In medias res – Learning life. From life.

This is the first year since 2020 when I am not publishing a new book. While I had a draft manuscript in place for my 5th, I decided to push it out to next year & do something different in 2024. So I tried my hand at videos & podcasts, a medium that finds more takers than books / blogs in the hyper-connected, instantaneous & content-bombarded times we live in. The idea, of course, was not a mere follower-shopping exercise ( never been my game, that), but rather to put out non-prescriptive & real life inspiration for my audience, especially the younger population. It’s a delicate walk for any creator in this day & age to hit the right emotional balance with consumers. Without ending up sounding like a condescending middle-aged uncle with strong opinions about why everything is wrong in this world today, but to try & bring forth ( with all humility) all that’s right in the world, thus hoping to showcase some right role models for the society, by amplifying their work & art. From child prodigies to industry captains, I attempted to distill and share journeys that inspire me.

 Why me? Because, I am an Everyperson. Like millions out there. Men & women who grow up in small towns, who never go to Ivy Leagues & who, despite all their intent & aspirations, end up somewhere in the middle of the social pyramid. Partly by design, partly by destiny. Our stories never get heard, written, shared, cheered. Our victories don’t find mention in record books or celebrity chat-shows. Our failures don’t stop the wheels of the world. And yet, we matter. A lot! We, the people, who learn from life about life, by living life – Getting knocked down ten times over, but who also get up for the eleventh round. We are built on whispers of the winds we  dare. We speak the language of the oceans we share. We are grains of sand, we are wood and  salt. We are the ones who will never say never. We’re like barnacles & blood stains, that are stuck forever.

 In this article today, let me share the top essentials about life that I learnt, not from any university education, but from my journey of trial & error, sowing my wild oats and trying to build a life around it. The problem with learning from life, however, is that by the time you master all the lessons, you’re too old to apply them 😉! So I hope some of my younger readers will make note of some of the following essentials & short-circuit their learning curve thus.

• Communication  - The most powerful tool in your toolkit is your ability to frame & tell an effective story. You need not possess the vocabulary of Dr. Tharoor or the oratory skills of Mr. Obama, but you should be able to, in a precise manner, explain what you wish to say – whether you’re asking for or resisting to something, or responding to someone else who’s asking you for or resisting to something you are saying. Because, eventually human society is all about moving things from some Point A to some Point B – Be it an idea, a cause, a product, a service, or an emotion. So, Rule #1 – Sharpen your storytelling skills.
•  Courage – Whether it’s that low-frequency 24x7 hum of anxiety at the back of your head at one end of the spectrum , or it’s a full blown paranoia that wraps you in a brain freeze, each intermittent stage is some form of fear that we all fall prey to in varying degrees depending on our inherent tendencies ( or ‘Vasanas’, as per Hindu scriptures). Fear is the mother of all vices. Fear makes us petty, selfish, insecure, envious & nasty. It robs us of our grace & dwarfs all our greatness in one sweeping blow. Whenever in a dilemma , take the bolder path. Whenever cornered by fear of any kind or magnitude, look it in the eye and keep moving forward. A good life is a life free of fear.
•  Friendships - Studies reveal that most of us have 4 close relationships, two of which are friends. And yet, if asked to define friendship, we grope for words. Socrates apparently raised his hands when asked to do so, and Aristotle came closest when he said, ‘a friend is another self’ .Contrary to popular notion, it is not about the survival of the fittest, but rather about the survival of the friendliest that made us Sapiens tick while other gene pools vanished, including our own stronger cousins like the Neanderthals. And yet, most of us stop making friends outside our university walls. That’s probably because friendship is a voluntary bond & doesn’t come with institutional obligations & ties of blood, or associated penalties for flunking. Friends, just drift away as we get older & careless. What a pity! Make friends. Keep friends. Find back friends you lost along the way. Age no bar. Gender no bar. Skin, social status & faith – no bar. A life well lived is a life surrounded by friends. Lot of friends.
•  You do You – We’ve created a world for ourselves where our need to impress often stifles our ability to express. This burning desire to conform – to templates & norms & labels & other people, has turned us into comical clones of each other. Social media only made it worse & trapped us in this self-aggrandizing loop where we’re always striving to project a flashier version of someone else, thus completely burying our authentic selves for the fear of some imaginary ridicule. How stupid is that! A flawed original is 100 times better than a perfect clone. Be the best first-hand You, not the second-best, second-hand someone else.

 And then, some more lessons :

• Empathy is different from its close cousin, sympathy. Sympathy implies you’re feeling sorry at someone else’s loss. Empathy just means that you ‘understand’ it. Unlike it’s cousin, empathy doesn’t call for you to ‘do’ something to help the situation. It just asks you to show up, listen deeply and ‘be there. ’The bad news is that empathy doesn’t have a linear return policy. It adds up and balances out in strange & unpredictable ways. The good news, however, is that empathy is a learnable skill that gets easier with practice. The other good news is that it’s never too late to teach yourself to be empathetic. You just need to nudge yourself out of your hiding place.
• When ‘love’ the noun flies out of the window, stick to ‘love’, the verb. The noun will be back soon.
• Eventually you’ll hit a slump in life. And what you do or stop doing while inside that slump decides how soon you’ll get out of it.
•  Eventually, the applause ends. To continue the performance, thereafter, is what character is about.
•  Immobilized by a cruel failure or nervous of not being able to match to a former success, you mentally plateau at your previous best. But if you think of it, each performance is an independent event in itself & an opportunity to start again, try something scary & generous at the same time, and put your best self out there. Again.
•  In the end, your family will be all you’ll have. Treat them special. Today. Every day.
• Why bother? Short answer – Because you are you.
• Your true value is not in what you possess, but what you are able to give up . And live without.
• As you go through life, you gradually discover who you are. With each discovery, you lose a bit of yourself. Some nights you stare into the darkness. On other nights the darkness stares into you .
• What’s the first word that most people use when asked to describe you? Be aware of it. Importantly, be aware that it’s up to you to change it if you don’t like it. Or stick to it if you do, even if they don’t.
• One way out of the rut is to practise deliberate inactivity for a few days.
• If you are what you do, then who are you when you don’t? Your job is a part of your identity, not your entire identity. Periodically, dust off your other hats. They all add up into you.
• Irrelevance is not depletion of external validation. It’s an internal submission to a certain finish line & calling it a day. Relevance means that your Joneses don’t know that you’re no longer bothered about keeping up with them but have found your new Joneses. Like Apollo told Rocky – The only way to get that look back in your eyes is to go back to the beginning. Because beginnings are where we are most alive. And relevant – to ourselves. That’s all that matters. Occasionally, change your starting line & redefine your race.
• Say sorry sometimes. Not all the time.
• In your journey of self-growth, as you grow older, your discarded vices will keep making reappearances. Don’t pretend to ignore them & empower them thus. Just disarm them by showing them they don’t scare you.
• There is no right war. There is no wrong religion.
• When you have something important to say, be brief. When you’re angry, keep your voice low. Epictetus called it ‘sphere of impulses. Watch your default impulse at each moment. Tame it ruthlessly into obedience.
• Our worldview is shaped by events & is in denial of non-events. We fail to perceive alternate realities because they are absent to our senses & we’re blind to information loops that don’t include us. We hail & condemn things as presented to us & us conclude the non-present to be non-existent. That’s convenient. And dangerous. Monochromaticity often falls prey to false impressions, stupid decisions, wrong hiring & gross misinterpretations, leading us into missing grave risks and hidden opportunities.
• Peer further into sunsets. Every day. Celebrate them, cherish them. You’ll slowly run out of them.
• Life isn’t a dress-rehearsal. It keeps ticking as you do your chasing game. Some days, you catch it. On other days, it catches you. Keep running.
• Like someone said, “ The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly”. Be humble. Your time will come. And also go.
• In the end, you can’t beat life. You can only keep trying.
• One day, this day will make sense. Own your finale. Make sure you sign off in style.

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(Liked this article? Do leave your reactions & comments. If you like reading standalone articles & anecdotes sitting on overlapping boundaries of work & life of an everyperson, try checking out my bestselling books on Amazon in your country. Thanks !)

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