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Out of our entire childhood of waiting for summer vacations, having crushes, that little pocket money and having nothing to worry about, what do we reminisce about the most?

That we were free.
That when we were authentic, life never brought in anything pathetic.
That when we lived in the now, we hardly wondered about the next “how”.

The best thing about childhood was that we didn’t have to do anything to be original.
The better thing is, we can still do it.
We can still go back to our roots and connect with our inner self.

We don’t start hoping we’ll get there.
We make strategies. Plans. Executing them to the T.

Then comes a huge black swan effect. At the moment we were waiting for it to get over, another one came in, sweeping away all strategies.

And when all of these do not work, then comes the hope.
Hope that we will make it through this storm, like we’ve done through all of them.
Hope that there exists a light at the end of the tunnel, wherever the end is.
Hope that till we get to the end of the tunnel, we will be the light.

All our strategies didn’t account for what we are going through. Hope is the only thing we’re left with – fortunately.

Our parents are the people we disagree with the most.
We have differing opinions on the smallest life issues to making big life decisions.
And that’s okay. And a different thing.

Right now, our parents need a different thing from us: Our presence.
When they were our age, they witnessed tremendous hard work, lack of opportunities, and struggle to make ends meet. 

Life hasn’t been easy for them. But we can make it a bit easy by being there for them – making them talk about their favourite topics (our childhood, their childhood), listening to them, or simply engaging with them.

Our friends and family.
Our colleagues.
Our acquaintances on social media. 

We love to keep everyone happy.
If they aren’t happy, that’s because of us.

“I should not have said that.
I am not balancing work and family.
I am responsible for their sadness.”

Except, it’s false. 

No matter how much we “sacrifice” for someone else, happiness is always an inside job.

How do we operate when no one is watching?
What’s a complete no-no, even if it is an immediate gain for us?
Do we want others to win, or is it just a sole game in a team?

Values aren’t something that we just write and let it be there. Values are who we are, something that we would never compromise on. 

When things fall apart and values don’t, it means we are on the right track. More than anything else, we know we are practising them right when others know us through those.

Our values are our foundations. While it is lucrative to work on the building, nothing keeps the building stable if there isn’t a foundation. 

In almost every organisation, there are grapevines.
People who think how work should be done, how others are doing it, and how it serves as a platform for them to gossip.

The sad part is, sometimes it affects the people who aren’t a part of that grapevine.
It leads them into believing that their worth is determined by how cool they are to be a part of that group, and not 

Except, that’s false.

Our worth is determined by what we control, our input, that is our work.
What others think is something we can never control.

A great way to level up is to remind yourself what you can control.
Somehow, everything else you cannot control loses its importance.

The society has categorised a profit making entrepreneur as successful and the one who does not, as failure.

However, that is the definition of society. Something that is rarely correct.

True success is having the courage to build something from scratch. True success is getting out of your own self to solve a problem. True success is living by your own stories of success and not the ones the world has imposed on us since childhood.

There’s no such thing as failure. The very act of going for entrepreneurship by leaving the life of comfort is in itself the biggest success.

To go for the career of your choice. It’s risky.
To choose your happiness over society’s validation. It’s risky.
To leave the comfort and chart for new territories. It’s risky

Of course it is risky. But isn’t not taking that risk a bigger risk?

Anger is an unhealthy emotion. So we want to control it. However, when it arrives, it arrives in a wave sweeping all our resolutions away.

No matter how much you resist it, anger wins each time.

The key is in not resisting it. 

Yes, you read that right. Don’t resist anger. Rather spend time with it. 

“Why do I feel what I feel?
Which need of mine is unmet?
Why am I letting my denial take over where I could have an open mind rather than being a sceptic?”

As we answer these questions honestly, there would be no need to resist anger. 

Because then it won’t arise in the first place.

The extreme emotions are usually a result of not spending time consistently with our own selves.

Two mantras of life I live by, that I recently told my team:

1. Never complain: Never. Ever. Even if it is the worst day of your life to date. It robs us of our power and tricks us into believing that we don’t have any.
   
2. Trust: Trust people for what they say. Living life with that sense of awe and wonder, to never let doubt creep in. If someone else’s lies comfort them, what’s the point for us to be discomforted by that?

Two extremes. Never and always. 

When you take care of never complaining and always trusting, the balance that forms in between takes care of everything else.