Ever wondered why opposites attract? Why twins or even siblings turn out to be so unlike each other? Why good people pick up the un-good habits and unworthy partners more often than not?
Because life is short. We should live and try it all out. Once you realize that 40-50% is a good enough match, you stop chasing perfectionism. Whether it’s similarities in values, actions, virtues or behaviour – nothing is ever going to be a perfect match.
Matchy matchy no more
But should you fold or not yet? If you don’t, the friction goes on. If you do, both of you move forwards even though just an inch.
Therefore, grab the moments before you realize a lifetime has slipped out of your hands.
While conventional wisdom would love to stereotype women in a box, they actually are hard to tyepcast these days. With varying hues and tones, gone are the days one could imagine what life a woman would be leading. Today they range from domestic to undomestic, from wild to demure, from shy to bold, and the contrasts go on.
Gen X Granny. Those born in the post world war era, the cool grannies of today, are finally relishing a break. Break from raising families, break from raising grandchildren and break from being the anchor for everyone in the extended family on both sides! They had hard lives as girls, wives and sisters but now they can sit back and sip the wine. Some even find their way around social media and like to stay updated of latest trends. Those in better health are undertaking adventure travel and making new friends with whom they share this liberating experience. Most of them today finding time to nurture their passion, nourish their souls and enrich their lives with hobbies which were at the backburner all this while.
Millenial madame. The constantly stretched out in all directions working women form a majority of this chunk. Also known as the sandwich generation who is straddling work, family, kids, siblings, parents and what not, whew! And then there are the ones who choose to write a different narrative of being solo or sans kids, this is a firebrand ‘On my own’ tribe who is fiercly independent, genuinely unapologetic and truly dettached from conventions. They raise cats (or dogs or whatever pets they care for), live by their rules and aren’t unsettling for someone to complete their lives. There is also a slightly nuanced version of this, the ones with a spouse or partner, charting their own path, being carefree or queen-like, they are well read, updated, composed and not grinding to the domestic chores for sure.
Gen Z colleague. All of us surrounded by this species nowadays. Clad in loose baggy denims and crop tees, slinging a bag on a shoulder and music blaring from the oversized headphones. These ladies do not want to be ‘proper’, they want to be frivolous, childlike and highly aware. While education is a basic human right, not every GenZ female wants to come across as academic and pedantic. Some are happy being a dork, some stay a homebody and others a gamer by night.
This is 2026. To all those who don’t get the life choices of a woman, you belong to cave era so here’s wishing you happy time travel, at the earliest!
Change is the only constant they say. So why does the eventuality of a change scare us, drive us into a frenzy and make us loose our sleep?
Because while humans are highly adaptable, we are drawing comfort from the known, finding cosyness in the routine and grounding ourselves in the familiar. Similarity is what gives us a sense of belonging. Knowledge of what’s coming next lends us confidence of being in control. So when plunged into the unknown, how soon do you find your footing and start calling it home?
Instantaneous recovery
Awareness of the need for change is the first step. Hurray, afterall the first step is the most significant one, without which there would be none of the further ones! It’s more than a superficial scratching the surface or tick off the checklist, it’s way more deeper than that. Awareness awakens the intellect to be cognizant of the VUCA world. It throws light to striving for relevance via going through uncomfortable decisions and taking bold measures.
Desire to participate and support the change. Now that there is acute understanding of the disruption knocking at your door, build up your appetite for it. Both in your spirit and skills. Taking a stock of current state and what this change entails is where the devil lies; exactly in the details. So keep gnawing at the future state to build a rough sketch of the collaboration that would be required to make this change successful.
Knowledge on how to change. Once you are aware and locked in, now is the time to train. Get out in the arena and sharpen your axe. Haggle and learn to handle the ammunition you never had but is needed now – this maybe negotiation skills, operating with a new tool or speaking a new language. Nothing beats being informed via a secondary search so put in all your efforts at this stage.
Ability to implement desired skills and behaviour. Developing capabilty needs patience, calls for consistency and requires relentless efforts. Now that you have clarity on the skills and behaviour required, time to get onto the training zone and upskill self and other recruiters. Afterall it does take a village to bring a change so get your army ready for combating the new terrain.
Reinforcement to sustain the change is critical like the nail in the coffin. Without it all the efforts from the previous steps may be under threat. Afterall a change is only as great as is it’s acceptance. So it is our onus to repeat, reiterate and reinforce the value addition of the disruption. Overselling is far better than under selling so go shameless and keep playing your trumpet on loop until the change becomes the new normal for all stakeholders.
There you are, armed with the strategic and tactical know how of creating positive disruption. If you don’t welcome disruption, it would find a way in anyways. Hence fore- warned is fore-armed when it comes to living in an ever changing world.
Hail all the ‘I told you so’ when everything is done and dusted. Afterall who is not an expert at post-mortems here; we all are isn’t it?! What if you could jump to this step even before you made that big decision. Read on for a step by step guide to do just that.
Before locking in on what’s been decided, how about flipping the narrative. By doing so, you either end up reinforcing your hypothesis or falsifying your assumptions. It’s a win win situation, forcing you to double check before crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s. Every decision is a trade-off you make, with regards to time, money and any other resources you eventually shall invest. So why gamble; be rational and beat your the logical reasoning by being your own best critique.
Double click
PET framework. Don’t get lazy to rethink. & don’t be overzealous to go down a rabbit hole either. Analysis paralysis is what we are avoiding here. Rather time travel and re-look this decision in the future, one year down the line, five years down the line. & do so the PET way i.e., PRIORITIZE, EMPATHIZE, TRAVERSE.
Prioritize the what. Once you made a choice, be clear on the tactical actions required to make it a success. Double click on the underlying tasks and critical factors for success. Even before you doubt the critical thinking that went towards the conclusion, make sure you lay all the bare facts out in the open.
Empathize the why. It is the soft, inner reasoning of why we do what we do. What makes us vote in favour of an outcome fully knowing the odds it faces. The gut decision making factor, the real reason of why we weigh things the way we weigh them.
Traverse the when. Now fast forward to 12-18 months after you having taken this decision. Life has changed and yet is in unchanged. Play out what went right, what went wrong, how things changed due to it. Was the ‘success’ a mere outcome to prove or it brought in a unique value proposition?
This by playing the devil’s advocate, you can validate your assumptions, beliefs and reinforce your success measures. All of this right before making that huge investment, many productive dollar hours saved!
Feeling overwhelmed by all thats surrounds you? Do you think you took a bite too big than you could chew off? It is only wise to build what one can manage, only create as much as you can keep up!
In other words learn to say No. By saying Yes to all things coming your way, you end up doing more harm than good to yourself. Drowning in the self-invited pressure of keeping up with the various commitments you made. By being discernful, you respect your time, guard your space and can eventually have a more efficient headspace.
Another way to look at this is that guarding your calm requires doing things at your own terms. If you are not chasing conventional goals then why keep conventional ways. It is essential that you build systems and processes that can help manage your path to success. Orthodox ways equals othrodox results, perfect formula unless that’s not what you were hoping for.
Anything you build requires maintainance. Anything created requires sustenance. Hence use your energies wisely and be picky. Prioritise relentlessly and ask yourself is this for the long haul? Would I be able to commit to it for a lifetime? Does it add or subtract value from my being? Only then should you expand your horizons. For example a pet is cute to see, but behind all that cuteness is tons of upkeep. Buying the latest fad is easy but piling it up is quite unwise. Aspire to adopt a certain lifestyle, great and do pause to double check your priorities. The thumb rule is if your can’t maintain, don’t get. Leave alone hoard time or resources in that direction.
Do you yearn for the heritage and traditions from your childhood? The ones you saw your grandma consume but no longer exist in mainstream media anymore. While we can’t turn back time, incremental differences can make a splash too.
Mainstream is glamorous, glitzy and positioned as desirable. It promotes consumerism, shapes customer behavior and influences buying patterns. Creating FOMO, leveraging YOLO and what not. Everyone everywhere is dressing the same, eating the same, working the same and consuming the same; essentially being clones of each other. Individualism has lost its charm in this race to fit in.
Plus heritage can be boring, it can be dull and lacklustre. Not everyone has the appetite for traditions and neither can everyone connect to its meaning deeply. In order to make it palatable, only bite sized portions need be served. A dash of heritage with a splash of modernism might have more takers than those with puritan taste.
For instance a hint of classical music or featuring a musical instrument from bygone era in mainstream cinema. Reference of classic literature as best suited in new-age media forms like vlog, blogs, stories or reels. Promoting heritage costumes via positions of influence. Highlighting food recipes in micheline star restaurants which are backed by celebrities or Venture capitalists with deep pockets. Adding personalization to your space by using daily objects containing heritage looms and crafts like furnishing, clothes, interiors.
By embracing the old, you don’t fall out of fashion. Infact it shows a refined taste where you can blend the old world charm with new world sensibilities with ease. Juxtaposing is not everyone’s cup of tea!
The one with all the riches? The one with great health? Or the one with freedom to spend time at their leisure? What was once considered success maybe labelled toxic today. And that which someone aspires maybe what someone else despises!
Historically success had a very clear, narrow and rigid definition. As you started making a living, expectations were that your earnings double, assets grow commensurately and then an ostentatious display of this wealth would announc to the world that you had arrived!
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As most of the world reeled under the aftermath of the world wars, famines and other such crisis of humanity; this seemed a clear path to success. You were to make your survival sustainable and lineage last. In a nutshell survival of the fittest, adapted by humans to meet their social expectations. Fair and square.
Conventional success called for conventional labels. And times have changed. We are no longer plagued by existential crisis. It is (some may say) an easier world to survive in today. Not many an educated graduates have to squander for the basics of Maslow’s hierarchy. But at the same time, basics remain the same for all. Those with a cushion, aspire a higher launch pad and can be choosy about what they want to succeed in. Those with a not so privileged start aim to be atleast ‘there’.
To those who can, should chase their aspirations. Should choose their passion over convenience. Not saying it would be any easy, rigour is expected when you want to make it long lasting and sustainable. Choose flexibility over rigidness and balance over obsession. To those who can dare, get uncomfortable making tough choices!
Dreaming, wishing, thinking? Good And bad. Good because that’s how humans grow. Bad because beyond this what is required is action. To turn things into reality, to bring life to what’s been in the air until now.
Have you often caught yourself day-dreaming? Wishing for more riches in life? Hoping for things to fall into your lap? Desiring that your mind’s wishlist come true one day? Well it’s amazing that your keep a wishlist, that you desire more in life and that you hope for betterment.
SoWhat next?
But what after that? Hasn’t it been long waiting for the magic to happen. Time to wake up! & smell the reality. To take charge of what you can do. To chalk out a rough draft. To build a plan of conquering that wishlist. To put things into action. To bring to life the dreams you dreamt of.
And how do I move?
Easier said than done. Roll up your sleeves and do some digging. Research the critical factors required for success. Size up whether you have the right ingredients. Take baby steps with all this information. It would be scary to execute; so far all you made was a strategic path, now what you need is the courage to bring it to life.
Build A Accountability Stack
Take your closed group into confidence. Share your dreams and vulnerabilities with a chosen few. Make yourself accountable. Document your process, plan and progress. Big or small, consistency is the name of the game. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to start small.
If you are reading thus far, clearly you are committed to turning your dreams into a reality. So treat yourself special and prioritize taking action. Victory always calls for courage.
Sip, click, eat, click, post! Taking off, click, Touched down, click, Exploring new places, multiple clicks, post! Made coffee click, picked a book to read, click, post! From mundane to exotic, every moment gets framed, touched up & broadcasted.
Talk of peer pressure, this is the zenith of it. Every age group; whether the baby-boomer granny or the collegian Gen-Z, is constantly feelling cornered to glorify their lives. To show-off to their peers how ‘happening’ their life is. It’s like a never ending hurdle race, one with no guardrails too. Someone goes all elaborate to synthesize a reel with the perfect soundtrack, somebody hastily posts a story while another sits for hours creating a perfect post with meaningful captions. And then there are those who just dump it all on their chat, making sure everyone they interact with can see their ‘status’.
I got it too!
All this for what? For fulfilling the deep seated need of getting acknowledged. Seeking external validation. Displaying how ‘rich’ you are. Parading precious moments of your life to make it else’s fodder. Showcasing your inner vulnerabilities or just responding to fear of FOMO. Not that every social share is intentional but these are the reasons underneath the surface.
But isn’t reality far from the glamourous life portrayed? That hike with the perfect sling bag is more of a ramp walk in nature. Those captures shot by a drone camera are more of a ostentatious display of lifestyle than soaking the place. In essence, what you see is what they show you. And like always there are industry secrets. Beneath the rosy updates is the struggle to get one good shot, edit carefully, catch the right lighting, find the perfect soundtrack, post at an appropriate time to get most eyeballs and so on.
Let’s embrace living IRL. Try being outside the frame for once. Free from the burden of perfection, moving at your own pace. Clicking with your eyes, capturing with your ears and letting your nerve endings feel the rush. Afterall it’s hard to explain all of this to someone who thinks sitting by the pool was the greatest time ever! But then to each her own, as long as it recharges your body, mind & soul.
It is said that thoughts become us. But then thoughts we generate are also completely in our hands. While the output of all our other organs is involuntary, our thoughts are quite in our voluntary control. Not easy, but then what is?!
The journey to training our monkey mind is tough. It requires patience and a great amount of training. Just like Rome wasnt built in a day. But then the first step is always the hardest, and a beginning made with complete intention and awareness is always purposeful.
To train a monkey mind to become a monk mind isn’t easy. You have to train yourself to see the world differently. You got to stop fighting the multiple versions arising within, so that peace can come to you. In tactical world, it means practising mindfulness, ekagrata towards one task. So that when you do, you do just that one task and avoid meandering your mind in lost alleys.
Near yet far
Once you are aware, remember you got to stop carrying the world on your shoulders. Releasing things from your locus will grant you more calm. By concentrating on your breathing alone, you can be more still and mindful. If every living breathe could be felt, lived and experienced, our mind would rarely wander stray!
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