The mid-air time has returned once again. The last time I did this, it was a fortnight ago. The tray table has been upgraded on these seats and it feels beter with its added funtionality of sliding it back and forth. The Black Swan writer effect is here. Now, Taleb wrote only a book midair. I am writing my second post. This is of course, nothing to brag about. This time instead of rambling, I have a few concrete thoughts to focus upon even considering the self reflection exercises I undertook after the last mid-air post.
After missing the deadline one day, I took the matter very seriously. I resolved to take this up the first thing in the morning. But writing is not an unpleasant activity and hence I didn’t equate it to swallowing a toad. Besides writing at the day of the day helps to process the madness of the day better. I am proud to say that except that fateful day I have managed to post something or the other on the blog.
Jetpack sends me a cute notification saying I am on a streak. It is crazy how such small validation can also matter in helping build a habit. Habits are hard to form and once formed easy to break. There is a lot of literature on habit formation and behaviour change, so I will not add to it. Those are better reserved for writers like Charles Duhigg and James Clear.
On Looking Back:
Taking off over Mumbai is a beautiful experience. Especially if you are flying south. I prefer to take a window seat at all times but even when I don’t get one, I prefer the middle seat over the aisle one. The aisle seat really cuts you off from the flying experience. I know many frequent fliers would disagree, but there is something contemplative about sitting by the window when you fly. It is literally the window that connects you to the world beneath and yet allows you to see how far you have come. I wish in life there was a window like that. A perch maybe from where you could peer down and look at how far you have come. On many of our hikes, we would intentionally stop at such perches. Just to admire the journey.
On our way to Prabalmachi, this used to be my favourite past time. The hike to this beautiful village allows you at least 3 such opportunities from where the trail to the base village is clearly visible. As you sip on the well earned lemonade at these corners, you marvel at really how far you have come. This gives you the motivation required to finish the next leg of the journey. So as the first action of my 35th year, I am going to keep some time away for just appreciating the progress and celebrating the small wins – just like Jetpack does for me every night.
Intentional Living
There are many moments in your life where you question why you did something. Sometimes you have gone with the flow or often times given into momentary temptation. Delaying gratiifcation is the first step of avoiding these yolo traps.
But more than this, living with intention matters. I have observed this trait in many change makers, successful folks who seem to own their fortunes and are constantly increasing the surface area of luck.
I am going to be more intentional about things, more deliberate and less temporal lobe defined. What are those intentions? I still need to work on those. But yes, I will try to be more intentional.
Getting Stronger
Sometimes I feel myself inching closer to burnout mode. Sleep cycles go for a toss, and my wrists start to hurt, my age old backpain returns and I start dreaming more vividly about things that I am afraid of.
I have come to accept that working hard even working too much is a non-negotiable. Great feats and great work rest on the twin planks of genius and grit. When genuis isn’t sufficient, grit makes up for it. That’s why earlier I wrote about showing up being more important than anything else.
This brings me to getting stronger. The ability to handle, withstand and manage stress is a difficult skill to master. But it comes with strength and resilience. Strength is built by training and active effort. This means identifying, mitigating and managing stress inducing events is essential as there is virtually no escaping it anyway.
Physical body is also a machine. It needs regular rest and maintenance. Focussing on good sleep, diet and movement is necessary on days when things are not crazy. But sleep and movement are the most difficult for me to manage. Perhaps breaking the mental block that prevent me from engaging with these two obviously beneficial elements will be the way forward for me.
Search of Quietitude
There are noises outside and there is silence. When there is silence, there are noises inside. This cycle is hard to break. But I need to. Maybe Vipasanna will help? I am not sure. I heard that in Capillary Tech – the founder Aneesh Reddy experienced the benefits of Vipasanna and rolled it out to his entire 700 member team as an added benefit, over and above the 20 odd days of leaves. What a legend. Thanks to the brilliant First Princples podcast run by Rohin Dharamkumar, the founder of the The Ken. Maybe that will help me too. But when I tried to look for centres, I found that I am spoilt for options. There is one in Dapoli, Navi Mumbai and Gorai apart from Igatpuri. My friend Rajiv told me that he visits the Gorai centre and recommends it.
Quiet within is what I seek. The silence which comes with contentement or maybe when you are feeling at ease, safe. True relaxation of sorts, which you need to rejuvenate and face life. One more difficult task to pursue.
The sky outside has turned dark on my side, but on the other end there is a brilliant orange glow. The sun is setting somewhere over the Arabian as we make our way towards the sweet sweet “luru which has come to become my other ‘ooru. So I will sign off, enjoy my theplas and black coffee and try to find some silence within.