explore was daily self check-ins. At the start and end of the day.

The self check-in

For those of us who work in large (and possibly bureaucratic) organisations, check-ins at regular intervals with a manager or a few key stakeholders is often the norm. Check-in conversations are a way for the managers to ask key questions—for instance, ‘Did we do the work? Are we behind schedule? Are we stuck? Do we need help? Is there something troubling us?’ These are usually based in the context of the workplace and projects.

A self check-in in its simplest form is spending a few minutes - as short as 2 minutes to check-in with yourself . With your current state of emotions and feelings. That is just 2 mins out of 1440 minutes every day, that we all get or 0.13% of our day.

Our emotions and feelings are extremely powerful invisible undercurrents that drive a lot of our visible life. I wrote on these around the idea of evaluating the year past - an ECG of your Feelings and Emotions.

The self check-in spectrum

Self check-in can be as simple as a quick 2-minute quiet time with yourself to peek inside: ‘What am I feeling right now? Why is that so?’ And this is what makes it effective: you record it somewhere—either on an app, or notebook, or even post-its. It is effective for the simple reason that one is externalising one’s inner world and able to see them in a new perspective.

Or you could spend more time to explore inside. Maybe 3-5 minutes. Diving into more of the whys behind the what. Making notes. And you could do it twice a day. Or on difficult days, maybe 3 to 4 times.

You could also use the ready made scales (e.g., awful to great) that apps like Insight Timer and How We Feel provide. How we Feel is visually rich, and has helpful tips and ways to keep keep track of events, people, place connected around a feeling. But it may also be described as a paradox of plenty. I like Insight Timer’s simplicity, and have done long unbroken spells of self-checkins on that. At this point in time, there are many such apps that work and if you do discover a favourite, please share with us.

A gentle drizzle

In one of my earlier posts, one of my 3 wishes for you in 2023 was all about enhancing self awareness. In fact, the self check-in tool is so tiny and atomic—that one could easily dismiss it. However, it happens to be highly effective and powerful in actually enabling us in creating greater self awareness despite it’s simplicity, and the fact that it continues to be under-rated.

Unlike the powerful tropical rains, this is a gentle consistent drizzle that slowly, consistently washes away the dirt and grime, clarifies and sharpens our focus. Sustained over days and weeks, you begin to see yourself with a new pair of eyes.

36 check-ins later

When I met Kumar 18 days later - the first thing he reported was that he was sleeping better. The trains in his mind had slowed down. The worries and self doubt were still there. But the anger wasn’t consuming him. He had an epiphany. Actually two.

He had kept his word and consistently done his daily, twice-a-day checkins, using an unused school note book, ‘borrowed’ from his elder daughter. The first page had no words and the entire page was full of violently drawn unruly, zig-zag lines. The pressure on some lines and points had almost torn through the page. In hindsight, he said that it felt for him. Though the overwhelming urge on his first check-in was to throw the notebook out of the window, he felt glad he didn’t do so.

In his daily self check-ins, Kumar reflected on the current state of his internal landscape. And most importantly, the target and source of his anger. He began to question more and more of it—Was he angry at his manager? Was it the organisation? Was it the colleagues? Perhaps, it was those who continued to work for the organisation? Or, was it himself?’ The questions were many. Interestingly, he came up with two insights: 1) He might have been equally angry and worried if he had stayed back. 2) He was angriest at something that wasn’t exactly there: the organisation. The org wasn’t the office, the cafe, the furniture, the name or the logo, but the collection of everything that symbolised his workplace—especially the people he enjoyed working with, the products he had helped shape over the years and the processes he had willingly signed up for.

It was a classic paradox—there was an organisation, and there wasn’t. It was an insight that had dawned on him about 22 check-ins later and Kumar had a big laugh. His family hadn’t seen him laugh for weeks. Even if the joke wasn’t really funny.

The 40 self check-in challenge

So, are you game for a new challenge—20 days and 40 self check-ins? And you could continue for the next 30, 45 or 60 days, to gain deeper insights.

All you need is 2-3 mins at the start and end of each day. You could self check-in while you’re stirring your cup of coffee or tea, or winding down for bed. The simple steps are all up there, and you can use either offline methods like a notebook, post-its, a white-board or one of the many apps out there. If you do, do share your experiences—it would be interesting to know how it goes, since each experience will be different.

If you have a unique story to share at the end of the challenge or decide to stick on longer, I am all ears. I will do a quarterly round up in March, and would love to feature your story, if you’re okay sharing.

So stay curious, dive in and explore your inner landscape!

365 days of possibilities

This massive, oversized beautiful blue sphere we call home (or a pale blue dot, depending on our viewport) has been spinning on its axis and circumnavigating our Sun for millions of years. And as per many other calendars in use around the world (most pre-dating the Gregorian calendar by millennia) - it may not be 2023, and January 1 may not even signal a New Year. But let’s go with our shared notion and say today is the day.

Today is always the day. 24 brand new hours. And the time is always now.

A day for hope and optimism, and a day that billions around the world have woken up to the idea of a brand New Year.

365 empty pages of a diary. 365 days of possibilities.

The question—What would be my 3 wishes for you?— wasn’t an easy one. Because it isn’t one of those generic, one-size-fits-all responses, such as “be happy, stay healthy, stay positive” or “let your dreams come true” or “may this be the best year yet”. So, what, if any, could be the chosen three? Not hopes and prayers around our probable circumstances, but wishes that power you to grow stronger and resilient, and maybe, evolve as a better human being and professional.

So, here are my shortlisted three, for 2023

01

A year of self-awareness

Events, gossip, posts, politics, threads, appraisals, comments, inspiration, news, updates, hacks, tips - the outside world keeps up its steady carpet bombing of our daily lives, right from the time we wake up (and check our phones) to taking much of this chatter and clutter to bed.

While the awareness of the world around us expands exponentially, our own internal awareness shrinks. The awareness of one’s own beliefs, values, motivations, narratives and actions. The awareness of what makes you - truly you. And your place in the world, not mediated by media or influenced by likes, hearts, hates, and cancels.

Self-awareness helps you make more thoughtful and informed choices, and decisions of what you want to achieve, what does growth and success look like. For you.

Living an examined life is an ongoing reflective process to help you live more meaningful and fulfilling life. Tools and frameworks like the F-ECR are one of the many that help you reflect, as does meditation - and it may be easier that you think. I will use this space to share many more with you.

02

Finding your own narrative of growth

As a mentor, advisor, manager, leader - and now as a coach, I encounter the growth questions and concerns repeatedly. As an employee, and a founder, I have grappled with it too. Seasoned CXOs couch in it in different words. Fresh faced grads, mid-career, mid-level managers voice the same, articulated differently. The feeling: I am not sure what growth means, but it doesn’t feel like this!

So, what does growth mean to you?

Not based on the promotion your classmate just flaunted on LinkedIn, or a car a co-worker bought. Or the new house, or likes, or meeting invites and so on. Our minds are comparison machines and often, we forget what truly gives meaning and joy to us and how to grow in that direction. Trust me, I’ve been there too.

As a coach, I often see the shock, awe and amazement that people discover, when they begin to uncover their own unique narratives and individual stories around growth. Awareness is the first step and hence, it’s also my first wish for you. I shall be sharing more reflections, exercises, explorations around the growth narrative in the upcoming letters.

03

Making impermanence our friend

Impermanence evokes fear: images of decay, sadness, of things passing away. And yet impermanence is also the reason why the old year gives way to a fresh start, and 365 days of possibilities. Why spring follows winter, and why we cherish the sunsets and sunrises. Why we plan for months and years to catch the short window into Japan’s sakura season. Impermanence can be hauntingly beautiful.

Impermanence is the bedrock of Buddhist philosophy. A reminder to cherish the here and now, for this moment in time will never come again! So enjoy it, relish every bit of it. For one day, everything we love and hold dear will be gone - so savour the presence of people you love, the phone call with parents, the conversations with friends. And remember everything we hate, detest, our sources of suffering, misery and pain will be gone too. The upside of impermanence.

The book of Ichigo Ichie is a good place to start, if you’re an early explorer of this idea. Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now is a timeless classic. There are powerful meditations on exploring impermanence, and some brilliant talks and discourses - I’ll save it for you, for later.

Step up, step forward

Repeating from an earlier post - things often don’t go as per plan. 2023 will be no different - assuming, it’ll throw a mix of predicaments, challenges and trials in your path. Unlike the academic world, life doesn’t come with exams which have a date, time, assessment pattern or syllabus. Assume, and you won’t be surprised. And you wouldn’t need to be woken up in 2024.

Let me wrap up (or unwrap) with these three wishes. You could also think of these as your companions or guides to navigate 2023:

1. May this be the year of expanding your self awareness.

2. May you discover and uncover your very own narrative of growth.

3. May you make impermanence your friend.

Stay curious, stay resilient!

First image - Esha and my love of mugs and cups brought us to this one. Shot on an iPhone on a sunny end-of-the-2022 day / Second image - Sakura in Miyajima Island, Japan - from our 2019 trip - chasing the cherry blossoms in Japan, savouring impermanence…

Apps and digital services we use, have a ring side view of our behaviours. Through tons of data we inadvertently share via the many sensors and analytics in the apps, and on our beloved phones. Often upto the second, thinly sliced by days, months. All of which leads to that much loved cumulative “year in review”. Packaged beautifully, these have become trendy, drool and share-worthy.

What food did I order? And when? What songs caught my fancy? What did I seemingly like, love or hate? And how it compares to people around me - my real and ‘social network’ friends, folks in my neighbourhood, or demographics.

Everything we consume creates intricate data patterns. But we often fail to see the larger, more important patterns of our own life which we create by doing, feeling, thinking, acting and showing up in certain ways. This is a little nudge for you to rediscover and see what’s hidden in plain sight.

The news of me

Years ago, and even now, newspapers, news agencies, news channels and magazines share their ‘year in review’. Google added to the tradition with ‘the year in search’.

There’s sports, politics, ecology, economics - you can slice and dice and get a year-in-reviews for any of these, or others. What’s interesting is the shift from the news of the world around me to the news of me. And that’s what we’ll do in this exercise - define our news sharper - with a ‘headline’ and a narrative.

Does consumption define you?

I know you’re shaking your head in disagreement to the question! There’s much more to us - what we do (or won’t), things we create, our ideas, our relationships, our learning and reflections, our beliefs, the stories about us which we frame and reframe.

But there is something else that defines a lot of our internal life - and consequently our external life: our thoughts, feelings and emotions. They’re powerful, they’re fleeting and very rarely do we have control over them. And it’s not easy to objectively attach data to them - unlike consumption data. But there’s a way…

An ECG of your Feelings & Emotions

While toying with my own frameworks and reflecting on questions that can help us get a wholistic wrapped-up view of our year, I felt that the answer lay in our emotional journey of ups and down through the days, weeks, months and the year.

You most often remember these surge of emotions and feelings. They all had people, places, events, decisions, actions, thoughts and narratives attached with them. “March was terrible and draining” is a summation of multiple feelings, emotions and storylines - though it may just be a couple of isolated incidents colouring the entire month.

So here’s a simple visual framework I created (now at version 0.3) - and got a few friends to test it out. The results were very surprising - it uncannily resembled an ECG or Electrocardiograph. An ECG of our feelings and emotions created by events - and told the story of our year. Meet F-ECG, or the Feelings-EmotionsChronoGraph!

📎 Here’s the sheet for you - download the PDF, print it out and scribble away. There are two pages. In the first, on the left is a bunch of emotions (they could be grouped better I feel, though this is start). There are 52 long columns representing a year. Think of the events across these and what it made you feel. Plot it out. There may be some weeks where you felt something - but can’t recall the exact incident. That’s okay….

On the right are overview part - what were your top 3 Highs and Lows - who, why, what made you feel that way. And finally how does this reflection itself make you feel? The good news is that we all have pre-wired super-sensitive sensors in our body and mind. No app update required. Here’s what I did with my F-ECG sheet…

I first plotted out the events I recalled, and realised these were two distinct lines - one was for the personal life involving family, home, school, kid - and the other was work. So I used two different coloured lines. You could use more lines - eg for money, hobbies and health. And see the correlation between these.

A sense of closure

For me, this year was one of highs followed by sheer drops of super lows. The lows in my life - my dad passing away (it was life altering for us, especially for my mom), followed soon after by my mom’s hospitalisation. All of these dragged the ‘work graph’ down. I don’t remember the exact events (they were a blur), but I clearly recall this was a time of disengagement from work, mixed with being worried about how the team was coping, what was being missed out.

Putting it on paper helped me externalise and redefine the narrative around the very generic sense of “what a terrible year it was”. Seeing the visual representation brought gratitude for the people who supported me - in work and in life. And gratitude for the many lessons the lows and super-lows taught me. In a sense, it brought closure.

The Buddha taught us that the fundamental condition for happiness is freedom. He spoke about embracing our emotions, feelings, hurt and sorrows the way a young child is lovingly embraced, without judgement. By embracing and understanding - not by running away, fighting, avoiding or drowning our emotions and feelings - we free them, and therefore ourselves. A millennia old counsel from the Shakyamuni.

Communicating new realities

Part 2 (in the same PDF) takes the F-ECG and the Highs/Lows identified there, into another related framework: the three cups, to redefine a new narrative for you.

The columns are about a metaphor and paradox familiar to you - about sipping and savouring what is there, emptying what you don’t need and filling and refilling that which will help you. The three rows focus on habits & decision frameworks, people, and narratives. Based on the columns, the reflection for each change.

Finally, based on all your reflections, there’s an invitation to give your 2022 story a headline and an intent for 2023. More like a mantra - an affirmation, maybe a reminder, but most importantly an intent. The third column - Start doing: Fill is also your broad indicative 2023 pathway.

A wrap-up party?

Here’s another idea - reflection is usually meant to be a solitary pursuit, but what if you joined up with a few folks? Time for a review party with a few close friends or empathetic colleagues. Time box 90 minutes and let each one share theirs.

Do the first part, the F-ECG on your own. While you’re starting to fill in part 2 - it may be a good time to get together, (over a few cups of tea or coffee) and discuss your wins, the lows and the learnings. People who know you and have seen your journey over the year would be able to add more detail and colour, or restore a tad more objective balance to your narrative.

The shape of 2023

Things often don’t go as per plan. 2023 will be no different - assume it’ll throw a mix of predicaments, challenges and trials in your path. Assume and you won’t be surprised, and wouldn’t need to be woken up in 2024 (I wrote about it earlier).

Unlike the academic-world, life doesn’t come with exams which have a date, time, assessment patterns or syllabus. Hopefully the F-ECG and the 3 Cups frameworks will keep you prepped up for the unannounced tests and trials of 2023 - sharpen your own internal sensors and analytics a little more. Become more self aware. And look at much larger view of the ‘wrapped’ beyond consumption patterns.

Stay curious, stay resilient!

PS: I will wait to hear from you on how these exercises (and the wrap-up party) went! Looking forward to your feedback, and that’ll help me update and tweak.

Main image by Mingwei Lim via Unsplash | Frameworks, and designs by yours truly.

The early pandemic years were intense and I was part of a voluntary response team, working closely with the Government: the Prime Minister’s Office and other central agencies. The work hours were gruelling, with phone calls or meetings anytime of the night. Just before the start of my dad’s illness and multiple hospitalisations, we had moved to our new apartment and were just about settling in.

One of the welcome distractions during the lockdown were the weekly drinking sessions with a small band of warm, friendly neighbours. A tiny band of passengers on a ship stranded in the middle of nowhere. Weekly sessions became twice-a-week and then frequent. It was an escape for all of us—and something that I really began to look forward to.

My partner Esha, found her refuge in Old Path White Clouds, a retelling of the life of Buddha by the venerated monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Our conversations over the book brought back all that I had journeyed through—including a 5000+ miles of travelling rough through India’s spiritual landscape, in my earlier years, following my graduation from design school. It was the path that the Shakyamuni Buddha would have transversed over the course of decades, nearly 2600 years ago.

The book, and those conversations, became the turning point. Once again, I was back on the old path.

Takeaways from the Vipassana Retreat not taken

I have not been to a Vipassana retreat, so I never had the chance to write about my top 10 or top 5 takeaways via a blogpost or a twitter thread. I would come across these often though. But I did observe a very common phenomenon for many of those who did attend such retreats—it was usually after the initial experience, most often euphoric, that people fell back on their old ways. The enthusiasm of sitting for a 30-minute or 60-minute session would dwindle to zero. There was no sustained practice after the spike of a week or the 10 days of retreat.

Daily active usage

DAUs (or daily active users) is a key success metric of the digital products that my team and I happen to design. And ‘active usage’ was my goal—with or without the apps. Just that the apps made it a little easier.

For me, personally, the quest was an ideal of 30 mins of practice - even if it was broken into 2 or 3 sessions. It could even be as short as 5 minutes. Everyday consistency —daily active usage was the key. I used a few YouTube videos of timers (they had a bell every 1 or 2 minutes) and a gentle music, a chant, or no music, in the background. The bells would help bring the wandering mind back to the breath.

I wrote to a few YouTubers asking if they could create specific ones of longer durations and customisations. There are a lot of guided meditation apps out there, but I didn’t want too much of the commentary (found it distracting initially).

Of these, in the early days, I found Balance App helpful. And I stumbled upon Insight Timer, which was superb at customising timers (with its 8 polyphonic bells, no less). Besides, there were tons of guided meditations too. I would do multiple sessions in a day, often as short as 5 mins, until I could find it easy enough to sit through 30 mins and eventually stretch it to 45 minutes.

Mixing maths and meditation

Currently, the only stats I check daily on the InsightTimer App is the ‘streak’ of meditation days—the longest unbroken chain is 61 days continuously. But a few months ago, I dug deeper and realised I had gone past 700 sessions. Today, as I write, I am at 939. But, that excludes longer sessions without the apps or the ones with my other favourite WakingUp app.

Esha and I have been sharing the first morning session, with an almost 90% consistency, although, she mostly prefers the guided ones while I go with the unguided.

Giveaways, not takeaways

Social media is full of takeaways (threads, posts, videos, podcasts and listicles) from meditation, mindfulness exercises and breathing ‘systems’. However it is not just the takeaways, but what you also give away, wilfully and consciously, and how you let go—that is at the heart of the actual transformation. 

It is this transformation that affects your work life as much as your relationships with your loved ones, your colleagues, neighbours and those things that matter the most in the world around you.

Giving away is not giving up. Giving away or letting go, is wilful. Not forced, not with your back against the wall. It’s a decision you arrive at, after a thoughtful consideration and reflection.

Awareness, before giving away

You cannot let go of, or give away, the things that you are not even aware of. These aren’t exactly that unused book shelf or that ukulele, sitting abandoned in some corner of your house, awaiting their turn to be sold off or given away.

Meditation teachers often evoke the metaphor of thoughts as waves of the ocean. They are large, they are powerful and we can get deeply immersed in them. However, in order to enhance our awareness, we must learn to pull back, or zoom out, so we may be able to see the patterns and make sense of them. That is how awareness happens.

Meditation opens up the space to zoom out—little by little. With every session, everyday, you chip away, and learn to look at and look beyond the chatter in your mind. You begin to realise that you are neither just your thoughts, nor just the endless waves in which you soak, play, drown and swim, but you’re also a watcher of your thoughts. It’s about recognising the patterns, “without getting lost in the VR of your thoughts,” as the meditation teacher and author, Tara Brach says.

My ‘giveaways’?

There are many, and there are lessons in each of these. But that calls for separate letters addressed to you in the coming weeks.

For now, I have just one thing to share. I am happy to say that I have given away my membership of those weekly drinking sessions. My attendance has come to a nought over the past 70 weeks, although I do meet folks over conversations. The drinking though, I rarely indulge in, now—often, based on choice, not compulsion. It is more of an awareness that is self-regulated and wilfully letting-go of another crutch that we think we cannot do without. And it feels just fine.

Getting started with your 3 min sessions

If you think meditation is hard, or if you’ve struggled with it in the past, here’s a simple exercise for you. Just commit to 3 minutes daily.

5 things to remind yourself before you start:

1. Consistency is key, small sessions but consistent.

2. There is no such thing as “a good meditation session.”

3. You can’t suppress thoughts, that’s not the aim.

4. Focus on watching your thoughts arise like waves, and pass away.

5. Using an object of attention, like your breath, you learn to build focus and zoom out. In short, you become the observer. Breath too arises and passes away like waves.

Your 3 minute session

This is a quick way to get started and make meditation a part of your work day and every day, without absolutely any elaborate prep. It also works wonderfully in the world of online meets…

• Before the start of any meeting or the end of one, or when there’s some buffer time between meetings, give yourself a 3-minute break. You can use a timer (like the ones from the InsightTimer) or just set a reminder!

• Sit upright and comfortably in your chair and dismiss all open windows.

• Close your eyes, do a quick scan and check if your facial muscles, shoulders, back, neck, jaw or the space around your eyes are tense. If they are, even a tiny bit, simply release and relax.

• Focus on your breath—entering and exiting and the points along which you feel them in your body. Within seconds, a thought will come crashing and distract you. Don’t shoo it away. Simply acknowledge and shift your focus back to the breath.

• Keep repeating this dance of attention for 3 mins. Keep building your meditation and mindfulness muscle. Breath by breath. More on that to follow soon.

You can also try this exercise while on public transport, on a park bench, at lunch or just after waking up, but obviously, never when driving or whilst engaged in activities that require focus and attention.

Doing this at different times of the day, before or after meetings also allows you to examine the state of your mind and the sea of thoughts at different times. Calm? Rough? Choppy? Stormy? See if you can start to spot the patterns there.

Please share your experience of getting started, or re-started and keeping it going, consistently.

Stay curious, stay consistent…

Bangalore has been much loved for its weather and dreaded for it’s traffic. Over the years, it has only got worse, with rising car ownership and more Indians (and expats) relocating to India’s version of the ‘Silicon Valley’. The idea of the place - not the TV series, I mean.

We’ve have had a small luxury of having drivers (chauffeurs) from the time we relocated back from Europe. Over 7 years ago, amidst a general strike, I decided to try and make an attempt to go to office. Our driver Parameshwar was delighted. Beaming through his lush moustache, he declared with the glee of a 5-year-old, that the road ahead was “full…lllll-empty”!

For some reason, this paradoxical phrase stayed with me. You might say, since that day, I linked and locked it to the parable of ‘emptying’ one’s cup. That story, unlike Parameshwar’s moment of discovery and delight, dates back several centuries to a conversation over tea. Between the Zen Master Ryutan and the Scholar Tokusan.

Tokusan had heard of the legendary Ryutan, so he came to see the Master and learn all about Zen. A few minutes into the conversation, the scholar started interrupting, rebutting and arguing with Ryutan.

Ryutan’s response was one of calm. He got up and suggested they have tea. He began pouring into Tokusan’s cup. And he kept on pouring. Even as the cup began overflowing.

Tokusan angrily interjected — “Stop it—why can’t you see?” and pointed at the overflowing cup. A smiling Ryutan then reminded the scholar that we are often so full of ourselves, that there’s no room to absorb new ideas, appreciate new perspectives or create the space for change.

It is easier said than done. The full, overflowing cup is not just a metaphor for our overflowing ego but also our blind spots, and the lack of self-awareness. More often than not, we’re not even aware of our need to empty, to create room for change and allow transformation to happen.

“Let go of what no longer serves you”

This is an oft-used phrase in guided meditation. But I doubt if most of us are even aware of what it is supposed to serve us, and if it actually does so or not.

Our beliefs, world-views, opinions (about ourselves and our abilities), habit and thought-patterns - all of these shape our reality and have a direct impact on our relationships, career, health and success.

Letting go of what no longer serves us means recognising the negative patterns and beliefs that are stopping us from growing to our full potential and often, holding us back. It means detaching—hang on, this isn’t like detaching a word or jpeg file from your email! It’s a little more complicated than that.

What’s in your cup?

The definitions and differences between beliefs, values, biases, world views, culture, habit patterns, prejudices et al won’t serve us here - it can become long and academic.

But the way they intermesh and weave together is via the narratives we are constantly building on, inside our heads—especially, the ceaseless chatter, the commenting and the constant judging.

Some of the ways we can break these are:

• By the stories we tell about ourselves: “I can do it better than anyone” or “this is just beyond me”. “I feel good about the exam today” or “why do I always blow these interview rounds?” or “I am simply not ready yet.”

• By the stories we tell of the people around us: “Why does she have to be such a difficult child?”or “I am so lucky to have him as my boss” to “I am not looking forward to this team event” or “If he was here, he could have sorted this”.

• By the stories we tell of the world around us: “Why does it have to be me, always?” to “At least I am grateful for this sunny morning” to “Why does all this traffic appear whenever I am late?” to the eternal favourite “The universe conspires to…” (this can go either way).

Fill your cup with awareness

Awareness is what ultimately stops us from getting carried away in the flow of these narratives and judgements, of feeling like a victim, feeling bitter. Or feeling the need to be the victor always, even at the cost of constantly treading over values, rights, emotions and feelings of others, including those you love.

Awareness is pausing to listen to your narratives and judgments—giving it your full attention and asking:

• Where do these narratives and stories come from?

• What strongly-held beliefs, opinions and thought-patterns give rise to these?

• What if my thoughts or feelings are only partly true, or completely wrong?

A reflection—with a full cup

This makes for an interesting end-of-the-week exercise. Just book some time with yourself—at home or a cafe for the weekend. With your favourite beverage. Perhaps in the week to follow, you might find it worthwhile to try out some of these:

• Be aware of some of your strong feelings, emotions through the week and the associated narratives.

• To make a note, mental or ideally in any note-taking app or pen-and-paper.

• To not judge. Just observe and record.

• Using the time with yourself, to reflect and spot any patterns—especially how you relate to yourself, the world around you, your colleagues and loved ones.

• A few repeats over several weeks and weekends is always recommended as well as an end-of-year reflection.

Ready to empty?

This might help you get a sense of “What no longer serves me” and narratives that you’re ending up serving, possibly unaware. Does this help you get started on what you need to empty? The What you want to empty is the first step in self awareness. Without the what, and by association the why, the how and when are meaningless.

You could always use the comments to share how this exercise went, and how it made you feel. Or if this read brought out more questions rather than answers.

The philosophy of ‘fullempty’

Before I encountered Parameshwar, life had forced me to ‘fullempty’ myself multiple times. I hadn’t necessarily intended to empty my cup, but the two recessions and multiple associated events not only emptied but also shattered cups. The pain of losing the home that Esha and I had lovingly built in Bristol, followed by the pain of losing a business we had set up in Manchester, nestled between the two legendary Old Trafford stadiums—all of it. And then, the whole idea of starting anew all over again. And again.

Central to my coaching practice is this essential life lesson —the idea of examining the trajectory of our lives time and again, being aware and emptying the cups, mugs, glasses and goblets routinely, so we may fill it up with all that is meaningful and fulfilling to our lives.

May the force be with you.

Postscript

• An extra special thanks to my friend, sky-watcher, companion and co-conspirator Esha for constantly nudging me to write, and write with a cadence. Her own blog celebrated 8 years recently. Having a thoughtful editor at home is bonus and a blessing!

• Parameshwar left shortly after his fullllempty discovery, back to his village and his fields. I am sure he is happier amongst the greens than the concrete city roads.

• The word Parameshwar is a compound of the Sanskrit words Param or परम meaning 'Supreme' and Ishwar ईश्वर meaning 'Lord'. The term usually indicates the position of Shiva as the Supreme being and Supreme Reality

• Image & drawing by yours truly, Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson via GoComics

2020 was hard. But we weren’t prepared for 2021. Apocalyptic Covid waves, deaths at a magnitude we have never seen, collective waves of grief.

2022 is ending on a hard note for many across the world. Layoffs, recession, ‘tech-winter’, downturn, anxiety, uncertainty.

As we go into a brand new year, into 2023 - I sense optimism wavering, flickering. A mixed bag of hope and fears. Prayers and pessimism. Past expectations gone sour colour the view of what’s to come. In a dipstick poll amongst friends and colleagues - the top choice was “wake me up when it’s 2024”.

In the midst of all these large scale changes which seem so hopelessly beyond our control, how do we make sense of our careers, of work and life? And a path forward?

This isn’t exactly a newsletter - it’s less news, much more a letter. A letter to you every week. An exploration and advice, exercises and reflections to find meaning and fulfilment - in your work and life.

Fullempty draws from my own journeys in mindfulness and meditation, exploring neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, Advaita and Buddhism. I am not an expert, just a curious connector of dots. I draw from the many masters, seekers and seers who have gone before us. And from my long career and the multiple reinventions. And it comes at a time when I see a very interesting fork in the timeline. Stay tuned…

“The future is a concept, it doesn't exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now.”

Alan Watts, 1977

As we turn the corner of 2022 and the warning bells of a ‘tech-winter’ global recession ring louder, the uncertainty and anxiety around careers also rises. These weekly letters, and exploration, are my little response. A push back, and little islands of reflection and renewal, for you.

Why?

Fullempty is focused specifically on the challenges of navigating career complexities - and life. Work and life are are almost always deeply interwoven. In each letter, there’ll be an invite to a reflection, a challenge, a nudge or pointers, should you wish to explore more. An exploration and advice, exercises and reflections to find meaning and fulfilment - in your work and life. Join me in this conversation and on this inner journey via your inbox.

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A coaching companion

These weekly letters, are also a companion to my coaching practice. A new fork in the timeline for me: after a long journey in Ontological conversations and coach training, I move from decades of advising, guiding and mentoring - into formal coaching. Even if part-time for now.

You can find more about my coaching practice at www.fullempty.io