Why and How to Keep Important Things in Order
Let me tell you a story.
“He Sleeps in a Storm” from a sermon by Rabbi Albert Lewis, 1975, as read in “Have a Little Faith” (page 93) by Mitch Albom.
happy life
A Scooter Expedition to Goa’s Secret Butterfly Beach
In Search of the Hidden Butterfly Beach, Goa
The sunrise at the Butterfly beach is beautiful, said Manveer, our Airbnb host. Then he gulped down his entire glass of orange juice.
But where is this Butterfly beach? Didn’t you say it was hard to find? I exclaimed.
I will show you the directions on the phone.
Manveer walked to our table. He swiped right on his son’s photo wallpaper on the phone, tapped on the Google map application, and zoomed in.
I was staying at Manveer’s place, which is on the Agonda beach in Goa, for the second time. The first visit was two years earlier when I had gone to Goa to get some alone time.
Remembering that fun trip when I had read Hemingway while basking in the sun on the beach and watched India England one-day series with an English traveler, I showed up at Manveer’s Airbnb again, this time with a friend. As soon as Manveer recognized me, our friendly banter began in no time.
Why You Should Break The Routine, Sometimes
To Break the Routine or Not to Break the Routine?
I woke up feeling low-spirited today morning.
As my 7:10 am alarm rang, I extended my arm and fumbled for my phone on the floor, where it lays at night. I switched off the alarm. Then I pulled my arm inside my white duvet again and closed my eyes. My partner shut off his 7:20 am alarm, too.
While he pushed his phone under his crumbly pillow, we took a peek at each other, and then our eyes closed.
47 Bright Ways to Make Someone Happy (or Smile)
Though we all want to make someone happy or smile, we get so caught up in our work, life, and travel we don’t bother to be any nicer or do beyond what is expected of us.
I am no different, and I openly talk about how my husband and I loosened up on being sweet to each other during the beginning of the lockdown. But then we realized, hey, now we only got each other. We can work together from home, food is still abundant, and the world is quiet. We should sing “don’t worry, be happy” all day (most of the pandemic affects hadn’t hit us by then).
A Peruvian Grandmother’s Act of Kindness
Covid Update 2025 – Peru has been open to international travelers. Travelers must show proof of vaccination. Those who are unvaccinated have to show a negative covid-19 test issued up to 48 hours before boarding. Find the complete information on the official website of the Peru government.
Hand in Hand With a Peruvian Grandmother in Cusco
A gray-haired lady entered the restaurant and turned her eyes to me instantly. Her gaze didn’t surprise me. During the eight months I had been traveling in South America, I visited indigenous Andean villages and remote islands where the locals had never met someone from India before. My earthy complexion and kohled eyes always raised a plethora of questions about my origin.
Don’t Feel Like Working? Read This
What to Do When You Don’t Want to Work?
What do I do when I don’t want to work?
I have put my computer aside more than once to cry over an unjust email or to get my fair share in a fight with my partner or another close friend.
I have had bad days. I have sometimes taken off on those hard days. Instead of writing, I went out on a drive and bought tiger prawns or cried and slept or read Charles Darwin while drowning myself in chamomile tea.
These bouts of sulking in my misery or fighting followed by pampering and sometimes spending time with the other fighter of the duel leading to the exhilaration and then to that moment of clarity where I justified the time spent crying as just another day lived and felt that life was as clear as a night sky have sometimes lasted for an hour and up to a day or even more.
One young summer of my life, I was living in Himachal, the home of the Himalayas. While learning the flute, practicing yoga, working on my blog, and trying to stick to Vipassana meditation techniques, I didn’t realize that I had buried myself under a lot of pressure to be the perfect Bohemian. Ironically, I was on a laid-back mountain staycation.
One Friday, my abuse of self-expectations pushed me to the abysmal depths of moroseness. I didn’t even want to lift my feet to walk to the bathroom. I spent two to three days lying in bed and weeping and sleeping and avoiding everyone and then hiking to a mountain alone.
In the two days of nothingness, I ignored all work, didn’t practice the flute, and put the yoga and meditation aside for wiser people. And on the third day of the rendezvous, I hung out with my travel friends and chatted away in the sun while eating palak paneer with garlic naan.
77 Deep Questions About Life [And My Answers]
Important Life Questions to Ask Yourself
I remember reading a quote that said, ask the right questions. Over the years I have realized that questions are much more important than answers. Without asking the right queries we can never hope for the right knowledge. (Here are some good quotes on life I have collected over the years.)
I took a while to understand what questions to ask about life. Some of those doubts were always there in the background, hovering, emphasizing that I didn’t understand life. I had a vague feeling that I was dismaying over things that didn’t matter while ignoring the universal realities that would pull me out of my little problem bubbles. I wasn’t sure though. And I never took out time to pin those very deep questions about life, and, hence, could never answer them.
The process of questioning deepened when I started writing and reading full-time. As I had redesigned my life from a corporate cycle of drudgery, I was too eager to question everything and to be better. I had found vigor again. The more life changing books I read, the more I understood, the more questions I had.
As Franz Kafka once said, “Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.”
The effort continues.
I am putting down some thought-provoking questions that have hitherto found me. I have followed a natural course and have clubbed thematic questions together.
I have answered all questions to keep an account of my thoughts on the matter. As you will see, I have some life answers, but some of the questions still dodge me. You can ignore my responses and find your own.
Along with the important life questions and answers, I am also putting down the books that have helped me understand the matter.
I plan to update these deep questions (that will make you think) and answers year-on-year, or whenever my understanding changes.
Till then, I present to you the questionnaire of life from my lens.
30 Practical Tips for Working From Home
Handy Working-From-Home Tips
Even though I have already written about how to work from home successfully, I’m putting another list of handy tips for working from home. In between then and now, I have gained three more years of work from home experience, and, hence, this piece.
Also, the first article on working from home productively was more about the importance of maintaining a routine and keystone habits. Having a great routine helps in running our lives irrespective of what we are doing, but there are innumerable small (keystone and other) things that we can do to be more efficient, have more fun, and not burn out while we are at home. This article is a collection of quick ideas that we can follow to cruise through a work-from-home life smoothly.
Now let me get straight into this list of practical work from home tips and tricks.
Trigger Warning: Humor ahead.
Travel Inspires Change and One Small Change Can Transform Our Life
Everything Begins With a Story
Let me recite a story from Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habits. This is a true story of a woman named Lisa (as per the records) who was the subject of a scientific study for understanding behavioral change and habits.
Please note: Though the story is the key to appreciate this article, I am summarizing the story for those readers who don’t want to read it. If you want to read the story, go to it here. Else continue reading the summary.
Deep Quotes About Life I Couldn’t Help Sharing
Like many others, I read about the lives and work of many great artists, writers, physicists, musicians, innovators, and thinkers. But rather than quoting them, I generally prefer to share my interpretation of their ideas. I feel I haven’t assimilated their words well if I share them plain rather than kneading them with my thoughts.
Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Virginia Woolf, Ruskin Bond, Rainer Maria Rilke, Vincent van Gogh, Marcel Proust, Nietzsche, Josh Waitzkin, and The Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry-I’ve adapted lessons, inspirations, and visions of all these great human beings.
But it is not always about the source or amalgamation of motivation. Ideas and inspiration need to keep floating in the universe irrespective of where they come from. After all, we are only the means to an end, and we all need a guiding light.
In this piece, I am sharing the most inspiring, deep quotes about life I have come across. The hope is to read these avant-garde life quotes, to come back to them whenever we need them, and sift through them even when we feel we don’t require them. Thus we keep ourselves soaked in inspiration and don’t let it deplete.
Let the journey of imagination and belief begin. (Also Read: My Ideas on Self-Improvement)
Important Things I Have Learned So Far
The Artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself .
E.E. Cummings
While writing full-time for almost three years now, I have spent a lot more time looking inwards (and would continue to do so) than I did before. When I reflect on myself, I see how imperfect I am. With this self-knowledge, I am able to look outwards with more compassion. I have also realized that life, though, complex, is also simple. It all depends on how we look at things.
These growing insights into the external and internal world lay the foundation of my personal growth and creativity, both of which, in turn, help me understand more. (Update May 2022: I’ve been reflecting inwards for close to five years now. And I’m updating this list of things I have learned as per my current understanding. I also have my learnings from the year 2022 written down separately, in case you want to look at the latest only.)
Learning paves way for more learning.
In this piece on the most important lessons in life, I share everything I have learned so far. I have penned down the ways that help me simplify things. I believe that all that is important must have made itself available to my mind and heart while I’m writing the article. And if I have missed something, either I do not care about it enough or the learning will appear in some form later.
This collection of lessons is more a cheat sheet for me and less a guide for a reader looking for life’s wisdom. But I do hope I have shared experiences that will help one sail along this immense sea of life with a bit more ease.
This list of life learnings is long with sections randomly arranged. If you like the article, consider bookmarking it to return to it later at a time of need.
While you are here, also consider checking out my collection of deep meaningful quotes on life. I have put these together from years of reading.
Ditch Passion, Follow Your Curiosity: Build a Career You Love
Follow Your Curiosity to Build Your Best Career – Passion is Not Always Necessary, Even Overrated at Times
You don’t always have to find your passion to create an enjoyable and fulfilling career. Instead, you can follow your curiosity to build a career you will love.
In this essay I will show you how.
First and foremost.
Am I Against Pursuing Passions?
I changed my career at 30 – quit my investment banking job and shelved a CS degree to write – so I better not be against following passions.
As much as I am a spokeswoman (and a living example) of following the ethereal path of doing what you love to do, finding a passion is hard, and pursuing it is even harder.