Tag: SG2

140721 – Morning Pages

A quick note where I talk to self. And dump whatever is on the top of my head. Things like people, mentors, work, leverage and more.

7:05. Woke up groggy. And a choked nose. And soreness in the neck. Damn old age. I had decided that I will focus on three things yesterday and do just those. I am glad to say I could manage just one (being sarcastic) and the other two are now overdue. And this means that the three things that I need to work on today will get pushed. And I will miss a few more deadlines. Damn!

I now know what work stress is! In the sense, what the stress of non-delivery is. Need to pull socks and deliver the magic that I am known to have delivered in the past.

So that. There’s nothing else on the top of my mind. Oh, I walked up 8 stories yesterday. I need to be able to do 100 stories everyday without losing breath. The day I can do that is the day I can, well, breathe easy. I also ate three meals yesterday. And that too full of carbs. You know, Pizza. My guilty pleasure. How the F would I lose weight? Yesterday only VG was telling me that for someone my height and age, I need to be lighter by 17 KGs. 17! I don’t even know how I would get to that number. It’s not about starving but probably about burning the calories and then the excess fat.

Chalo, aaj fast. Come what may. Even if stress forces me to order shit and eat as if a famine is coming, I will NOT eat. Neither I would have coffee. Green tea, #ftw!

Apart from these two things (health and work), to be honest, there isn’t much on the top of my head. But then there are a couple of things that happened yesterday that I need to take note of.

One, I spoke to two of my mentors. And my sis. Each conversation was around a certain thing (work, emotion, etc). And while talking to each of these, I felt really really grateful that I have their patronage. And respect. And mindshare. I must have done something incredibly right to have this. Super grateful. Need to grow more such relationships. Where there’s mutual respect, no hidden agendas, and comfort. I know you can’t really do this with people. But I will do whatever it takes to deliver on things from my side to grow into such relationships.

Two, I realized yet again that on the work front (and even on the life front), I don’t want to be the person that executes. I don’t want to trade my time for money (work). I want to rather be the one the opens doors and gets things delivered. I want to be the one that leverages his relationships and trades the knowledge to make ends meet (time). You know, become that person that doesn’t need to have a laptop open ever. I should use my phone, team of people and deliver magic. Now, this is far easier said than done. Especially at the stage where I am at. In the sense, I am still not stable enough to get work that pays me consistently. Most of it comes to be after I put in an insane amount of time and effort. And what I do is not rocket science. So that means that I need to consistently deliver great things to keep the engine running.

In fact, the second one has been a recurring theme. I need to find a thing that can be done about it. Thankfully, with the current scheme of things at work, I have taken a step towards building a team that can do things in my absence. Let’s see when that comes together.

Oh, I have to write this. I was talking to my sis and while talking, I told her that I often abstract myself away from what’s happening to me. I sort of float over my body and look down upon me. I see this 38-year old struggling to make ends meet, trying to get better, striving on a day-to-day basis. And I see a dude trying to be cool, making mistakes, slacking, giving in to temptation on a regular basis. While there are both positives and negatives in the person I see, the abstraction allows me to help the person I am seeing. By giving him inspiration. You know, the kinds I am told I am able to. Others call this phenomenon self-talk. I call this, well, zooming-out. Irrespective. It works. Try it.

So that. That’s it for the day. See you guys tomorrow. I have a lot to do today and tomorrow and this week in general. And here’s streaks…

  • OMAD – 0
  • #book2 – 0
  • #noCoke – 125
  • #noCoffee – 14
  • #aPicADay – 0
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • Surya Namaskar – 0
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 215

300121 – Morning Pages

I talk about some large decision I am hoping to make with life and all in the next few days. Long rant. Read at peril.

7:02

I’ve been up for a bit. Have a lot on my mind. Have a lot to do as well. Lemme start writing and see where we go.

So, yesterday was big. I took another debt. To make ends meet. To pay a handful of young people that work with me. To keep the lights on at those projects that I hope someday would become large beacons of great work. And on the other side, one of those projects is putting three startups in front of an investor, for a shot at investments. Ironical? Nah. By design? Nah. Poetic? Yes, I guess.

I mean here I am. Taking a loan to run those pieces and using those as vehicles to make others rich, famous, and better known. All in hopes that someday they would be big enough that they would start paying me back. You know, delayed gratification. The Marshmallow Experiment. Hoping to let go of the fun and comfort and joy of today. To hopefully enjoy it tomorrow. What if there’s no tomorrow? Damn!

Anyhow. So the large decision is that if I am forced to take another loan at the end of Feb, I would give up on this staying independent thingy and warp up everything that I am personally working on and take the first Naukri that comes my way, even if it pays me shit. As a vocal advocate of self-employment and not letting someone else command your time, I will bite the dist and stop advocating independence. I will stop virtue signaling. I will relook at the way I live life and the pseudo-krantikaari thoughts that I have. I poker parlance, I’d fold.

Talking of kranti, I am a tad more well-read about the farmer’s protest now. I spend a large part of yesterday reading about it. Of course, I read opinion pieces and perspectives of people from both sides – farmers and government. And I am now leaning towards the farmers. No, I am not saying that the new farm laws need to be repelled (I am still reading about those laws) but I have come to a conclusion that the way the government is handling the issue? That is not right.

I saw this video where Yogendra Yadav is literally in tears as he talks about how the movement was derailed. And I sympathize with him. He and other farmer leaders have called for a one-day fast and I support them. In solidarity, I will keep a fast as well.

Of course, this is a symbolic gesture and amounts to nothing. Armchair activism. Tokenism. But that’s the least I can do. And since I had this huge-ass Vegetarian Thali at 11:30 last night, I will fast both today and tomorrow. Penance. For my unawareness of the issue. Let’s see if I hold up.

I also saw this video yesterday, thanks to Parijat. The comedian, Punit Punia talks about how the middle-class is anything but that. There’s a part of about 30 seconds that leaves you dumb-founded and sucks the air out of your gut. Do see it. It’s just sickening the way we are.

Here it is. Do NOT miss it. Please. Lemme know how you feel after you’ve seen it.

I also had this longish chat with SG2 yesterday about life and all that. She asked me if I’ve seen my confidence go down in the last 2 or so years. I had to think hard and I don’t know the answer. I feel as if my confidence levels have remained the same but my self-image has probably taken a dent. Lemme explain (this is exactly how I explained to her :D).

So even though I am staring down a barrel, I am fairly confident that I will get acche din at some point in time in life. You know, this too shall pass. This means I will have all that I seek – impact, wealth, access, etc. At some point. SG2 dismissed this as optimism. I think this is confidence in my abilities to get things done and open doors and create opportunities etc. She doesn’t agree.

However, I know that I am no longer confident about myself. You know, self-image. That I think has taken a hit. A large one. Like this…

BOOM!

What do I mean by this? Simple.

I feel know that I have spent 40 years here and I have yet to do anything that will make people take a note. Fuck people. I’d not take a note of what I’ve done. If I walked upto myself and talked about all that I’ve done, I’d shoo myself away. Like you ignore those unwanted creatures that sort of hold you from doing things that you want to be doing.

I need validation. From myself. From sgMS (am surprised that I thought of her, more on this later). From the world. In terms that they understand (thanks SG2 for helping me articulate). Here are the terms for the three cohorts that I spoke about…

  • The world believes that you are great if you have a fancy house, luxury car, 2 kids, and a 7-figure salary. If you have some awards and accolades, the world gives you more credit, more validation, more respect.
  • sgMS evaluated the worth of a person from some internal metric that I have not been able to figure to date.
  • For me, I’d be happy if I see the impact of my work (it’s zilch right now) and the doors that my work, my brand, my reputation opens for me. Right now, them doors shut on my face!

I have none of these three right now. The most important is validation from self (the kinds that helps you with your self-image). And I lack that. In its absence, I could rely on signals that I could project at others about me having arrived. Even that is missing. I know so many people that are crappy, average Joes (and Janes) that are able to get by purely because they have fat salaries, lofty designations, and all those things that the world uses to validate your existence.

Lemme get back to sgMS. So she and I were sort of together long long ago. We’ve since then drifted and are great friends. She is still the keeper of my moral compass. If I need to make a decision that would border on ethics and all that, I would go to either Vanita, Hemant, or her. She continues to be that important.

I think my self-images issues go back to sgMS. Really. I have never admitted this ever in my life. But she was one of those hyper-critical people with super-strong perspectives and opinions and misguided views on people, things, heroes, and all that. At the time, I was blind in love and did not realize but now that I can think a tad better, I know that being with her sort of dented the way I thought about things. Of course, all the ambition I have was probably fuelled by spending time with her. If not for her, I would be more content. I got the push to do more because she saw that I was capable and she was like Terence Fletcher (of Whiplash fame) and she would not settle for anything ordinary.

I can trackback even more and go to a time when I was growing up in a lower-middle-class part of Delhi. Because the ‘nurture’ I was getting was sort of ‘limiting’, I think I was programmed to believe that the good things are not for me. See the Punit Pania clip above. When I had to go to a 5-star hotel for the first time by myself (I think in 2007 and I was 25) for an interview, I had to prepare myself mentally and I had to check if people like me were even allowed in there! May be this dented my self-image issues.

Ok, I digressed a lot. Good thing is that no one is reading. The point anyhow was that I think my self-image has taken a hit. And I need to find a way out.

The last thing I was to put on paper, in continuation with this topic is the thing about being eccentric and a fool. For some reason, in my head, I attribute this to SRK, though I can’t find the source.

So, he says if you have perspectives, ideas, thoughts, and actions that are counter-intuitive to people, are opposite to commonly held beliefs, people would take note.

And if you are poor, you are insignificant, you haven’t “achieved” anything, they would call you a fool for your ideas. Even, a mad man. An outcast. An anomaly. However, if you are “successful”, rich et al, they would call you eccentric!

The road from a fool to an eccentric needs you to have a fancy Rolls Tesla to drive on top of. Till you get one, stay shut. #note2self, Mr. Garg. If you want to tweet like Elon and impact the BTC price just by changing your bio, you need to be Elon in the first place. Or you can keep changing bio for the rest of your life and probably get banned from twitter.

Chalo. Over and out.

Oh, no time for freewriting today. Missed it the second time in recent days. Must not do it tomorrow. Or may be I will only write #book2 on the morning pages? Let’s see.