3 Mar 2023 – Untitled

So, been a while since I did a brain dump on a public platform. And today morning seemed like a good idea to do so. So, here we are.

In this post, I will talk about…

1. The 2 months of 2023.
2. Tetherless living.
3. Craziness with work
4. Coming out with work
5. Twitter

Let’s go!

1/ The 2 months of 2023. The ones that have gone by in a blink.

So we are in March. I didn’t even realise when this happened. I mean it was yesterday when I was thinking I will do grand things in 2023 and the calendar tells me that it’s March already. Wow!

The lesson of course is that time flies. On a day-to-day basis, there is so much that sucks you in that you dont realise where you’re headed. You know, days are long.

If I were to do a recap of how the last two months have been, I think I can not complain. I could travel (took 8 flights; was in Bangalore twice, was in Dubai, Chennai and a few more places), took my parents to a new country that they’ve been wanting to visit for a while, spent in-person time with C (who lives in a stupid city; read more about C in the monster part), got a lot of work done (acquired new clients, reinitiated work with ex-clients), paid back about 5% of the outstanding loan. And in general, have had an ok mental health streak (barring a few days). Moved forward on some projects. Slacked on a lot of those. So, life’s been good. Like I said, I can’t complain.

I need to of course get aggressive (aggressive is not the word I want to use but I guess you get the drift) about things and do more. Let’s see how that goes.

2/ Tetherless living

If you know me, you know this. But lemme recap.

I dont like the idea of owning things that end up owning me. I like the idea of having no attachments to anything material. I have no favourite foods, no favourite places to hang out, no favourite things to do and all that. I like to be free. I like to take decisions on how I am feeling at the moment. I want to believe I chase what Chris was chasing. But if I said that, I would be lying. I mean I dont know what I want and or what am chasing. But I know that I like that I dont report to no one and I control a large part of how I spend my time.

One of the tenets of this is my aversion to getting a house. Of course, it’s also a function of the lack of money but I can still get a decent enough place in a decent enough part of Mumbai for the kind of money I make. But I refuse to commit. I am happy to shack at a friend’s place. And when his place is not available, I am ok to spend money on cheap hotels and all.

Oh, and this works well in theory. And most times. But…

…there are times when I absolutely need my space, my privacy, my comfort and I dont have access to a place. This is when I get mindfucked beyond imagination. And this is when I start thinking about all the decisions I’ve made and the ones I could make and the ones I should’ve made. And all that.

No, I dont have a point. I am not trying to talk about anything specific. I am just reflecting that the last few days have been not so good and I wish I could do better.

That.

3/ Craziness with work

For me, life is not about enjoying or experiencing it in full or travelling or spending it with loved ones or chasing happiness or leaving it better for my kids or whatever.

It is about work.

And about making meaning. Enabling others. Being the shoulder. Creating opportunities. Being of help. Moving the needle. Building bridges. Letting others fly. Chasing my curiosity. Scratching the itch.

So, I dont know how people take rests on Sundays. I can’t comprehend when people say that they need a work-life balance. I’ve probably lucky that I am sane on most days (I could be wrong though, lol).

I am also lucky that I can make enough money to pay my bills (well, most days. And the days I can’t, I have family and friends that I can lean on for a loan or two). And this despite the market and situation I am in (recessionary market, average work, hypercompetitive, old-age et al).

And I know this only happens because I am willing to outwork (thanks, Will) others. And this means I can’t rest. The good part is, I dont want to rest in the first place anyway. So, I think the stars align!

Now, with that out of the way, I HAVE to say, the last few weeks have been extremely crazy with work. Last few days, I have probably worked 19 hours a day, 7 days a week. And no, I dont want this to sound like a rant but I want to acknowledge that I am working like this (I know others may not be able to) and in case I have been harsh or unkind while I was immersed in this, I apologise.

So that.

4/ Coming out with work

Recently, for one of the brand consulting projects, I collaborated with a designer that I have immense respect for. While working, she told me that what I do is good and I should put more of my work out.

Coming from her, it was very very gratifying and I for once felt that what I do must be good!

I mean I am insecure about what I do (for multiple reasons; to be talked about on a different day) and thus I have been extremely shy about telling the world what I do. To a point that my team can’t imagine why would I not talk about these things.

But with validation coming from AS, I think I want to get active on this. I am not sure how I’d go about this but I will change this as I go along.

5/ Twitter

It’s no secret that most great things in my life have come as an outcome of my public rants on Twitter (and some from my ability to write and publish). Lately, for some reason, my interactions on Twitter have faded away. To a point that my tweets are shown to very few people.

May be their internal algo has marked me as spam. Maybe they see me as more rant than value. Maybe I don’t spew negativity (which in the words of a client is the driving force for Twitter). Whatever it is. I know that Twitter is important to me. And I want to scale it. And I will make sure that happens.

So, here’s what I will do.

1. As of writing this, on 3 Mar 2023, I have 4165 followers. The intention is to scale to 5K by end of this month.
2. I will get more active and mindful with my posts on Twitter. This means fewer shitposts. More value.
3. I will try and post in one niche only. For March 2023, most of my posts would be about marketing. I will use #mktg101 as the hashtag.
4. I will engage with larger accounts and try and get their attention and thus their followers. While most of my content will be about marketing, when I interact with others, I will be broad-based.
5. I will seek help because I know I can’t do anything by myself. I need to stand on the top of the shoulders of giants.
6. I will create a support group of sorts where I would ask those people to engage (Share, RT, Like, Fav) with my Twitter content. I know this is not the best thing to do but why not?
7. What else can I do?

So this.

More on this over the next few days. Of course on my Twitter handle.

***

That’s about it for the time being.

More braindumps as and when I am so overwhelmed that I am compelled to share.

Till then, over and out.

Oh, and follow me on https://twitter.com/saurabh.