Always on. A few supposedly normal things we can observe people (including you) doing: Taking a work call from the gym. Having an emotional chat with a friend on WhatsApp while sitting in a work meeting. Browsing random reels on Instagram at 2 am in the night while trying to sleep. All
Enough might not be. Enough seems virtuous - "I don't want more than what I need. I just need enough." But enough keeps us stuck. If what we have is just enough, anything out of the ordinary can put us in the not-enough category. With enough, we always remain on
Someone else's job. You can look at the change you seek in the world and think of it as someone else's job. That would allow you to analyse and criticise and condemn. And, of course, be off the hook. For the change that matters, no one is in charge. It'
Jurassic Park. There have been almost a dozen movies made on the Jurassic theme but none match the first two directed by Steven Spielberg. The technology has evolved leaps and bounds over the decades and so have the budgets. So, why are we not making better movies? Maybe that's the
One thing at a time. How do you get out of a mess? Whether it's an anxiety spiral, a financial turmoil, a health scare, or something else. It's tempting to want to sort everything in one go, in one shot. But that only increases the helplessness. What we can do is
Notes on practicing. An excerpt from The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander & Ben Zander: Ben: I am reminded of a dispiriting moment in a cello lesson with my teacher, Mr. Herbert Withers. He was eighty-three years old, and I was eleven. I had tried to play a passage, but I
Over time. Compounding happens over time. And effective change requires compounding. You make changes (some slight, some not so much) to your eating & workout habits, and over time your health starts improving. Same with your work and your relationships. Working with a therapist or tools like IFS (Richard Schwartz) or Compassionate
Hazy specs. They seem okayish. Not bad. You can see. Not clearly. But you can manage. It might take a minute to clean them, but we can get to it when they get really bad. Hazy specs make everything else hazy. It's a systemic disadvantage. The extra effort on your
Beyond hope... and fear. Hope and fear are two sides of the same coin. One can't exist without the other. When we brush our teeth in the morning, we don't hope for them to be healthy. Nor are we afraid that they would go bad. We just know that if
Not running away. There are days when running away takes courage. And there are days when not running away does. Only you know which one feels like integrity on which day. If you need a sign, your body will tell. On any day, though, integrity does take courage.
What before how. We mostly tango with the how. We rarely make time to figure out the what. These are two different questions and are best answered independently in the right order. In order to determine the what, go through your internal compass. Martha Beck's The Way of Integrity is a
Letting it go. All psychological suffering is an illusion. It's not the truth. It's anxiety. ~ Martha Beck Pain is not an illusion. Pain happens in real time. It's a signal from the body that something's wrong. Suffering is different. It's not about the
If we let them... When we are not used to them, we stop good things before they happen to us. We ask why, analyse how, worry about if they would stay or not, find flaws and ways they are not perfect. There's joy all around us. Good things that want to happen
3Cs Calm. Curious. Compassionate. When we are driven by parts, whether they are hurt or trying to protect us, we lose these 3 Cs. We can check. It's obvious that we are neither calm nor curious and not compassionate. Neither to ourselves or to others. We make better choices
Without hustle. Some dictionary definitions of hustle: Have the courage, confidence, self-belief, and self-determination to go out there and work it out until you find the opportunities you want in life. Force (someone) to move hurriedly in a specified direction. Coerce or pressure someone into doing or choosing something. Engage in prostitution.
Letting go of 2025. We are in the final stretch of the year. Maybe it's worth practicing letting it go gently. Here are 3 prompts that might help you do that: Start with gratitude. Think of 3 people who made your year better. Share with them what they did to make you
Where does this go? The brain compartmentalises. When we give it evidence, it asks where to put it. If we have a folder for it, it goes there. If not, it goes in miscellaneous. If you have a folder, "bad things happen to me", you will accumulate the evidence there, the folder
The cost of truth. If you say this, you will get in. Just go and say this. But... that's not the truth. How does that matter? Just do what I say. There's a cost to being true to yourself. The system would fight back. The culture would fight back. And
What is. Our brain likes going into overdrive with the "what should be". There's always something wrong with the way things are and if we can just force them into being the way we want them to be, everything will be okay. But that's fiction. One,
Freak accidents. Yesterday, I cut my finger while washing a new cheese grater. It started bleeding and it took a while for the cut to clot. [Don't worry, it's much better now. It will take a few days to heal completely] Now, my mind was quick to ignore
Fill the canvas. It's a hack. But it works. Many artists fill the canvas with paint before they start making the painting. Once the canvas is filled, it's already spoiled. Now, you are just making it better. Same can be done with a blank page or a blank email.
Which game? It doesn't make much sense for a professional boxer to complain about getting punched. That's the game, isn't it? We are all playing games, whether we see them or not. Office politics is a game, so is online dating. Each game comes with its
Start with curiosity. Curiosity can be the starting point, no matter where we are stuck. If not anything else, we can be curious about the place we are stuck in. Curiosity makes us calm and compassionate. That opens up the way to creativity. And from there confidence and clarity start showing up. As
The truth in acting as if. When DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, he is not Leonardo, he is Jordan. He is not trying to be Jordan, he is Jordan. When you are the leader, you are the leader. You are not a follower. You can't think "I am
