Since I was a child (“was” being a debatable word according to the people who know me), I never wanted to be ordinary.
The youthful fire in you wants you to have everything and build great things and break everything, but it also wants something else.
It wants slowness.
It wants appreciation for “what is”, not just “what can be”.
Our ambition distances us from the present, the beauty in the stillness and that’s where we lose the whole plot.
Because at the end of the day, no matter how many great things you achieve, no matter how accomplished everyone thinks you are, you’ll know your truth.
Truth is that— if you’re not living a normal life, you’re becoming abnormal.
You’re doing things your body and mind don’t want to. You’re being hard on yourself to get it done anyway, when probably taking a walk is a better option.
Ambitious people live their life chasing something and forget that there was a life to be lived.
So, it’s not like the most accomplished people don’t have regrets. And if you don’t maintain a balance while achieving things, you’re becoming abnormal.
And I’m telling you this from the experience of a lot of people who have done amazing things that— living upto your full potential in career but not in life is the biggest regret.
Not achieving a few things here and there is forgotten, but the second order effects of ripping apart and uprooting yourself from normalcy is imprinted for life.
The Flip Side
A lot of people I’ve seen started their journey with this stillness, and ended up under-appreciating speed, extreme focus and pure hardwork.
I love the fact that the innate drive in me made me work hard on my goals to build what I want to build (or rather to think in a way that something great is possible).
Transitioning back to stillness and making it a part of routine and cycle is important, but we shouldn't underappreciate hustle either.
I’ve seen that unless we undergo some form of “tapa” (sanskrit word for fire), we don’t come out very successful.
Any form of success in life, job, startup, sport is not possible without giving your 120% every single day for a prelonged period of time.
But any form of success is worthless without enjoying every bit of the moment in time you’re at. Where you don’t feel absent.
I’ve been taught the importance of balance since I was a child (yeah yeah debatable), but understood it properly only yesterday.
READS
Aryan’s Book Shelf
Last week I got myself 1 new physical book and within 2 chapters it made it me realise what I was missing on.
Not just the way the book is written or the things that it taught me, but also because of the form factor.
Reading a physical book after so long made me go back to where I was in 2012-2016. Massively focused, aware and most importantly living in the moment.
The book’s name is “Creativity Inc.” I’ll so a book review on it soon.
And I got another book — “The Cold Start Problem”.
Now, this one is a pure startup book, but I’d say anyone who wants to ever build something or be a part of building something should get it. Of course I can’t recommend it completely just yet, but it has a great start.
Bought a few Kindle books too, but that’s because of a sale. I’ll tell you all about them when I start reading.
Other than all this I bought a lot of Twitter Subscriptions, but I know I’m only sticking with a few of them.
The best one so far is Shreyas Doshi’s subscription. This is majorly for people who want to learn or are into product design and management.
I also bought Trung Phan’s sub. Of course his newsletter is 10x better than that, so I won’t recommend it unless you’re a superfan.
And last one is Mr. Beast’s subscription. I found it a little useful because of his replies and everything he tried to make us understand a tad bit about Youtube. I’m still not sure if you should bother buying this. Probably wait for a week and I’ll let you know.