growth – Page 4 – untitled atm

034a – hey, 2022

I didn’t really get much time to reflect this month. Had a couple of flights in which I’d done some writing, but nothing similar to what I’d managed to do last year. Last year I had goals – small, big, I had achievements, I had pillars I wanted to focus on in the (then) coming months.. all the works.

I think this year I’ve been avoiding it a bit. Since I just got back from India around a week back, i’m still getting used to being alone, etc. I’ve been watching a lot of TV for some sense of normalcy, and trying to curb my smoking, for the most parts.

I think that’s also the major thought I’m trying to avoid. i.e. whether I should be working on reducing (quitting?) smoking this year. It’s a hard thought.. I’m already anxious around it all the time, why would I deliberately sit and think about it, right?

But I’ve been forgetting how facing these devious thoughts is the only way to make them lose their power. So, here I am. Ready now, I think.

Let’s start with the big blocks I want to be focusing on. A rare moment of clarity made me realize those are going to be love, peace and growth. I don’t think this needs more thought, I can’t think of anything else that’s more important. Well, alright – maybe discipline a bit? Routines, in some ways. Though I don’t feel too strongly about that so I probably won’t be trying too hard on that. Health, though.. is a whole other conversation. Health is going to be important to think about, it needs to be. My aim for January is going to be to track smoking, and not let it go beyond 2-3 cigarettes a day. I think I will also need to add some physical exercise to my week. It’s been completely absent for almost the last 6 months. Mornings, as much as I can. Evenings, if mornings don’t work out. Diet, I think a bit as well. Would want to eat healthier. Of course I would have to break all this down into more actionable goals, but this is a good start, for now.

I want to continue to create more.. content / art / watchamacallit. So that’s continuing to write, clicking pictures, playing and making more music (with more people as well).

Love. SIGH. I think it’s looking more clear that it’s going to be hard for me to organically meet someone. I might have to accept that dating apps is where it’s at, for me. Once I accept that fully, I’ll probably be able to put in the work as well. Let’s see though, I don’t know if I feel like thinking about this right now..

Insecurities, self-confidence, self-acceptance.. I think that’s going to continue to be an ongoing journey, but I want to stay on the path, even if it’s never ending. I definitely don’t want to stop the “fight” so to say.

Alright, I think that’s all I can do for now, happy new year folks!

032a – act during periods of clarity

It’s been hard to sit down and write. I keep getting up do something or the other. My reason for restlessness is mainly one – I have to make a life decision. Where should I go next? But it’s also the reason I need to sit down and write. I’ve gathered a lot of information and opinions in the last few weeks, I’ve been swinging back and forth between my two options, literally going from one to the other every week. I’m definitely under a little pressure to make a decision, but I seem to want to make it without doing the hard work that goes into it.

The hard work? I’m not talking about the information gathering, that was hard only initially, once I started it was easy. The hard work seems to be thinking about interviewing for one of the options, the prep that I’ll have to put into it.

Anyway, for some context, my two options are: Amsterdam and India. I’m looking to move within the company I’m currently at, and looking to move within the same role I’m currently at (engineering). That’s the easy part.

I think I’m finally realizing that the reason I’ve been leaning toward India (that’s home for me) is fear based. The more I realize I really don’t need to pressure my life to become a certain way or “fall into place” by a certain time, the more I see and accept that Amsterdam seems like the better option right now. I want to settle down and have some stability, but how can I find it when I barely know myself? If I really want to find myself, don’t I deserve to give myself all the chance I can? Ideally I really should be giving myself the best opportunities to grow (not as an engineer or whatever, but as a person). A person who knows she doesn’t want to be working a full-time engineering job five years from now. If I really want to find what I want five years from now, I probably do have to dive into the ocean that is the world.

And it’s true, I really am only 26. Whoever said that’s old? Whoever said I need to hurry and settle down? And who’s to say I’ll find that at home? And I’m not even getting into whether home really is what I think it is, etc.

A new country is daunting, an easier decision might be easy to take, but there’s a reason I feel restless when I decide to go forward with the easier decision. If it was the easy and right decision, I probably would feel comfortable taking it. But I don’t.

I feel some clarity coming in. This might not last long, so maybe the best thing to do is take small actions in moments or periods of clarity, and see where that takes me. I’m going to ahead with kickstarting the processes that are needed to go ahead with the Amsterdam option. I can always decide not to go ahead if things don’t feel right a few weeks from now.

028b – flights

Adding this picture here since I think it has some interesting things worth noting. I love how it has things related to the pandemic as well as the fact that it’s the pride month – something else I wanted to talk about it in this piece, but didn’t end up getting to. Still worth it, though, I think.

I’m stuck in a five hour flight. Two of the five hours have passed and I’m slowly starting to enjoy it. Had a terrible night since this was a 6 am flight, and why past me thought it’d be feasible is beyond me. Spent the whole night in the “too anxious to fall asleep” and “too sleep-deprived to focus on anything” loop / limbo. But.. I’m here now, and not unhappy nor frustrated. The airport was terribly packed, by the way. In a way I’ve almost never seen before. It’s not completely unexpected since the pandemic is sort of coming to an end here, or at least a pause (who’s to say, really), but still took me a little by surprise.

I was trying to write a little bit earlier too. I was thinking about how it’s been difficult to sit down and focus on writing coherently. I was thinking about how inspiration has been fleeting lately. How it does knock on the door from time to time but flees before I can invite her in. But it’s interesting how a medium-long flight offers exactly the right kind of an environment to focus.

My body is, admittedly, quite uncomfortable, but I’m sure my plight is nothing next to that of the very tall boy sitting next to me who seems incredibly uncomfortable in the middle seat.
This got me thinking about the economics of shared but unequal travel, or in general… shared but unequal experiences. It’s been quite a while since travelers have been able to afford various privileges for an additional cost, but it’s one of the first times I’ve been on the more privileged side. It’s a weird feeling, I didn’t expect so much guilt around it. I wanted to let him know to let me know if he wanted the windows up or down, and for a minute I’d even felt like offering him my seat if it were slightly less uncomfortable. Then I remembered I’d paid more for my seat and there was no reason for me to have to do that. So yeah, the guilt around privilege was and is very real.

Anyway, my time in the States will be coming to end in around 7-8 months. And it’s weird how that changes things so much. I’ve noticed how ever since I got the confirmation of this news my perspective on my remaining time has shifted quite significantly. Every experience feels retrospective even as I’m living it. I was thinking about the people who made the last three and a half years worth recounting. Some of them were people I knew from before I moved, some I met once I got here. So, so happy and content with this last phase of my life. I think I’ve grown a significant amount and learnt so much about myself and what I want from life. Of course, I don’t know whether I would get everything I want or not.. but it’s still nice to feel more aware.

Flights always bring up a lot for me. Something I can’t stop thinking about is the first flight I took when I was moving here. I was seated with another girl similar to me in age, and a married man probably in his 30s. The three of us had ended up talking a lot and having a great time (flights from India to the US are terribly long), – and it just warms my heart to remember that experience. It was such a great welcome to this place, and I’ve always been so grateful to both of them for providing me with that. Hope I can pass that on to someone else at some point.

027 – find the why of whatever you’re doing

The other day I was talking about goals with a couple of friends. I mentioned how I’ve started this project where I’m hoping to write a 100,000 words. Both of them reacted with surprise about how that sounds like a lot. And I explained a bit about how it’s just 100 posts that’s a 1000 words long, and then I immediately shifted to how “it’s probably a wish, not a goal”. I’m wondering whether there’s something worth examining here. I know that in the past I’ve had problems with being ambitious in public, and I generally prefer to err on the side of underselling myself. I know where all that comes from, but I wonder if it’s worth continuing. Did I need to change the terminology of this project from a goal to a wish? Did it have any consequences?

I’ve been writing less since the last couple of weeks and part of me thinks this might have affected my motivation. Though I think most probably there’s other factors that might have affected it and this might be *completely* unrelated.. I still feel like it might have had at least like a 10% role to play. Almost like not-owning up to the goal in that moment made me subconsciously relax from it.

I stumbled across a post of Visa’s where he examines his reasons for doing this, and it made me realize it’s worth doing that from time to time. It’s like when you’re questioning your love for something you try to remember why you started, and why (if at all) you want to keep going.

Earlier (way back in my first post), I’d listed these few reasons for wanting to do this:

To “fight off” vulnerability
Developing as a “writer”
Developing as a person / growth
Potentially meet people + have more / more interesting conversations

I think I’ve successfully handled vulnerability now (this is huge for me, btw)! I don’t feel this urge to backspace words or delete posts, I rarely feel hesitancy before publishing. I think I still feel some hesitancy while sharing specific posts with individual people (especially people I know IRL), but overall, in terms of publishing on the blog itself, I’m in a good place.

I’m pretty sure I’ve developed as a writer too. I scoff less every time I use the term. I’m okay with calling myself an “aspiring writer” and letting it exist on the home-page of this blog as well. I’ve become much better at talking about this in real life conversations as well. I’ve already talked about this in some of my previous posts, but words flow easier now too. I don’t second-guess my sentences much, unless I’m trying to do creative-writing. Which brings me to another gain. I didn’t think I would actually end up writing creatively at all when I’d started this – but I’ve found that I’m able to (even if not too much), and I’ve also found it to be quite satisfying and inspiring.

Definitely developed as a person. My weeks are better when I’m writing enough, it’s showing up in my mood and my therapy sessions too. I feel like I’m able to process difficult things without always having to wait for my appointments. Realized that I can feel empty, if I want to. I don’t always have to feel overwhelmed with thoughts. Realizing that I don’t always need to share thoughts and feelings with people, pretty much writing about them is good enough as well. Since I was testing whether there’re limits to introspection, I think I might have found my answer for that as well. (It’s most likely a yes, as discussed here.)

I haven’t had a lot of the last one, but I haven’t felt the need for it either. I did initially try to share some of posts with specific people to initiate conversations about certain topics, but turns out it didn’t go the way I wanted. I think once you’re sort of done with writing about something, it’s hard to care about it again. This is weird and I’m not sure if that should be the case, honestly.

And then one other unintended gain I’ve gotten is that I’ve gotten quite decent at titles. Earlier the titles would end up being very straightforward summarizers (which is fine too), but I think I’ve gotten much better at making them a bit more catchy.

Looks like I’ve met most of what I wanted to achieve from this, so it makes sense my motivation might not be as high as it was when I’d started. Time to redefine goals and OKRs then?

Creative writing – Do more creative writing (not sure what this will look like but I must investigate)
Research – Delve into the dark cloud of research – why I don’t like it, why it’s scary, what does a well-researched piece of writing look like, what’s the line between being inspired by existing work and “generating” new work almost entirely by existing work?
Sharing – Think about sharing work – why I should do it – how I can do it better?

I think I should be able to come up with some more goals (these don’t seem enough) but it’s funny how this looks like a classic case of “I want to do something, so I’ll find reasons to do it”. I wonder if we often function like that? How many “needs” in the world are “created” needs?

Okay I think I’ll wrap this up with a third unintended gain I’ve had. I realized I’m definitely able to enjoy this (writing) purely by itself too, not just when I’m using it as an escape. Quite happy about that, nothing else to say here!

008b – rest and growth

Preamble: Wrote this a couple days ago since I was feeling quite “inspired”. But turns out it was just a passing feeling, hence the easy end.

I’ve been thinking about growth lately. There’s definitely a big part of me that likes to grow. I don’t like worrying about things too much and anxiety almost always feels like a constant problem, but sometimes I enjoy these problems, I guess. Or at least, I like the feeling of making my out of the darkness. Or even when it’s not as dark, even when it’s a “simpler emergence”, I do like chasing some sort of goals. Nothing special, pretty normal, a lot of us do it – it’s just new again for me since for a while I thought I only wanted to rest. I had weeks and weeks of wanting to do nothing, I just wanted to breathe and relax and take life in.

When things get hard, I enjoy dissociating from myself. I subscribe to Buddhist ideas like “I am not my thoughts, I am not my feelings”. And it’s pretty helpful. The less attached I am to the idea of “Me” or “I”, the easier it generally is to accept whatever is happening to me.

But when things are “okay” again, I sometimes find myself getting attached to myself again. I find myself looking at myself like a project again, something to constantly be improving and working on. In the previous post I realized I don’t value my time enough, and I think that’s a product of some of “detachment” (so to say) that I was trying to practice.

But I’m thinking about growth again, and I’m finding that I want to get over my fears “faster”. Where’s that need coming from? I’m finding that I “want” to value my time? Where is this sense of urgency coming from? Do I want to pay attention to it? Do I even want to act on it? Is it even correct? Probably not, I think.

I think many us go through this. Phases of growth, phases of rest. The sinusoidal waves of life.

But I need to be careful between the rest and the growth phase. Even though it’d be nice to keep failing fast, I want to be a little careful, still. Because emotions can be unpredictable. It would probably make sense to keep a decent amount of buffer for them. When I plan for a growth phase, I probably shouldn’t do the planning based on “how I feel during the rest phase”.

I suppose this ends up at the two common strategies we often debate on:

A. Under-plan, and overdo, if that happens?
B. Over-plan and be okay with meeting only a % of it?

I think at this point, strategy A looks like a better option to me, because it leaves enough time for me to have fun on the way.. not super sure why I was even debating this to be honest.