A lot has happened in the last few days. And I mean a lot. From health scares to awareness of lack of money to getting stabbed in the back to taking the largest shot of my life to the decision to go to the mattresses. I wish I could write about all of it on a public forum. I know no one cares about it. I know that once am gone, all this is meaningless. I know all I can do is take lessons, give those to my folks and move on. So that.
Chalo, let’s write randomly about things that I am thinking about
1/ Ankita asked me if I could bring back LFW.
On a whim, I floated a form and I am gathering interest. Here. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about this. On one side, I get to write more. On the other, I am not sure if I have the energy or the time to do this.
In an ideal world, I would like to not worry about money and do all these things that enable others. But then we dont live in an ideal world.
2/ I am going to the mattresses.
If you know the meaning, great. If you don’t, well you dont. I am not explaining. But at this time, I am facing the biggest challenge that C4E has ever faced, after we became what we’ve become post COVID-19.
3/ Toto’s at Bandra
I went to Toto’s last night to meet some friends. It was a very very interesting meet. Multiple reasons
a/ I went there after like 15 years. The place is as buzzing, as expensive, as good as it was back then. I would love to meet the owners and learn about their story!
b/ While I was there, I realised that the best economic decision that you can make as a professional is to marry someone and bind your economic fortune with them. You may have an open marriage, you may not be lawfully wedded but once you start living AND EARNING AND SPENDING with someone else, you get to build an economic engine that in 20 years will give you immense wealth.
If you are in your 20s, find someone that is willing to “marry” you and you together build a life. The best-case scenario is when you can live together and limit your expenses.
c/ I realised I dont like traffic at all. I spent about an hour to go meet friends. I dont see the value in all that travel to meet folks. I know that I need to have deep relationships and community and all that. But I also know that all my energy gets sucked and drained in the commute. So that.
d/ All my friends there could only chat about LV bags, business class flights, Rolexes, sculpted bodies, curly hair and I dont know what all. I couldn’t relate to any of that chatter. A few days ago I stayed with a friend and his family and again the routine humdrum was about school, holidays in Europe and all that.
To be honest, there’s nothing wrong in that. This is what life is. May be I am a fool in chasing largeness – I dont even know what largenss could be. I mean all my friends have large lives – multiple houses, multiple sources of incomes, multiple holidays, multiple kids. And here I am, on the road again taking loans to make ends meet.
Lemme digress for a bit. I had decided that I would never take another paisa of loan. But in the last 10 days, I’ve had to take money twice. And the way things are I will have to take one more tranche towards the end of the month. Which is ok – this is a working capital loan, to be honest. But I need to be prudent enough to not lean on loans.
e/ I also realised yet again that I live a very unidimensional life. This is not new. And lately, I’ve been seeing signs of this all around me. Maybe I am seeking this only?
4/ Relationships
I’ve been thinking a lot about longevity and one of the tenets (apart from the usual suspects) is – healthy relationships. Of all kinds.
I suspect when you have great relationships, the stress hormones are not active enough to kill you. And if they are, the peace and harmony from these relationships would ensure that you dont die of stress.
So, I need to work on this.
In terms of relationships, in decreasing order of priority, I think we have the following kinds – romantic partners, parents, siblings, offsprings, friends, work colleagues, community, strangers and everyone else. Oh, and the most important is the relationship with self!
In my case, I think that the romantic partner one is the most fractured. I am ok with my parents (though they live away from me). I am ok with how I am with my sis, though I would like to be closer. The closest thing to my offspring is growing up fast and getting away from me. Sad but I can’t help it. And I dont want to inhibit her flight. Friends is something I need to work on. I have lately started to get more involved with friends from school and college (and I am struggling to be honest). I think I have a great relationship with my work colleagues. I am active in the community as well (work to honest, not locality etc). And I think I am ok with strangers – I operate from a place of empathy and trust. I assume everyone is good, unless they give me a reason to believe otherwise.
So, I need to fix these.
5/ The Village
All I do, all I am building, is this thing called the C4E Village. Right now it’s not a physical space but someday it would be. While that happens, I want to ensure that it does well. And I need to find a way to sustain it. And I need to protect it despite all odds. That’s it. Just writing this here.
Oh, the track of the day is this.
Over and out. See you folks next time!