Kartik Sharma's Blog, page 4

I would take both, I think.

I would take both, I think. Sometimes you need to chill and sometimes you need to be a superman. Doing either one of those for extended periods seems like a bad idea, though.

I don’t think banning this drug or even fighting against it, is a good idea. If there are side effects or long term harmful effects it’s a different story. But if it’s safe and not unhealthy, let people use this to “make a better world” for themselves!

Also, I can totally imagine a sci-fi novel on this. A new class based politics where one group is forced to take the red pill and another forced to take the blue one.

Thank you for sharing!

Bulb or laser?

On Choosing to Fit-in vs. Being Your Better SelfFeels like it describes you? Me too.

As I was driving to work this morning, I chanced upon a thought — most of us, in our everyday jobs, are either bulbs or lasers. Before you laugh and go away, let me try and explain the metaphor.

A laser-type person is someone who is typically seen as being extremely focused on a problem, whenever there is one, and not letting go till it’s solved. Deep problem solving skills coupled with an ability to think comprehensively on an issue are typical traits of such people.

A laser-type person’s weakness is that it’s hard for him/her to focus on the big picture that’s an amalgamation of several agendas, people and conflicting priorities. It’s harder still for them to understand the interests of others and consider all the factors in play in a situation. It can be exhausting. Well, let me correct that slightly and say that if they put their mind to it, they can do it with a laser sharp focus, but it doesn’t come to them naturally. Ever tried to use a laser light to try and find your way around a dark room? It’s certainly not impossible, but it is sub-optimal. The laser will discharge before you can find your way.

Another shortcoming of the laser folks may be that because they are very focused on the big thing for the day, they might not be able to take in and/or process all the inputs from their surroundings. They might pick up a few things that are directly relevant for their purpose and have an inattentional blindness to the rest.

Lasers would make great analysts, researchers. Think Elon Musk. Ok, maybe I went too​ far with that. Think Sachin Tendulkar. Alright, I confess, I think I am laser-type. So I am looking for super star examples.

But seriously, Sachin is, was and will remain the best batsman for a long, long time. He advanced the game of cricket with his passion for batting. But he wasn’t a great captain, was he? This is not to say that laser-type folks are self obsessed. Not even that they are focused only on individual brilliance. But it probably does mean that they rely a lot on their own individual brilliance.

Bulb folks, on the other hand, are people who are really good at understanding the big picture. What they lack in deep problem solving skills, they more than make up for in understanding the priorities of the audience. What use is that complex excel macro (aside from the high you get from the stimulation of just the right intellectual nodes in your brain :P) if the people you make it for cannot make head or tail of it’s use case?

Maybe a laser (wo)man can manage that bit, maybe not. But let’s imagine a case where the final deployment or uptake of that macro enabled excel tool depends on getting a buy in from a large number of people in multi-functional teams? More often than not, you would need to navigate a sea of people involved on the project each of whom have their own targets to meet and goals to achieve and hence have diverging expectations.

You are a bulb if you thought — “Well, of course. Bring it on!” And a laser if you thought, “Ah, f*! Why can’t I work on the next macro already and leave this to others?”

The bulb-type people are the true guiding lights for any team. They will tell you, especially if you are walking around in the dark with a laser, that you will break your toe against the center table if you continue down the path you are on.

Of course the bulbs have plenty of individual brilliance. But they don’t rely on their individual brilliance exclusively. They tend to be more inclusive and believe that as a team you can achieve more than as an individual.

Think MS Dhoni. Think Obama.

This got me thinking that a bulb and a laser of same wattage are both equally intelligent, equally useful — but they are to be used very differently. Like you don’t find your way in a dark room with a laser, you don’t shoot your enemy with a bulb strapped to your gun.

While of course these are two extremes and there’s an entire continuum between the two, respond to the post with your thoughts and which of bulb or laser you think you identify more with! Don’t forget to recommend the post by clicking on the heart!

PS: If you are thinking about the brightest shining example of the mid-point on that continuum, think Sherlock Holmes!

Generic parting thoughts:

It’s important to understand which you identify more with — a bulb or a light — and embrace that understanding. The world needs you to be the best version of your true self. Not the best version of you that it think it needs.

Wow! That’s good to know .

Wow! That’s good to know . Seems like a lot of things are at play here. While the novetly related excitement can’t be sustained for too long, I wonder why Amazon is supporting paperback sales through the pricing strategy mentioned in the article. My book is very reasonably priced at $1.55 for the Kindle version.

I feel that this is yet to play out!

E-book vs. Paperback

And thoughts on other trends in readership

I, as a reader these days, want to experiment as much as I can. I have my favorite authors, don’t get me wrong, and I try and read as many of their books as I can. Sometimes over and over again! But I also find myself looking out for different voices, for different genres. I think good books go a long way on the road to self discovery. And I feel spoiled for options! It gives me scope to explore and find a genuine, authentic voice — or a voice that just resonates with me.

I think classics will forever stay ‘classics’. For me, their stature is an unchallenged one. There would always be takers for them. It sometimes seems like now there is a general trend where people are preferring more contemporary books. But I hope people read classics every once in a while. For me, classics serve as an anchor to literature. While Saramago, Marquez, Toni Morrison push the boundaries of literature and make the universe we love larger, we also need an anchor to not lose ourselves in this ever changing, experimental neo-literature world.

I think e-books are amazing! They facilitate a world of readers without physical and geographical boundaries. Earlier, a domestic publisher might have restricted authors to his geography — at least till he was discovered by a global house. Not any more though. Almost all publication houses are now making a Kindle format available for the books they publish. Authors are now also publishing books with Amazon directly. They can reach a much wider audience with that tool. So it is a good move for literature and authors. Anything that’s a bridge, and not a wall, is always a welcome change.

I guess readers are also opening up to the idea of e-books more and more. They realize the benefit of reading little known authors from all parts of the world, they are increasingly conscious of saving paper. Someday, a new generation, while they are still kids and taking baby steps into the world of books, would start reading e-books directly. Since they wouldn’t know the feeling of holding a book, they might actually be agnostic towards the choice. I also get a sense that youngsters these days are sometimes attracted to a gadget first and then figure out what it can do for them. Whatever gets people hooked to reading, right?

I, however, am a little regressive in that regard. I have a kindle, but I have read only a couple of books on that. I am reading Les Miserables on it because of the sheer weight of the paperback. And it seems incomplete, somehow. For me, nothing can replace the pleasure of holding a book, the sense of touching the paper to turn the leaf, the smell… But I think reading is evolving and it is more practical to read e-books and the romantics, like yours truly, can only try to ignore the evolution and live in denial. The world around us constantly changing — more so now than ever before. In time, a major chunk of readership may migrate to the digital. But for our generation the love for the hard-bounds and paperbacks is bound to stay.

Sometimes, the end is in the journey.

Sometimes, the end is in the journey. Sometimes, it’s in the thoughts and memories of the people you’ve love and those who’ve loved you. It’s inconsequential if Amina reunites with Gabriel because he never left her in Amina’s meta-phyisical world. A thing he ensured by leaving a part of him with her in the physical one.

(In)Complete

Amina sat by the small fire she had built outside the barracks she was staying at. She took out her diary and started writing the day’s journal. It was a habit with her, documenting what she experienced, every day. She did not want to forget anything she saw. On her dull days, she read her journals and relived her past sojourns. She recorded what she saw, to one day be able to recite these to the one person she was looking for. She needed to tell him all that she had seen whenever they met. If they ever met.

Lost in her longing and hope of meeting the man she owed everything, she turned back to the first page. It had blotched patches of ink juxtaposed with a beautiful handwriting. She remembered how her tears had fallen over her words, immortalizing the pain she had felt.

As her mind drifted, she found her vision blurring. Or did her vision blur, so that her mind could drift? The eyes, they had always seemed to have a will of their own. Refusing to do their job, they forced her to indulge her nostalgia; forced her past to trespass into her present, riding the memory train. It brought back the horrid times when she had been truly happy — a fleeting happiness that destroyed her world in its wake.

Yes, she had been in love once. She had loved dearly. What they had together, what they shared were the most beautiful emotions Amina had ever felt. But that is what love does. It romanticizes and makes everything grander in retrospect, she heard her logical self argue with her true self.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. All I know is what I felt during that phase of my life. Everything was better, our handicaps did not seem to matter. We completed each other, not only by overcoming our physical limitations through the complementary nature of our defects, but also emotionally. How can you deny that? It is the truth…

It was around the time she had started her Masters in Developmental Studies, when she had met Gabriel. He was a quadriplegic. He had been in a war, in his country. “We had many wars back then. I don’t even remember which one or even whom I was fighting,” she remembered Gabriel telling her. The war had taken away his faculty of movement. He had come to Amina’s country, seeking refuge from his own. His surroundings reminded him of his athletic days and his love for all sports. He could not play anymore and watching the sports only heightened his bitterness. Amina was the balm to his pain.

She recalled how Gabriel used to lie next to her, reminiscing, for hours together: sometimes about his countryside, sometimes his war. His voice, his words painted a world for Amina. Her imagination took flight and she felt his country better than she had ever felt her own. She felt like she belonged there. She felt she belonged to Gabriel.

Her heart skipped a beat, fearing where her mind was going next. She shook her head and forced her eyes to focus on something to derail the memory train. Out of the blur, her journal materialized into focus. First page — at the start. When she had opened her eyes for the first time in the hospital. No, she hadn’t just been born, but the experience had been quite like that. It was the most eventful day in her life.

Gabriel had brought Amina news of her surgery. The most beautiful gift she could have ever dreamt of. Such joy she had experienced at just the thought of it. She had forgotten to ask any questions, fearing she would wake up from the dream. She had waited all her life for a donor and it had finally happened. Gabriel had come with her to the hospital. He was with her when she was being prepped for the surgery and left her side only after she was anaesthetized.

When she recovered from the effects of the anesthesia, she asked for Gabriel. She took in the reaction of the doctors and nurses in the silence, her heart sinking. The room stank of their tension. But she was fighting against her logical self and would dare not venture where it was taking her…

Amina was born blind. She, however, had learned to live, and not just manage, without being bogged down by an obvious handicap.

Her mental development had been acute, because her mind was extremely keen. It wanted to take in and process everything. “Vision makes the mind lazy,” a ten year old Amina had declared to her mother, “I have four working senses.” Indeed, she had an extremely developed olfactory sense and perceived most objects around her with an acute sense of hearing.

She could tell the height of the person speaking to her, through the angle at which the voice was coming from. She could tell the length of the car, and the speed it was moving at through the sound it made while passing her. With her sharp memory, she could remember where everything was, once she had sensed it.

Her world existed in a complex code of sound and smell signals. Even the inane objects, which we see but refuse to register in our conscious memory, letting them slip into the subconscious, drew her attention and affixed her gaze.

Gabriel was enamored with Amina’s passion. Her zest for life, because of her handicap not in spite of it, made her very different from Gabriel. Though healing, he knew he could never embrace life the way Amina did.

Her fingers involuntarily pulled out her only connection to the man she loved.Tucked between the pages, buried in there was a note he had left by her hospital bed.

“One complete life. Better than two incomplete ones.”

Amina felt the irony of having lived the darkest moment of her life with a brand new pair of eyes.

We depend on others

Conversation with an Uber driver

I was in San Jose this week on a work trip but thankfully found some time with my friends too. It was a beautiful trip. But I did have to work on one of the days and that made me take an Uber.

The driver was Mexican and he missed his home. He asked me where I was from since it was quite obvious that I was here for work — I was dressed in a business suit and was picked up outside the office complex. When I told him that I was from India, he did one of those sighs that seems to communicate empathy, without using too many words. “That’s far,” he said. “Yes,” I replied. “Very far.”

“Half way across the world, isn’t it?”

“That is correct.”

“Did you take a direct flight?”

“No,” I said. “I had a stopover in Abu Dhabi.”

“They made you check-in your laptop?”

“Yes,” I replied. “And one of the passengers on the flight was very upset because he found his laptop crushed. Apparantly, the airlines staff is not gentle with the bags. Who knew!”

Laughs. “But I would never take a direct flight,” he said. “I am afraid that they might run out of fuel. It is a really long direct flight, yes?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking, “but they must really plan for these things, I guess. They won’t take any undue risk.”

“Maybe,” he replied, thinking. “But I would still be scared.”

Silence.

“You know what,” he said, after a long pause, “I just realized that we depend on other people to get anywhere.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Like I depend on you bringing me home safely right now.”

Laughs. “Yes,” he said, “that too. But you know whenever we are taking any flight or train or cab for that matter, we are putting our lives in the hands of other people hoping that they know what they are doing. It’s a little scary, no?”

“I’ve never really thought about it,” I said. “But that is definitely correct.”

“Hmm,” he said, thinking.

Of course we spoke of other things on the ride. But they were mundane (population of India — compared to the US, size of the country — compared to the US and Uber in India — compared to the competition) and this is the segment that stuck with me.

Needless to say, I gave him 5 stars and tons of complements on the app. Apparently, in the US Uber you can actually select a feedback option that says “Great Conversation”! That’s thoughtful.

No matter how individualistic the society becomes, we depend on other people around us more and more. We use lesser words, we don’t socialize over dinners as much as we did a generation ago. We don’t randomly walk over to our neighbour’s house anymore at 5:30 PM to have tea with them. But we do depend on people to get anything done. The biggest change, however, is that the people we depend on now are strangers — car makers, train makers, plane makers and people who are involved in fuelling and flying them. Among several others, of course. We depend increasingly little our neighbours or cousins or the closest friends for survival. We do depend on them for good times, though.

Not surprising then that we are also starting to have stimulating, thought provoking conversations with these strangers too! I may not know (or remember) the names of my pilots, airline staff, etc. but Jorge — the driver of a Subaru Forester, I do know yours now.

Transcending Mediocrity

Quest of the one-true passion, the balance and a peaceful state of mind

I recently started a new job and I thought it’s only fair to update medium before LinkedIn. Brownie points, anyone?

About the new job — it is a much wider role than my previous one, so a lot more responsibility. The opportunity is truly exciting and that’s why I decided to take the leap. The logic part seemed in place, now I need to see if the faith part pans out too.

So, a couple of weeks in the new role, I haven’t experienced enough to say that it’s a good move, but judging solely by the peripherals (salary, perks and benefits) it seems like a leg up. My friends and family tell me that I’ve done well for myself, but as I was boarding a long haul business class flight for the first time in my life, I found myself thinking that it’s hard to accept that.

Why?

I think, maybe, it’s easier to get things that you never really care too much for. For me, although I give my 100% to my job, at some level there’s a detachment from it. I care, just about the right amount, I think. This lets me be a little more spontaneous, a little less analytical. And the amount I am less analytical helps me avoid the analysis paralysis which is typical of me for things I care deeply about. Hint: it’s writing. Sorry, that wasn’t a hint. I just gave it away, didn’t I?

In January this year I completed my second novel, which is a young-adult adventure/comedy. I quite like the draft manuscript (‘of course’, I hear you think). But I am having a hard time with trying to find a home for the book. It’s not easy, you see. Especially given that I am not half as talented as the greats and I am not even giving 10% of my time with the pushes and pulls of the work place.

When my first book got published, 6 years ago, I felt it was the coolest thing ever. I felt invincible and on top of the world. Now, that seems about as distant as a dream of ever publishing a book that I once had. The fear of being a one-book writer has started sinking in. And point being, I find myself focusing on this part more than the good things on the job.

With this second novel, I feel like I really poured myself into the book and failed. That hits hard, doesn’t it? I feel that because the job stuff, for me, ticks on the side, I get things. A measured irreverence is good for us. It creates enough of that swashbuckling attitude that you need to be good at things.

Now, one way to look at it would be that it’s not a complete failure. Writing a book is a creative process. It is a subjective and a risky undertaking. Not pouring myself into it would have been a certain failure. But not being able to publish could have still turned me into a total worry wart and a nut, had I been pursuing it full time. I did transcend mediocrity in some sense, but that’s never enough. You want success in the things that really matter.

That brings me back the purpose of writing this article: for those of you who are pursuing their passion full time, you need to try and not be too hard on yourself.

Pursuing your passion, full time especially, comes with it’s own bag of stress. Everthing seems really critical and every slip up feels like you are dropping the ball. And the pains from not being able to succeed all the time feel nothing like you’ve ever experienced before or thought possible. Pains that permeate your flesh, bones and organs and strike at your soul. But​ pains that also remind you that you’re alive. That you are doing the one thing that makes sense. The pain that’s also sweet in some masochistic, but romantic, way. And for that, we need to learn to be happy. This pain is one of the most beautiful things we’ll feel in our lifetime. So cherish it. There’s nothing that can replace it if it’s taken away, for example by giving up the pursuit. Life will feel shallow without it. But you know that already, don’t you?

Now a part of the problem is also understanding and accepting the fact that you are pursuing your true passion. I am not sure yet exactly why we sometimes don’t want to accept this. It may have something to do with the fear of committing to it. The fear is natural because you don’t want to feel more stressed than you already do. You want to maintain a certain degree of deniability in case it ever gets too much and you want to quit. But if you are doing what you wanted to do and it is a true passion for you, say that with pride. Commit to it with words because you’ve already done so in spirit.

I do understand the logic that it’s not a simple yes or no question as to whether what you are doing right now is your one true passion or not. You might really like what you are doing right now, but you don’t feel like it’s engaging the whole of you. You might feel like you have more to give, and hence must continue the hunt for the big one. You allow yourself a certain degree of constant dissatisfaction so that it doesn’t hinder your quest. But it’s not necessary that you’ll find it. So, I think it is fair to have a time-specific passion. So let’s say, that between 26–32, I am going to be super passionate about public health, for example. I am going to make my job my one-true passion, because I do enjoy it a lot. Nothing has ever made me want to commit myself voluntarily to this degree and the work truly engages me — intellectually and spiritually.

But when you completely embrace it, never should you ever say that you don’t know what you want from life. Stop, at least briefly, looking for that elusive one true passion and pour yourself into your current passion. Once you commit to the current passion, the way of life it affords, you can proceed to the next stage — now that I have all that I ever wanted, how do I find peace in it?

It is critical to get to that question first. Because without that, your brain will always tell you that giving up this way of life, this current job or short term passion up is the easiest answer. That is also sort of obvious — because you don’t have to get to level 2 (the ‘finding peace’ part) at all. That level 2 is tough, isn’t it? And there’s a lot of trial and error to go through in finding an answer for that. It’s understandable how that’s not a tempting option for the brain. At least mine is geared towards always finding the path of least resistance and chilling! How many times have you heard yourself or your friends say — “Man, this job is sucking my life out of me! I can’t continue like this!” You start making plans to move on, but nothing outside seems to be better than what you are doing right now. You keep looking out, adding to your worries and your stress, but never really leave. That energy could have been spent looking for answers to the existing worries, allowing you to be peaceful and happy while pursuing your passion. And who knows, it would even let you realise that what you are currently doing is your one-true, long term passion as well. You owe yourself that chance.

It’s critical, hence, to commit yourself. Understand exactly where on the decision tree you are — level 1 (“do I want to continue with this current project/job/field of work or not?”) or level 2 (“I am committed to this passion for now, how do I find peace?”).

And after that, the answers follow.

Javier

Who loved to live, to live on love

This is the story of our friend Javier, who was not like us. He had a zeal for life, unlike the rest of us. We were all tired, fatigued and always viewed life with an iota, or more, of distrust. We never could understand what life brings and what is in store for us but our lives, the part which had happened by the time we reached where we were, had taught us to be used to the rude shocks that inevitably come along to bring us down from a state of happiness or neutrality. We slept with one eye open to catch life sneaking around in the shadows, watching us. Waiting to strike, to deal its hand. But Javier, was a whole another being.

He loved to live, as we have already established. He was happiest when he was awake, and regretted when he was too tired to stay up. He wanted to embrace life and as many moments as he could. He said that all he’ll be left with are memories, at the end of it all and he did not want to spend any time sleeping, which was the time that added nothing to his bag of memories. He traveled the world, refusing to work like the rest of us. Refusing to be brought down by life.

We all believed he could afford to do so because he was never hungry. Not, at least, in the way rest of us were. He never ate a solid meal, he didn’t have to. For the longest time we wondered, how did he manage to stay alive and then one day over lunch, well when we were all having lunch and he was just sitting with us, we decided to ask him, and this is what he told us.

I live on love. I know you would find it hard to believe, but when I see love around it nourishes me, the way carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals work for you. It’s my food, Javier told us as normally as he one would talk about a game of cricket last night. Nonchalant, yes that’s the word that describes it. Matter-of-factly.

But how is it possible? we asked him, hoping to wrench the truth out of him or to catch him if he was pulling a fast one, as the tweeting kids today say, on us. Well that’s just how it is, I got no say in all this because my parents or whoever created me did not ask my opinion on how things should be, Javier told us. Well you have a point there, we told him not able to refute the plain and sound logic in his argument. But do you ever feel hunger? Yes, I do, all the time, Love is not that easy to find, you see. That is why I must keep traveling, in search of love, Javier was solemn, Does this love have to be directed towards you? Or does it work if you just see people sharing love, we had so many questions but we tried to do it as lovingly as possible so that, we could finally feel, as if he was also having lunch with us.

It works better, or should I say tastes better maybe?, when the love is directed towards me, but it works well when I see it between other people, between animals, in nature, It feeds me and I feel healthy and bright, I fill out and my mater says it makes me look handsome, at least as handsome as one can look within the constraints defined by the creator, you see. We saw. We were beginning to understand. But there was no way the questions were going to end with beginning of understanding. This is usually the moment when the biggest and most pertinent questions start coming, So what happens when you don’t find love, when someone hurts you or you see hatred around?

Well, the changes are slow and subtle in the beginning, like a gradual delta decline that is hard to notice in the beginning, but when it becomes too much the changes are noticeable, I start shrivelling up, or at least that’s how pater put it when he finally understood what was happening. The shine in my eyes starts to recede, the glow in my skin goes away, and that is what gives me that ‘shrivelled up’ look that we discussed a moment ago. It weighs on my shoulders, as if I were carrying a physical burden, as if I was having a hard time lifting myself up, I slouch, much to maters dismay, And what I hate the worst is that I am unable to smile, it hurts me to try and laugh or smile, I feel like someone normal would feel if they were starving, yes, that’s right, I think I starve for love.

None of us spoke a whole lot after that, we were all silent, thinking about what our special friend had just told us, wondering if were very different from him. Love, through its presence or absence, has always been felt by us in the same way, hasn’t it? It’s love that buoys us, and the lack of it that makes us triste, that takes away the shine from our eyes and smiles from our faces. With love, for love we can do anything, Javier’s life seemed to be telling us. But without it, we shrivel up, as Javier’s papa told him.

Javier died on December 16, 2012. Doctors said he died of starvation. When all the love was sucked up from the world and dark clouds covered the sky, so that we don’t see that even the sun refuses to rise and shine. We were all engulfed with darkness that will stay with us forever, until we change and learn to love. We all love to live, well most of us do and Javier did love that more than anything else, but from Javier we need to learn that we live on love, that we depend on it, more than anything else.

Originally published at interlocutor-kasper.blogspot.com on February 5, 2013.

Life's Choices

Understanding choices, the importance of having a goal and how to not be lost

The great philosopher… err… comedian… err… actor. Actor, yes! The great actor Jim Carrey in one of his philosophical, yet comic, musings mentioned that every choice that we make can typically be bucketed into (a) choices made out of love and (b) choices made out of fear. While this may seem like a false binary, it kind of rings of truth as well.

For a moment, let's assume this to be true. Given this, if I look back at my life I have made a lot of decisions based in fear. But that alone doesn't make them bad decisions. I believe they were practical decisions. I believe that knowing what I knew about the choices that I had to make, I would always make the same decisions again. They might be rooted in fear, but that fear was real at the time.

For example, when I was choosing between pursuing a Masters in Management in India or in France, I chose India. This was because it was 2009, the recession era in the wake of the sub-prime crisis. How foreign policies would evolve, how stable the economy would be and how welcoming of foreigners taking jobs would France be were the uncertainties that I had no answers for. While France promised a life full of joie de vivre, India offered stability and assurance. At that point in time, being from a lower middle-class background, I valued the latter more. Especially given my goal of an early retirement to focus on writing, the assurance would imply that the certainty of attaining that goal is more.

I guess what I am trying to say is that as long as the decisions made out of fear are calculated ones, they are not necessarily bad decisions. But they do come with the added heaviness of you having to come through on the bargain you’ve settled for when not making the choice you could have made out of love.

The important thing, once you understand that you've made a decision out of legitimate fear, is to ensure that it empowers you to make decisions out of love in the future. In the case of the example above, if I am able to ensure that I retire early and pursue my passion, my fear-decision would play its part in helping me make my long term love-decision.

In a sense, the heaviness comes from having to ensure that you are constantly moving towards your goal. In my case, the goal of pursuing writing eventually, helps me work with a single-minded dedication towards it's attainment. In someone else's case, however, it's possible that there's no clear goal. What do you do in that case? The lack of a clear goal can pose a challenge in understanding why you made a decision out of fear. It's possible to feel regret around the decisions based in fear, if one doesn't know how it benefits them. A decision made out of love could clearly have at least afforded some joy — a spiritual gratification, if not material success.

One option is to be a casual and relaxed. Be the leaf in the wind that doesn't care where it lands. Go with the flow. If you can do that, there's nothing more relaxing.

If, however, if you are anything like me that Unbearable Lightness of Being simply doesn't work. You want to try and ensure that when you look back at the last five years (or ten, if you are old like me too) after your big fear-decision and feel like it somehow made sense. Right?

What then? It suddenly isn't enough to say, "I don't know what I want from life." While it's a natural reaction for most of us and there's nothing wrong in being a little lost, it's equally important to not give up trying. There are a plethora of articles out there that celebrate the lost and confused 20 and 30 somethings. While there's a need to feel comfortable about it, while there's a need to be okay with trying and failing in finding your purpose, it's definitely not okay to stop trying.

What then?

I believe there's a sphere of possibilities for everyone as to where they might end up in five (or ten) years. All that is needed is to start narrowing that down. Start with an elimination oriented approach to arrive at an increasingly smaller sliver of a life that you'd want for an older you.

Illustrative Example of getting from Sphere to Sliver: The Art of Not Being Lost

In the diagram above, the goal is to keep increasing the red and yellow areas and reducing the green one. This process would help you make prospective calculated fear-decisions and make love-decisions wherever you can. It would also help you retrospectively analyse your fear-decisions and ensure that you are heading towards the green sliver — which at the very least, lends some sense to your fear decisions.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below and I am sure we can have a spirited discussion on this with all of your inputs and life experiences.