#miscBetter

On failing. And getting back up.

As the first month of 2018 is officially over, here’s a time to look back. Without trying to link back to posts and give evidence of promises, here is a list of things that I failed (and won) at, #in2018.

In no order,

A. I decided to take up the 2019in2018 challenge. Was on it for a few days in the beginning of the year but with time I lost the plot.

I want to end the year at 30″ and its going to take superhuman effort from here on. A large part of it will be diet. And a smaller part (not so small) will be working out. I had thought that I will start with daily walks, easing into jogs and then eventually a run. Ending in an attempt at HM. But January has been disappointing. Lets see whats in store for Feb.

B. A few people I know IRL went and came back from JLF. And their twitter feeds tell me that as someone who’s interested in the writing scene, I ought to be there. To be honest, not sure if I want to be on the stage at all the litfests around the world but would love to have an opportunity to be at a place where my books are sold.

No, I dont want fame. I merely want to tell stories, create time to write and of course make money. I am ok if my books get published under a pseudonym and all I get is royalties. Actually, thats an idea there. Need to think more.

Back to the point. I want to get the second book out. And I want to get #BetterYou out this year. Both are stuck. Because I dont have time to work on em. And why do I not have the time? Because I am stuck in the rut :(.

Ok. Cribbing.

Point is, need to get back to writing.

C. I wanted to work on my waning mental faculty. For the same, I wanted to start with these app-based games that apparently train the brain. And, I’ve been able to more or less do this!

Yay!

So, a win. Phew.

Been playing on Peak and havent missed too many days. And there’s a marked improvement in my scores. May be I am getting used to the games that Peak makes me play. May be I am actually improving. Irrespective. A win. Something that is needed to create habits (you know, the trigger, action, reward triad?)

D. I had started posting a pic a day on my instagram last year. It went well for a few days and then I lost the plot. All those things that they say that make habits if you do something for 21 days? Yawn.

I need to restart it. For two reasons. One, it allowed me to stay curious about the world around me. And, two, it made me a better photographer and a storyteller. Every pic I uploaded, I would think about what the pic meant to me and I would be forced to pen my thoughts bout em.

Did you follow the thread? You want to tell me what you liked about it most?

Just realised that I still have issues with means or meant. Present tense, past tense and all other tenses. Need to fix em. Where do I start?

E. I dont know if I have spoken about this earlier but I’ve been tracking each day of my life since (well, most days) 23 May 2017. I started with a daily log of work and all and with time I have expanded it and most days I track 32 variables. Starting 26 Jan 2018, I have started tracking what I eat. And since day before I’ve started tracking some 20 other tiny things on Nomie (inspired by Thej). I dont know what would I do with all the data but I like the feeling that I will be able to look back at a random date and see what I was upto.

For example, on 12 Aug 2017 (I promise I cooked up this date to give you a case in point), I did the following…

Was in Delhi for an event at Andaz (which is an awesome hotel)
Met Vanita, Kunal, Ankit
Spoke to Jinal and Parry about things that they are working on

You get the drift?

So, net net, its a win. It keeps me grounded. Keeps me going. Gives me a semblance of stability in a world that is in perpetual chaos.

F. I started maintaining a daily journal at the beginning of the year. Again, after the first week I havent been able to do much about it. Will restart it. I think I got stuck with it because I did not know to write on it. Do you maintain one? What do you write on it?

G. I have not played pool in 2 months I think. Before I did that big project at Bangalore last year, I was getting in 2-3 sessions a week. I need to find a way to spend more time around home. May be on the Maker days? Start with a session of squash / yoga, shoot some pool, write and create. Thrice a week. Lol. Wishful thinking, Mr. Garg.

H. As I write this, I am in HCMC, trying to put together an event for a client. And since I’ve been here, I havent done any of those “daily” things that I am supposed to do (Peak, photos on insta, writing, daily journal etc). I realised that its tough to do anything when you are on the road. Immense respect to the ones who are on the road and get things done. How?

Oh, and I carried a pair of running shoes with me on this trip, hoping I will go for a run each day. Lol, high hopes.

***

So, yeah, that was January of 2018. Not exactly what I wanted it to be. I remain cognisant and aware. Lets buck up in February and beyond.

PS: While writing this post I realised that the marathon, lit fest and others are all “properties” owned by event companies. Why can’t I be the one to create something like this? #note2self and to Team @ C4E.

Hello, iPhone

I dont know if you noticed that I moved to an Android phone sometime last year. The objective was two fold. A, I wanted a phone with a longer battery life. This means that iPhone was not gonna cut it. And B, I wanted to be more efficient by not wasting time on social media (twitter, insta etc). And I dint want to just mute notifications but also remove the access to these apps that are big time-syncs.

So, been on Android past few weeks and while I am getting used to the shenanigans of an Android fast, I am going back to an iPhone. Why?

A, Aesthetics. An iPhone offers a far better experience. In terms of navigation, reading, phone features and others. Ofcourse Android allows for a deeper integration with Google Suite (I literally run my life on Google) but I am willing to give it up for usability. And there’s a lesson there. Form over function. Lol. In the real life you ought to have a balance of two. More on this some other day, in some other blogpost.

B, Battery. I use a MI Phone as my Android device. When I got it, the battery would outlast the iPhone’s. But now, after like 3 months of usage, the battery performance is worse than than of an iPhone. And no, I dont have the heart to invest in a better Android phone for a longer battery life.

So, back to the iPhone and back to being tethered to a battery pack!

C, Privacy. I am told that Apple offers better privacy and protection against data theft, hackers and all that. Not sure. I mean who would want to hack into my life? I gave it up when I queued up to get the Aadhar enrolment done.

P.S.: At this point, lemme take backup of my blog, lest some hacker gets offended. Done.

D, Self-moderation. I want to try self-moderation rather than enforcing abstinence from distractions. I have traditionally sucked at this. But I want to try and see how this goes.

Thats about it. Nothing more, nothing less. Guess its a thing I want to do for some reason and rather than having all the rational answers, I am merely rationalising. And thats’ the thing to learn from this post – rational vs rationalising.

P.S.: My average blogpost runs into1000+ words. This one is like 500 words and something seems off. No?
P.P.S.: And no, this is not part of any of the themes that I had said I will write about. So, this goes under #miscBetter.

Fork in the road

So, Yogi Berra apparently said, “when you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Here’s a fork.

Starting today, I am moving my personal rants to a closed blog. No access to it ever. Its like an echoChamber.

This makes the number of blogs I (try to) maintain upto 523321842. Of course apart from this one and the one I maintain for C4E, most remain dormant. I will work on those at some point in time.

For the time being, to know more about the fork, please refer to this short QnA I did with, well, myself!

So what happens to the War of Words?
It stays! Stays the way it is. Except posts where I get super critical about myself. Those go on my personal blog.

I will not post things related to work here. Those things go on C4E blog. Or may be on S101. Or I dont know where. But not here. This has been and shall remain a place where I park my personal thoughts (dude, all thoughts ARE personal). Fuck all the jazz about building personal brands and all that. This is me. And thats how it will be.

Oh, some posts will go on multiple blogs. But this blog will become a repository of EVERY post that I write. Except the ones that I write for myself, for the echoChamber.

Why this segregation?
As I grow up in life (lol), I am beginning to realise my raison d’etre (though I cant pronounce the word yet, damn French or whatever language is) — a billion lives, a billion dollars and The Everest. And to do that, I need to be able to get access to people, ideas, opportunities and other things that will enable me to fulfill the purpose.

And that wont happen if I am known as someone who’s super critical about things.

Thing is, I think, to do large things, you need a tinge of irrationality, the blind faith in your ability and a big dollop of hope. Not a pragmatic, critical, type A personality – which I think I am. So I need to get out of the mould. And to do that I will have to do ~~some~~ lot of things that I havent done in the past. Such as be conscious of the signals that I send out. No, I dont mean that I will stop being who I am (last few days, have got so many lessons on authenticity that I would be a fool to get away from it). But that means that I will consciously chase things rather than letting them happen to me. And if that means changing how the blog sounds like, I will do it. This year, by hook or by crook, I have to make it big. And I am on my way.

Ok I am digressing. Next question please.

You must be nuts, dude.
You dint know that already?

Actually, more than nuts, I think I am like Louis. And this blog, is like Norma – a consistent echo-chamber that has been around since I think I have started thinking.

Coming back, what about your fans? The ones who read this blog religiously?
Lol! You gotta be kidding me! Fans hote hain #bhairoxx ke. Humare to readers hai. Wo bhi ek-do. And they’d understand. Any more questions?

How will the shape of this blog change as we go along?
I dont know that. I gave it a cursory glance and tried to read it like a stranger would. Here’s what I think of WoW as a stranger.

First thing is that most posts are long by the snacky-listicles standards that we are used to seeing on the Internet. Boring for most people who spend time online. Assuming that someone does stumble upon something they do want to read, to people who dont know the author, all the posts would remain meaningless. Each posts requires way too much context before someone could make sense. Even if you have “fans” from the book, dont think they’d be keen on reading what you rant about. Agreed there are posts about how you’re trying to improve and all that. But then, as a stranger, am I interested? Dont know.

Also, side note. Most blogs tend to have a theme – say technology, writing, design, marketing et al. This blog has no theme. Its a potpourri of things that the blogger is interested in. I will never bookmark because the interests are so varied that its tough to track. Plus none of the posts is deep. I mean the dude is clearly not an expert on any topic that he writes on. So, why would I read it?

Ok. So, if I need to chase the ambitions, I need to try and talk to people who’s push me ahead on the path of those ambitions. That means I will have to talk about impacting people and inspiring them (essentially about making better decisions, pushing thyself, learning new things, identifying the limitations, failure, life, making the world a better place, et al), money (work, opportunities, ideas etc. P.S: Of course I will not get into specifics. Those will go on work blog. Here, I will talk about lessons am taking home, the mistakes am making and pitfalls that I am getting stuck in) and the Everest (fitness, the journey, baby steps that am taking towards it etc.).

I will need to create deep, meaningful content that has to be contextual to the themes that I am chasing. For example, if I want to write about brands, I need to make it so relevant, so interesting that marketers actually want to read it! Makes sense.

May be the blog needs to get three distinct headers. Say, wow.in/inspire, wow.in/work, wow.in/everest. And each talks about a certain thing. Whoever is interested in whatever section can choose to read that section alone and then come back to it. Or not. Depending on how they like it.
a

Wait. Where do things like poker, travel, short stories et al go?
Ummm… they could go under personal?

Lol! that’s where you started. No?
Ok. They could go under inspire. And the content could be lessons I learn from various incidents that prompted me to write that particular post.

For stuff like short stories and other projects that I announce regularly, may be I do need to create a section called misc. or something that I can dump everything in. And with time, try and reduce the amount of content I create for the misc bucket.

Yes yes. Makes sense. Carry on.
That’s it dude. Nothing else to carry on with. Lets just do it. So 4 sections or themes as we go along. Be Better (inspired by well, inspire), Work Better (inspired by work), Live Better (inspired by Everest) and Misc. You’d probably notice em on the sidebar (for the time being till I figure out the new design etc).

All the best!
Thank you, it was a pleasure. Oh, if you are reading this, any thoughts? Inputs? Please?

P.S.: Love this echochamber!