Originally written to Asim on his 41st birthday. Yooki plz take care of Prithvi and Prithvi you take care of Yooki.
Dear Asim,
Wish you a very happy birthday and hope you had a great day. Wanted to send an email on life, on general things.
Sending this kind of mail maybe after 2 decades, but mail like this requires wisdom acquired over that long time as well.
I hope these points don’t just act like general wisdom but act as a cheat code for you. Maybe you will find action items that will be of great value to you. Do read and possibly a print would be easier (attaching pdf version for easy read or print). This is just part 1.
1. Anything worthwhile almost always takes a long time - We always look for a miracle or overnight turnaround on things - but as you know as a researcher too - that longer or harder you work, it makes your research more unique and worth noticing. Or as a gardener (I am to learn that it's your new passion which is wonderful) that the flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one burst. But it is the blossoming that defines its existence and its life and its ephemeral beauty. That is where the real metamorphosis is happening and magic is unfolding. This applies to your work, career, health, fitness, happiness, family life. Anything worthwhile requires lots of time consistently overall over a period of time. But the secret is that the work is the most beautiful part of it, not the end goal. It needs to be cherished and relished. Always remember - Resilience matters in success. Greatness does not come from intelligence. Greatness comes from character, and character isn’t formed out of smart people: it's formed out of people who have suffered and survived. You have to be small before you can become big.
2. Longterm relationships - In any bond of depth and significance, forgive, forgive, forgive. And then forgive again. The richest relationships are lifeboats, but they are also submarines that sink to the darkest unknown scary places - where we are also our worst selves, where our deepest shames and vulnerabilities live, where we are less than we would like to be. Forgiveness is the magic wand by which shame can lead to strong bonds. Always witness your and other persons weakness through a sense of love, of sympathy, of nonjudgmental understanding. Forgiveness is the engine that helps the sunken submarine become your lifeboat again. A very close friend of mine said that I treat my friends as stock investment. I dont sell them when they are not performing well but patiently hold onto them.
3. Be the first one to give a gift and give it with thoughtfulness and enthusiasm - This is so important because there is no better way to create an impression but also win someone’s heart. If you are meeting someone, carry an easy to read- good book, or going to someone’s house carry a small toy astronaut or pen stand. I have started keeping a gift cupboard, now stocking it with cheap things instead of expensive to give to people I meet. It softens them, make them human and at the very least make their day. I later read it is also a tactic of persuasion but I felt, doing it selflessly makes it special. The gift can also be a kind word, a compliment, a smile, a single rose. Be extremely generous with people around you. It eventually all comes back too. Trust me.
4. Fitness and diet - it is your recipe for success and happiness. All the talk, everything that I will write is distant second to this. You can be broke and homeless but you shouldn’t at any cost not be focussing on fitness and diet. There is fortunately no magic to fitness. It is all a simple game of input and output - or identifying any hormonal or underlying issue and then just diligently eat right, walk, cardio, weights. It is claimed that Fitness and diet is the most important factor in being successful over time as it also lends you a positive attitude, improves others' perception of you. Charisma comes from fitness, diet and a good smile and generosity of spirit. Don't make exercise and food will power dependent- infact make it easier to exercise by eg decoupling wearing outfit and exercising, filling your house with healthy food, eat high protein satiating food if you are sleep deprived, drink lots of lemon water with salt, find hacks- eg keep peanut butter add to apple slices - it fills you up and does no glucose spike. Keep avacado and eggs handy, buy truffle oil to make them yummy. The Chinese pan fried vegetables is probably the most filling thing you can eat which is hot and healthiest. Doctors say it is better than salad. Keep garlic and soya sauce handy to add basic flavors. Also walking 10-20 mins after meal is the best gift you can give yourself. 3 traits found in all successful people are - no fear of embarrassment, education of field, exercise. For me, regulating my sugar intake has made a huge difference and eating simple unprocessed food as much. When it comes to fitness and diet, habit is more dependable, habit will sustain you.
5. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. This was Daniel Kanheman who said he had no sink cost when it came to changing his mind. Change your mind and question everything and change again. You are a living breathing person - your brain is not a rock. Having said that, other people do not change their minds and opinions based on facts. Again as per Kanheman - “Mind is constructed so that in many situations where we have beliefs and we have facts, the beliefs come first.” So while you are this flexible person, know that you are the enlightened one. More or less people will operate out of their beliefs and not facts and will not change their mind unless you align your ideas and arguments with their beliefs. Nothing is as extreme and as permanent as our emotions convince us as they are. Everything both love, hatred, failure, success is a touch away from changing. Question your maps and models of the universe, both inner and outer, and continually test them against the input of reality. As the same time learn to disagree without being disagreeable. Use humour, your calmness esp when you are most agitated towards a person.
6. Have a friend circle: Humans are social beings and evolution wise - only the ones who lived in tribes survived. While you go to work with few - you need to have a circle of close friends apart from family, who lift you, who support you but at the very least go for hikes and do barbecues with you and celebrate festivals with you. This, like many other things, doesn't happen automatically. It needs to be worked upon. You can make a group out of your neighbors but also maybe out of your colleagues by inviting a few at home for dinner or maybe out of people you meet at gym or a hobby class you join. You can pick volunteer work and find a tribe there but I can’t stress enough the huge change having a friend circle makes in your mental rewiring. This you should consider as urgent as your next immediate goal. A circle of friends with whom you can be silly with is as essential as your morning thyroid medicine. Presence of friends is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshiping it day and night and making it your temple diminishes your capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living- “how we spend our days is, how we spend our lives.” You don’t want your entire youth, your life to be just about going to work, stressing about it, firefighting it - but it should also be about sharing it with others, watching the sunsets, pausing a bit and having fun, vacuous empty nights with people you might find dumb or show offers but people who will show up if you have a car accident.
7. Acquire Skills, enroll in group activity, outside your core area of work- Every skill acquired doubles your chance of success. But know that that skill need not be related to your work. You can enroll yourself in music classes, learn piano. There are many advantages to it. Firstly it's a directional skill - it improves with time. Or like swimming - it improves with time. A sense of progress there transfers in every aspect of your life. Research says that if sometimes you have challenging work or if you feel it's non linear, pick up a simple class for 30 mins thrice a week helps you improve your overall sense of progress in life. This again one has to strongly fight for and learn to make time for. I did yoga and meditation and now I know a thing or two about it. The other advantage I had was my Yoga group became a strong backbone and a social circle. The third thing it improved flexibility and fitness. But you could and I really feel as a man of math and computer science try to learn some form of art. You will be shocked how much depth these ancient fields have - music and arts can open up your mind and help you get better. Or you can learn cooking - how mixing ingredients create unique flavors. It just opens up your brain and it helps you become a better problem solver. If you have no time, watch a Ted talk or video on an unrelated topic. But try to enrol for a class - the benefits will outweigh the time or money you will invest in it. Even for Yooki I have seen great progress in her with Kathak and basketball class.
8. We all have 4 essential machines. Have a system not a goal to keep them well oiled- life is less about achieving goals but having correct systems that compound over time. For all the machineries - Body, Brain, Family & friends and Money/work. Treat all 4 machines with equal importance. They are the 4 essential tyres of your life’s car. Any tyre not working, you will have “breakdown in factory”. And find time for all of them. AR Rehman told me, if I have my body and brain, I can close my eyes and be in heaven but without a healthy body and brain, I cannot do anything. Family and friends are more than just a function for you to talk about your work and money problems, they are also to enrich your life with various perspectives and group activities. Money and work is essential for daily engagement and survival. But I hope now none of us are in a situation that we will be homeless if we slack off at work. Find a good balance for a happy life.
9. Fight cynicism with your life and choose joy - Cynicism, unlike critical thinking, is inherently uncreative, unconstructive, and emotionally corrosive. Like all forms of destruction, cynicism is infinitely easier and lazier than “construction”. You should have faith in yourself, the world and continuously bend towards joy, growth and betterment. And then choose joy - Joy is not a function of a life free of friction and frustration, but it is actually a function of focus. Delight in clothes you wear, delight in your plants, delight in a puppy on street or an ice-cream flavor or delight in your cooking, in your wife, in you family. Delight in a butterfly, on a sunny day. In the color of your car. Choose joy at first consciously, making a mental note. Feel the tensions of day to day work, take action, but keep pressing the weight of joy against it all, until it becomes mindless, automated, like gravity. Optimize for that energy - energy of enthusiasm.
10. Gratitude, Approaching life with lightness Giving back - Make a list of things you are thankful for - your parents alive, your good health, your beautiful house, your wife, your hands, legs that are intact, your brain, your work, your family and feel a deep sense of gratitude for that. Even if any aspect is performing poorly, still feel thankful as the act orients you to nourish that aspect. "No matter what your situation, everything changes and starts anew from the day you stand up with a renewed spirit and a fresh determination." Hence approach every day with a renewed joy and new determination.
Sharing 2 poems that you shld have on your desk:
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig.
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me.
When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic.
No rhetoric, no tremolos,
no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell.
And of course, no theology, no metaphysics.
Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.
So throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.
That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling,
on tiptoes and no luggage,
not even a sponge bag,
completely unencumbered.”
- Huxley
And this by Emerson
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on yesterdays.
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