Turning 28

Below are the 28 points I learned from last year:

1. Utilize time with a baby. I have strongly expressed my disinterest in having kids, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy their company. They are nothing but bundles of joy and innocence (you can always return them to their parents if things don’t play out well).
2. Use a loofah. It has nothing to do with your gender. It helps in using less amount of soap and aids in exfoliation.
3. Invest in quality shoes and luggage. The ROI is extremely high, especially if you are into rugged outdoor activities.
4. If you love to be in control, embrace spontaneity. For a planning freak like me, accepting spontaneity has always been difficult. I have been writing consistently for the past 4 months, and unlike my other pursuits for which I usually plan rigorously (and fail to execute), I didn’t do any planning for my writing. Sometimes, it is important to shock your system, and it’ll certainly surprise you.
5. While shaping your beard, don’t go for the final look right away. Progress into it; leave enough buffer and trim.
6. Prolonged exposure to motivational content can be counter-intuitive.
7. Sanitize your contact list regularly. There is no value in holding on to people and their contact details if there is absolutely no value addition to your life. (But, what if I need their number in the future? Those what-ifs!)
8. When your heroes fall off the pedestal, remember to take ownership of that behavior too. A bureaucrat I admired got mixed in an accident that killed someone. It was difficult for me to not support him, but I eventually sobered from my hero worship.
9. The easiest way for a woman to give you her number is for you to not ask in the first place.
10. Best to make a fool out of yourself dancing, rather than sitting in the audience. My dance moves have always been mechanical, especially because I am image-conscious. One of the key rules I followed when I attended weddings last year was to not sit in the audience when the dance floor was on.
11. In his podcast, Lex Fridman asked Eric Weinstein “what are you most proud of”? He responded ‘Trying’. I finally mustered the courage to act on a few things I had been postponing, and it made me realize what Amelia Earhart said about fear: The fears are paper tigers.
12. Learning to shut up and listen. This is one of the most important lessons I learned about communication from last year. It takes a lot of courage to hold your guns from firing.
13. Maintain a good credit card history. I have 6 credit cards with a significant cumulative credit limit. I would skip a meal, but not my payments. This discipline has come handy whenever I was in dire need of money.
14. Your friend’s wedding will go as planned even if you don’t show up. We create this pressure on ourselves to be there for people when we actually can’t or don’t want to.
15. Don’t ignore; let people know you are busy or you are just not feeling it. Normalize the idea of saying you are not in the mood to talk rather than keeping the other person hanging for a response.
16. Death of a closed one makes you fragile and strong. I lost 3 people (Sanjay, Venky, and my grandfather) close to me over the last year, and none of the literature I had consumed about death prepared me for the surreal storm.
17. You can win every single day, provided the outcome of the activity is within your control (Inner locus of control).
18. There is a difference between showing kindness and being a doormat. You can be firm about your opinions and still show kindness.
19. The first step to personal development is to accept you are a hypocrite. Whether we like it or not, there is always an attempt to conceal our true personality traits.
20. It is best to not get identified with any labels or tags. Be it an ideology, philosophy, or even a political party, all of them have their vices. An approach I follow is to absorb what makes sense to me and ignore the rest.
21. The moment an ambitious goal is planned, the brain immediately starts coming up with ideas that need to be executed other than the goal. It is the easiest indicator that the goal must be pursued.
22. Humility is a tool that will help you connect instantly with people from above and below the chain of command. I travel regularly for work and I meet new people every week. Humility, rather than downright aggression has helped in influencing people. Everyone likes to get their ego massaged.
23. Create art without worrying about aesthetics.
24. Opt-out of races that don’t matter to you. Probably you got into something out of compulsion or for social conformance. Check out the article (which later got published into a book) written by Elle Luna about the crossroads of should and must.
25. Don’t judge a banana by its skin. The black spots are in no way an indication of the fruit’s condition. I have been consciously trying to use this philosophy for people, and the truth is: I sometimes judge them by their outer appearance. Lately, I have made some progress when it comes to judging people and bananas.
26. The efficient way of brushing your teeth is to hold the brush at 45 degrees to the gum and making circular motions.
27. You’re not a failure because of a moment of weakness. The number of times I have ditched something just because I had a moment of weakness and deviated from my “perfect plan” is mind-boggling.
28. One of my students taught me the power of asking. For Keralites, Vishu is the harvest festival and elders usually give children money as hansel. This student reminded me of Kaineetam (Malayalam word for hansel)the night before Vishu and I told her I wasn’t going to give her money. The next day, I decided to give her money (through Gpay :P) solely because of the way she persuaded me to. Sometimes, we are arms-length away from things we want, but we miss out because we are shy to ask. Sometimes, you just need to ask!