Tag: Growing Up

40 things for the 40s

A list of 40 things that I would like to do in my 40s.

So, I am turning turned 40 this year and here is a list of things that I will do in my 40s.

By this age, I was supposed to be financially free and contribute to making a dent in this world. I am of course very very far from any of those goals that I had for myself, I do believe that I have a deeper appreciation for life and work and other things. And in this decade, since I am not sure if I am getting closer to dent, I will for sure do things that I have always wanted to!

And thus, here is a list of things that I will do in the next decade. In no order (but bifurcated into sections)…

PS: I know some of the following are goals, some are systems, some are one-time activities and some are all.

Health

  1. Eat better. This is not a tangible or measurable goal but I want to make a conscious effort. So I will use shortcuts. I will eat natural, organic, and unprocessed food. I will eat fewer carbs. I will not eat anything that may not be edible at room temperature (no ice-creams). I will be mindful of what and how I eat.
  2. Fix Hernia. Get operated upon if required. 
  3. Run 10 full marathons. Each in under 5 hours.
  4. Do the Killer Boogie in 3 mins.
  5. Get 6-pack abs.
  6. Take a shot at Everest. My deadline to do this is Jan 1, 2026. Also, after I went to the base camp last year, I am on the fence about even trying. But let’s see. And if not Everest, do a serious amateur hike every year. The experience is very very humbling and one must do treks often.
  7. Make sleep a priority. As I grow older, I am unable to function if I haven’t had good sleep the previous night. I will be 8 hours in bed without devices. No screen. Not even TV. 8 might be overkill. The point is, I dont want to be tired when I wake up. And if that means I need to say no to work and say no to money opportunities, I will say no. Sleep will become a priority.

Family / Friends / Relationships 

  1. Make parents a priority. Move them to the same city as I. I know I plan to be a nomad per se and it may not pan out but I will try.  
  2. Make parents travel to one new place EVERY year. And do this in relative comfort and luxury. I mean I may not be able to fly them in business class but I will not put them in a bad taxi. And thus I need money. For the money, I dont have an upper limit per se but it has to be at least 5 lakhs a year. And most important, accompany them as much as possible.
  3. Find love. I am not sure if I am capable of being loved – I am way too rational when it comes to real life (and a dreamer on the other end when it comes to work). And I say this with all sincerity. 

Work

  1. Stop active work. This means I will not be responsible for day-to-day operations.
  2. Teach a full-time course.
  3. Prevent my mornings from others at all costs. See this.
  4. Become very very active with #BrandSG. To a point that before I walk into a room, people know who I am. As part of this, I will make a brand manifesto that will have tenets that are dear to me (say, Zubaan Ki Keemat).
  5. I will NOT rent my time! Thanks, Naval!

Money / Wealth 

  1. I will become financially free. This means that I will have enough that I dont need to worry about money and yet I can support everyone around me. You know, “Saain itna dijiye, jaame kutumb samaay, main bhookha naa rahoon, sadhu na bhookha jaaye“. Some people call it FU Money (I mean not really, but the same zone). Right now, the number is 10 crores. Each year that I dont get to this, I will add 25% inflation. And once I get to it, from there on, become a billionaire. And then the richest man in the world. I know that this pursuit of THE richest may not bear fruit. But I want to try. And get there. 
  2. Get a membership at MCA. I challenge that I’ve been on since 2019.

Yeah! That’s all I want. Not more. Not less.

Impact / Contribution / Spirituality 

  1. Teach writing to 100 people a year. And in 10 years, 1000 people.
  2. Get mentioned in thank you of 100 books. Right now, the number is 2 or 3.
  3. Get mentioned in the Oscar acceptance speech 100 times. Right now, the most thanked person at the Oscars is Spielberg (some 42 times).
  4. Expand SoG network (and alumni) into a million young people. Right now, we are in the low two digits. I have no clue how to do this. But I want to make this my life’s work. 
  5. Build SoG Grant into a gateway for young people to explore their interests. And expand the network of recipients to a thousand people!
  6. Build LHV into a substantial venture investment vehicle.
  7. Take C4E or one of our ideas to a point where our impact reaches a few million people. So far we are in the hundreds. PS: I like how I talk about C4E as a collective already. #win
  8. Each year, do at least 10 days of no-connection to existing people kind of trip (Vipassana, gumnaam sheher me anjaan insaan, treks etc.) 
  9. Become a pillar of support to people around me. This will happen if I am able to do all the ones I’ve listed above.

Hobbies

  1. Play a musical instrument on a stage with more than 1000 people in the audience. I got myself a Uke. VG gifted me a guitar long ago. Krishna got me a Uke as well. So despite all these divine interventions, I’ve not been able to get to it. Let’s see what happens this time.
  2. Travel to 100+ countries. So far I’ve done 40 odd. This seems like an easy one to do!
  3. Move to a different country and live there for a few years. This I want to do within the next 2 years. #in2025 
  4. Publish at least 3 books. Lol!
  5. Make 1 feature film. This one looks the most plausible.
  6. Get a WSOP bracelet.

Social

  1. Get to know 10 billionaires on a first-name basis. Right now I know none.
  2. Be more active on social media and chase vanity metrics. 100K on Twitter, 100K on Instagram and 100K on YT. Or any other platform that is large at the time.

Misc

  1. Get consistent. Do EVERYthing I say I will do. This will be HARD!
  2. Move to an iPad and quit using a laptop. This should be easy!
  3. Ensure that people that have put their faith in me get closer to their life goals. This is what I want to live for!
  4. Release 100 Youtube videos where I am talking to random people that I want to talk to. So, for example, I should release a YT conversation with my favourite musician.

So that!

And as I end this, here are some footnotes…

  1. This is NOT a comprehensive list. As of 24 Sep, these are 38. I need to figure out 2 more.
  2. This is an add-on to my #lifeGoals lists. They are here (bucket list, wish list, lifeGoals).
  3. More notes are on this Doc. I will try and update the progress there.
  4. This post has been inspired by this.
  5. And, as always, open to inputs, feedback, thoughts and more! You know where to reach me.

Thank you!
And wish me luck!

220121 – Morning Pages

Yesterday, a friend told me that he suspects I grew up with some sort of trauma. Here’s what I think.

7:27 AM

This is fairly late by my standards and even though I am typing this away to glory, I think I am still groggy. No, I am not drunk per s but I slept fairly late. I was out with some friends and while they were drinking, I was just chatting with them. And while I did that, I realized my ineptness with conversations.

The other thing I am inept is getting fit. I had decided yesterday that I would not eat for 36 hours. I could only manage 18. This is far less than my personal best of this year. And when I ate yesterday, I had samosas, chips, chocolates, burgers and what all. Oh, and Diet Coke. Kuch nahi hoga mera. I don’t know why but I was hungry. I think when I get anxious, I get hungry?

Of course, the anxiousness is probably because the Internet continues to remain out of reach. The only solution that I have found is to get a place in my name and get broadband connections. And then hope AF that it works. But then, knowing my luck, well…

Oh, the other interesting thing that happened yesterday is that while chatting with people that I spoke about above, one of them mentioned that he feels I have some sort of childhood trauma that affects the way I am. The way I am = scatterbrain, easily distracted, interested in multiple things et al.

Lemme think out loud and write. Living in public and all. I think I have been the way I am since I can remember. Even as a child I think I was like this! I may have some sort of ADD / ADHD but again, not sure.

No, there is no trauma for sure. I had a reasonably ok childhood. I can’t remember too many times when I was unhappy. As a family, we had limited money when I was growing up (may be the ambition to have Ataah Daulat stems from that?) but my parents never let my sis and I feel that we didn’t have enough. It is now that I realize that we didn’t have enough. They ensured that we got whatever we wanted. They put us in the best school they could afford. As a family we were, we are tight-knit. We talked (and continue to talk) often and conversations were (are) about most things that an average Indian family has.

In terms of negative experiences, I can recall, some would be…

  • One time I lost a quiz and a friend and I sat on the roof of the school and sulked about it. I would be in the 3rd or 4th standard.
  • One time I was to participate in an extempore competition and I had crammed my speech. And when I faced the mic, I forgot and couldn’t go beyond a line or so. I remember crying and a teacher petting me. This is probably in the 6th or 7th standard.

That’s about all the negative ones I can think of. Funny all these were in school.

I did try to think about happy moments as well and I don’t really have any that are distinctively happy. But I do have a lot of memories from my childhood where I am enjoying how I’ve spent my time. From playing cricket in the park next to my house to renting out comics during the summers to the day-to-day rigmarole of growing up in Delhi.

So trauma, not sure.

But the person that told me this can’t be wrong either. He’s seen the world more than I and definitely knows more than me. Lemme ask my folks when I speak with them today.

Oh, the other lesson that am taking away from yesterday is that if you in the hospitality business, you have better odds of knowing people. At least in the community, you are in – where you live, the kind of people you attract. I need to think about it. As I figure out work and all, I will use this as a variable. Maybe start a coffee shop, live in a house, and make it a BnB. But it has to have a component where I get to meet interesting people.

I guess that’s about it for today’s morning pages.

Oh, this one was written on the new M1. I think I am getting used to the keyboard and once I am in Mumbai for a few days (and have access to a stable, fast internet connection), I will make the shift to this one. And last two days I’ve been using Jagjit Singh concerts as background music as I work. And I am mesmerised by the talent the dude had. The world missed something when he passed away. #note2self. Must do something that makes thr world miss when you are gone!

And before I move on, here’s a billboard that I saw yesterday and this one spoke to me like nothing else has ever.

Somewhere in Sangolda, Goa

So that’s about it for the day.

Thanks to this thinking about trauma, I think on today’s #freewriting about #book2, I will write about the origin story of one of the characters. Let’s see which one. Here we go…

As a child, all Ankit wanted was his father’s validation and he had everything but that. Unlike other kids. They had their fathers take them fishing and gutting the best catch, throw em in the sea and then teach swimming, take them to the tintos and show the art of extracting the most from what they sold. Ankit was left buried in agony because Siddh was buried in his books. Ankit couldn’t understand the aloofness that his father displayed. Siddh couldn’t communicate to Ankit yet for he had to discover his nature and prove himself worthy to be a Paul and carry the lineage. Even though Siddh could see in the charts that Ankit is probably where the lineage of Pauls would end, he did not want to fix it. If it’s written in the stars, who was Siddh to try and stop it? All he hoped is that Ankit will not bring down the world with him. Siddh thus was in a tougher spot than Ankit was in. Siddh had to suffer the pain of staying away from his only son and go through the anguish of seeing him grow up into a monster that he could do nothing to stop.

Ankit would often pick on kids that he thought were the happiest. One summer when he was all of 14, he tied Joseph, the local swimming champion behind his jeep and dragged him through the beach. Joseph broke his ligaments in calves and wrists and broke his back and never set foot in the water again. No, neither Joseph nor his family complained. Ankit had promptly paid a visit to them and threatened them of worse consequences. At another time he got his flunkies to block roads to prevent Soni, the girl that was to lead their school’s contingent at the Intruz from reaching the Panchayat office where they were holding auditions. They did wait for her. But for how long?

These were not hidden from Siddh. He had his way of knowing. But he knew he could do nothing. If he reprimanded Ankit, it would make matters worse. If he ignored, at least the boy will have his way and may be, just may be, exhaust the quota of cruelty written in his books. Oh, and Siddh knew that his agony and anguish was not permanent. It was going to end soon. The books told him that. And he even knew how it would end. How Ankit would end. By running over his very own father, the family home, and the books that have never been wrong and yet controlled everything that moved in the world!

***

So, that’s it for the day. I quite enjoyed this one.

Have a few things lined up today. See you guys on the other side.