Excursions

I love taking portrait shots of my daughter. Her expressions are the focus, and everything blurs away in the background. Anyway, what matters to me is my daughter’s smile or the lack of any. Each expression more priceless.

I hope to live my life in the same manner, in portrait mode. Put things that matter to me in focus. Blur the sidelines into the background. It might be messy around me. It always is. But to let it impact my perspective towards the moment or not is my choice.

So a friendly reminder for myself - put what matters in focus. Make the ugliness that surrounds me the blurred background. It may only heighten the charm of the moment.

And as with photography, not all perspectives can be portraits. But some certainly should.

Every service wants to be everyone’s favourite. But what the makers are working towards is being favoured. Or popular. There is a minute but significant distinction between those two.

It is easy to market something subjective, which is what the latter is. “Best…”. “Most liked…”. “Hottest…”. How often do we hear those words in advertisements? The former, on the other hand, is binary. Objective. You are either someone’s favourite, or you are not. More often than not, people won’t know what their favourite something is. Ask someone for their favourite movie or a book, and she can’t put her finger on one.

Being a favourite is also singular. What point is being just one person’s favourite? You can’t market that. Of course, as long as the someone in question is not famous.

I wonder if seeking to be someone’s favourite is more satisfying than trying to be popular to everyone.

Seth Godin made this observation in one of his latest posts. Well, it’s not about satisfaction but the ease of selling.

Choices are abundant these days - more variety of cuisines, more brands of clothes, more range of devices, more solutions. More of the same, yet different in imperceivable ways. More is good, right?

Not when the dread of choosing paralyses me. Making a selection demands brain cycles, both while and after choosing. It needs time from you. If there is real money involved, the process is even more demanding. Fear of regret kicks in then.

Is the other one better? Cheaper? Would I hate this later? Will my family hate me for choosing this? Will this improve my life? Each question is more complex than the previous one.

In the false hope of “saving” time and money, I postpone choosing. My unmade decisions pile up, and so does the burden on me. It is a vicious cycle – I delay choosing because I feel vague pressure, a choice that only adds to my burden.

Not choosing is a choice too. Make it your default, and it will only make you weaker.

Whenever I pick up a call on my watch and talk to my wife, I am happy.

Whenever I scan or tap my phone to pay for stuff, I am happy.

Whenever I click a button on my smartphone to capture the best of the moment in front of me, I am happy.

Whenever I beam my voice to my daughter in another room as if I am next to her, I am happy.

Whenever my lights and plugs switch off on schedule or on my command, I am happy.

Whenever I push a photo or video from my phone onto a larger screen for my family to enjoy, I am happy.

Whenever I watch my dad live as he excitingly shows me a new shirt or a new faucet, I am happy.

I am happy when my phone guides me around a place, known or unknown. Alerts me of road closures or diversions. Reads the text in front of me. Or helps me with my quick queries or requests.

The list goes on.

And I am only talking about the capabilities of the devices on me. I am surrounded by technology that brings a smile to my face every day throughout the day.

I can be frustrated by the things these gadgets cannot do well (or can’t do at all). Or I can be angry with them when they alter my habits against my will.

But just as the technology is at fault for not acting responsibly, so am I for not using it sensibly. When I wish the technology to alter itself to not burden me, I share the responsibility to find ways to not be controlled by it.

Do I have enough levers? That’s debatable. What isn’t, though, is my love for technology.

With many avenues of tracking and improving my well-being already around me, I have decided to make the best use of them. I know I am not good at maintaining a healthy routine for any meaningful duration. Yet, I want to give myself another chance to succeed at forming one by constant nudges and tickles.

A reference to Whole Life Challenge with its pointed question “What is healthy to you?” front and centre came in handy. The tagline, “don’t try to fit health and wellness into your life. Fit your life into the context of health and wellness” resonated with me. I always had the tools that allow me to track my progress towards a healthy lifestyle; with the recommendations from this challenge, I know what I need to track. I am not undertaking any challenge, but I am going to follow along.

So, I am tracking the seven habits – nutrition, hydrate, exercise, mobilise, sleep, well-being and reflect. With health apps from Samsung and Google, I make note of everything I eat, being cognisant of my diet. I don’t want to cut down on anything yet, but just understand what goes in. Keeping myself hydrated is not a problem I face, I drink enough water regularly.

Though I already do the running and stretching pretty regularly, I am now consciously walking while carrying out the daily chores instead of riding my motor scooter. Though I can’t sleep with a watch on, I now manually enter my hours of sleep. Sure, I miss out on the detailed reports of my sleep pattern, but this is better than nothing. With the bedtime mode scheduled on my smartphone, the screen goes greyscale, reminding me to rid myself of the clingy device. It helps!

Building a habit for well-being has been difficult for me. Meditation, the only well-being activity that I know of, never stuck. I can meditate, but I don’t do this with the right spirit. The constant thought of “am I doing this right” keeps pestering me throughout, and I know I’m not doing it right. Well, who knew there are other well-being practises too – picking up a book, reaching out to a friend or organising a dishevelled space. Ah, now that I can do. And do well.

All said these are early days. I am just a week into tracking these habits and I have already missed out on a couple each day. (I am using a wonderfully simple app, Loop Habit Tracker, to track these). But I am allowing myself the leniency.

This week saw the schools and offices welcoming the students and employees in-person, and I realised I have entered the post-lockdown phase of the pandemic now. For a body and mind that has gotten used to the sluggish at-home routine, the rush-filled days are exhausting. I haven’t gotten used to this routine yet.

It isn’t as if I am working more. Rather, I must be working a lot less than what I was when I could focus more at home. For the majority of the times, that is. But the mere fact that I am at the office floors surrounded by the buzzing coworker space makes the stay tiring. I can see the same behaviour in my daughter. She was extremely pumped to join the school, and still is. However, even she is drained once she arrives home from the school. Well, her reason might be different – surrounded by friends new and old, she is bursting with energy. She has missed her classrooms. And the busy routine. There’s satisfaction on her tired face.

Is it all bad for me? Well, to be frank, not at all. I have enjoyed the company of coworkers in the last week. The way we work when we can interact face-to-face is very different from when it is all virtual. We take many decisions without planning and booking a time on the calendar; as a result, we close more discussions. The virtual mode of working restrained us through the need to over-plan. Over-schedule. It’s surprising how free I felt when I could simply walk to a person and talk.

Sure, the away-from-home routine has impacted my reading and writing habits, too. Well, to be frank, those habits are impacted for quite some time now. I need to get back, find a window to think in this hectic, unsteady life. It’s not new to me, but it’s funny how a couple of years at home has made me forget the office lifestyle. What was the work-life balance that we talked so much about, again?

Well, that’s a thought to ponder over some other time.

---

This post was sent as an introduction for this week’s issue of my weekly newsletter. I have realized the updates I begin my newsletter with every week get lost once it is out. So I intend to publish these as individual posts also.

Whenever I wake my daughter up in the morning (thankfully, I don’t have to do it every day), she has this habit of pushing her face further deep into her pillow and just raising her one finger. It conveys just one more minute, Dad! It’s so adorable, and freshens me up every time she does that. And I play along as a dutiful father.

It doesn’t matter for how long she has been in the bed. She may have slept a good 10 hours of good night’s sleep, she still has her finger up when I go and wake her up. It is the sleep that she gets in the extra minute that’s dear to her.

We love this little game of ours. When I knowingly wake her up early, and she knowingly raises her finger up. When that minute is up, I act tough and pull her out of the bed. She knows I am acting. I know she knows. Both of us wear a smug smile on our faces.

“Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life,” goes a mantra for success – an adage that is unfortunately overrated, though. A person can’t always do what she loves to do. Rather, there are very few fortunate folks who do just what they want to do in their life. An extension to that adage is love what you do. Well, nor can one always love what she does. Rather, most folks hate what they do. They do it because they have to do it.

“Passion is the genesis of genius,” says Tony Robbins. Aha, that is precisely the reason we aren’t surrounded by geniuses. The majority of us are stuck doing something for which we have no passion.

That is such a cynical attitude, you say? Sure. But, it also is the reality of our world. Should we then give up? Far from that, actually. What one should do is to find out why they are doing what they are doing. For some, it might be the money. Or a sense of comfort. For many, it might be the best among the available options. Find peace with what you do. That is the first step to reach a phase in your life when you can do what you love to do.

There is also the fact that what you love can very well be temporary. It takes time to find your passion. What you think is your passion may very well be a fleeting interest. As Derek Sivers reminds us, we can’t always depend on our current opinions.

(Our) former self is not always right. We shouldn’t preserve our first opinions as if they reflect our pure, untarnished, true nature. They’re often just the result of inexperience or a temporary phase. Old opinions shouldn’t define who we are in the future.

It is the contentedness, though passing, that matters the most. Do what makes you feel contented, what gives you a good night’s sleep.

That said, there is, of course, another way. Stick to what you are passionate about. Switch paths when your passion changes. There will be hardships because doing what you think you love is not easy. But being satisfied never is. Be firm, stay strong.

So, which way do you prefer?

Since my niece was born on this day three years ago today, the new year celebrations have been quite unfamiliar for us. The whole world celebrates along with us as she grows a year old, every year. Or so we have convinced her and her parents. This year is no different, albeit a tad muted. But still, the folks all-around plan to celebrate.

Knowing how all my plans for 2020 were mercilessly crushed by the pandemic, I had no expectations from 2021. I knew it was going to be more of the same dreadful cycle of panic, despair, and hope. At the same time, I also wished I and all my dear ones sail through, see the end of the year.

As I sit here today, looking at the year gone by, all I can do is smile. It began with a phase as dark as my family had ever seen. But it brought us all close, gave us the courage to stay strong. We got back on our feet, stronger. We learned to live with the virus, masked whenever outside. Vaccinating ourselves. Slowly, gradually, we wandered, unhesitant, outside our homes. Each one of us established our own new rules, routines, and traditions around travel.

We met our friends, got nostalgic for the days that we had left behind. We got hungry, got drunk and laughed our hearts out. I witness my office welcome my colleagues, the floors, and pantries reverberating with grumbles again.

I am fortunate I could do all of that. And a lot more. That I watch my crazy friends share their plans for celebrations with booze and snacks. That I would watch the skies light up with fireworks one more time. I am fortunate that I am about to get ready and join my family to celebrate my niece growing older by another year.

And if you are reading this, know that, in one way or the other, you are too. Just look back and find out why.

Resilience. And kismet. The two words I would remember 2021 by. Wish you a happy new year, you all!

---

Artwork by David Wirzba on Unsplash

Every time the grinds of the daily life take toll over me, I travel to a place close by with my family and friends. The last weekend was another such occasion.

I love this place not because it is a perfect family getaway (that it is), but because it is easy to travel to, and so there is not too much planning needed. Most trips get burdensome by the sheer pain of planning so much, so ahead of time. I enjoy the travels where that’s not the case, especially when I have no interest to be a typical tourist and go spot hunting.

The purpose of one’s visit is what matters at the end. If it is to find out everything of interest in a place, sure, go sign up for a hectic few days. Even I do that at times. But, why do that when irrespective of how much you roam around, you can never cover all the interesting places, anyway? The tourists flocking around an attraction kills it for me. It is just a place of business. I prefer the turn en route where no one halts. Or the point which hasn’t got any fancy name yet.

Anyway, I know every nook and corner of this resort I stayed in. My family and I have visited every spot of interest in the place, and so can selectively just visit those that affect us. We did just that this time, too. Maybe, I am different. I am glad that my family is just like me. Crazy different “tourists” that travel for the experience, not with a checklist!

Here are a couple of more pictures from the relaxing trip.