I Overstayed My Welcome and the Discomfort Became My New Comfort Zone
The first letter I wrote on Substack was in 2022 when I was shifting houses. I had resigned from my job and it had been three months then. A new house meant a new purpose. Instead of staying within 1km radius of my office that was required to avoid prolonged daily commute, I chose to shift to the centre of the city, meet more people, and work from cafes.
The life of an artist or an entrepreneur had begun - I wasn't sure what I was exactly but it was a new life for me, away from the 12-14 hours of regular work. I had no clue how anything was gonna work out but I was determined to explore my options.
The kind of determination you don’t get too often in life!
I deliberately put myself in a difficult position of leaving the job without knowing how exactly I am going to earn my living. I deliberately gave myself one week of notice to find another house to shift in, and hopefully, a smaller one, to minimize household chores. And I lived by quotes like - a ship is safe in its harbor but that’s not what it is meant for. Who even was this woman? Wild and free!
As time passed by, the house of discomfort that was supposed to be push me out of it in no time became a house of comfort. It was so comfortable for me that I knew I made a home out of the house, out of the walls and shelves there, and I stayed on for three years. I made friends with the neighbours. I exchanged meals with the landlady. And there was I living the life of a housewife of a rich man except that I was also the man in this equation. :-D
The realization that it’s been too many years was there but it was overpowered by how comfortable everything was. The locality felt safe enough for me to go on late-night walks. I had a phone number for everything I required - from getting the fans and lights repaired to getting water delivered at home.
That feels and sounds like stability but sometimes stability can also become stagnancy.
You will be able to differentiate stagnancy from stability by how much you are willing to let go. If letting go seems difficult, it’s stagnancy. In true stability, you are content, but you also allow the changes in the season to happen - for the roses to bud, bloom and fall apart, only for new buds to emerge and the process to be completed all over again.
A year ago, the house in front of me was broken down to be reconstructed into a new fancy apartment. I watched it become a pile of rubble, and then barren ground, and then a tall unrecognizable building with sky-high rents. People around me were letting go of their own houses, and dismantling the foundations and rebuilding another one, and yet I held on to the house I rented.
It’s always difficult to let go and that’s why we have to learn it over and over again.
Soon, two more houses were refurbished around me. I did nothing.
Until one day, the house just adjacent to ours was broken down. That day, the walls of my room shook for a moment, and so was I. I immediately got dressed and found myself a broker to shift to a new locality and a new house. I always had plans of shifting to another place, why not now? If not now, then when?
The house owners, just like the ones in the previous house I lived in, found it difficult to let me go too. After all, I was one tenant nobody in the neighborhood or the building had a complaint about. No disturbing behavior. No loud noise. No outlandish clothes. No food that would make the entire building smelly. For them, I was the ideal tenant, ideal neighbor.
Sometimes I would send them home-cooked desserts and sometimes it would be farm-grown fruits and vegetables. They never thought I would shift to another house, and I had forgotten I wanted to, in the first place.
But these three years gave me experience. I would travel and strike off cities from my list of place I can live in. Mountains? No, the medical shop is too far and inaccessible. Beaches? No, I can’t keep seeing sand on the floor and in my sandals.
The Taurean in me liked convenience of accessibility via technology in Bengaluru, if I forget about the weather so often talked about.
So, the initial push to move some other city vanished. I zeroed in on Bengaluru.
I decided to move to another smaller apartment and hopefully have less things to worry about - from furniture to utensils.
Women are differently wired than men, and the more I work from home, the more importance I give to household chores and aesthetics. I realized that these chores never end. There’s always a cobweb to remove or a table to wipe clean.
I also intend to now live a life with minimal waste. I wanted to minimize my usage of clothes, shoes, and bags. I no longer wanted to keep things in my wardrobes that I hardly use. I no longer want to be a hoarder just for the sake of it.
So, I started with donating my clothes, and bags, and utensils, and some furniture. I also sold some more furniture, and there’s some more to be sold. (In case, you are in Bengaluru and looking for second-hand furniture for your living room, please reach out to me).
I want different things from my life as I age. What the next three years entail? I cannot say exactly. This time the ship has been transported to another harbour. As life unfolds in front of my eyes, I choose what I do best - I let go of all plans, and let it unfold, one day at a time.
This time too I deliberately put myself in a difficult position of shifting houses without really an urgent need that can be understood by people around me. But this time, I chose discomfort that’s only temporary, to have more comfort in the new house I only walked into today.
This time, I chose comfort.
Maybe that’s how we change over time, and that’s how life unfolds.
With Love,
Sanhita
08/08/2025 11:22pm
(P.S. One of my key objectives of leaving my job was to right my first novel, and it’s now chosen for publishing, and launching soon. Pre-order here!)
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