On Starting

Note: As usual, I've ended up talking about nothing specific. But I like letting my mind wander, especially when I'm recording thoughts. It calms the waters. And perhaps surprisingly, it doesn't take too long. This is a start.

My problem always has been starting something. Not finishing. You can't finish unless you start. And you will finish if you start. It's easy to get distracted, to spend careless amounts of time doing things that are not important, because those things are easy. Are the things that need to be done difficult? Usually not. They're certainly doable. But I make them difficult by not doing them, by letting myself waver.

Take journaling, for example. I've been wanting to start writing again for at leas two months now? I've gotten really close a couple of times. I've even thought of things that I really want to write about, and of really cool things to say. But I've consistently let them slip, often without even rationalizing it to myself. My brain is too random, too variable. It has a limited attention span. While something that bothers me is in my consciousness, it causes constant discomfort, a dull numbing pain that is not strong enough to motivate me into action, but that is not weak enough to ignore completely. And over time, by not addressing these things, I have become really good at letting them slip out of my mind - by thinking about something else, by wasting time in progressively less creative ways - because novel ways of wasting time soon become habits.

It's simple really - figure out what's important to you, work hard at it, succeed. Simple. What if you don't know what's important to you? That's okay too. Work hard anyway. Succeed at something. If you don't like it, try something else. But don't do nothing. Unfortunately, doing nothing is quite comfortable, especially if there's no strong motivation driving you. I recognize that I'm not a very motivated person, but perhaps by consciously recognizing that I limit myself - I allow myself to waver and justify it by telling myself that it doesn't matter to me anyway. If that were completely true, if it didn't matter to me at all, it shouldn't have bothered me. But it does. So perhaps it does matter, then?

I read an interesting article the other day, about how people usually mess up not because they're not god, not because they don't have potential or brilliant ideas, but because they want to do everything and accomplish everything at the same time. There is wisdom in realizing that anything worthwhile requires patience, persistence and hard work. There are no two ways about it.

I'm not bad at coming up with plans. I'm not bad at understanding things, and talking about amazing ideas, and thinking about how I can be amazing. I usually know what needs to be done. It's about time I started doing it.

A Eulogy For A Friend

Harry has passed on.

As I embark on this difficult task of writing a eulogy for him, I know that there are no words I can write which will do him justice. Yet, I must. For myself as much as for him.

My earliest memory of Harry is from the first year of college. It had been only a week or two since we had joined. Most of us were experiencing life away from home for the first time, and everyone was reacting differently. Kishore took me to Ujjawal's room one day, and I met this unassuming, chilled out surd who somehow looked a lot different from the typical "surd" image that had been created in my head in those few days in Punjab. He talked about music, movies, football and other geeky stuff I could totally relate to. And he seemed quite uncomfortable in uttering abuses which seemed to flow quite naturally from most people's mouths.

We quickly became friends. He was as big a Manchester United fanatic as I was, and we watched all our football together, often having to scour the entire campus to find a TV in some hostel that was playing the right match. We started participating in coding competitions and such together, and did other geeky stuff together. I looked up to him since those days. He knew so much, and he taught me that you could find the answer to anything if you looked hard enough.

We watched the 2008 UEFA Champions League final together. Manchester United against Chelsea. It was an amazing game, and right in the middle of our final exams. There were only a few of us crazy enough to ditch studying mathematics, load ourselves with chips and soft drinks, and spend the whole night watching the game. It was an epic night, one that will forever be etched on my memory. I was so happy by the end of it that I was jumping around in joy, treating everyone to my mom's brilliant homemade sweets. Harry right alongside, of course.

Our friendship deepened as time passed. Even though I was living in a different room, I spent a lot of time in Harry's room in the second year, especially during exam time. None of us studied till practically the last night, and everyone handled it differently when the last night came. We were among the lucky group who knew how to exploit the system and ended up getting decent grades somehow. I was always pestering him for help, though. I remember one particular evening when Harry, Ujjawal and Sam decided that we should wrestle. I was left gasping for breath, and everyone had tears in their eyes from laughing too much.

His indecisiveness was legendary. He took his own sweet time making his decisions, be the situation big or small. He was not easily swayed by what other people had to say. But once he made a decision, he stuck by it - and they were generally good decisions.

Being a gamer naturally goes with being a geek, I suppose. All of us loved to play games! There was this phase in the third year, when we had all moved to the J Hostel, when we started playing multiplayer Unreal Tournament - Harry's favorite game. He was the most excited of all of us, and of course the best. Being football freaks, we also played a lot of FIFA together. Our contests were epic. We usually had days - either he would kick my butt or I would kick his. I still remember the day when I beat his Spain with France in FIFA '09, when I was down to 10 men. FIFA geeks will understand the meaning of this.

A few of us stayed back in college during the summer vacations after the third year, to attend classes for CCNA. It was a weird 9 or 10 days - the heat was oppressive, and everyone wanted to go home. Harry was the only one among us who actually completed all 4 modules of the certification.

Placement time came in 2010. It was an exciting time, everyone was moved into action. I was lucky enough to be selected for an internship at Juniper Networks, alongside Harry. I was very happy that day, for I knew my association with Harry would continue beyond college. When I got placed at Goldman Sachs, it was a bittersweet, because I knew Harry was really keen on this job, and his name was in the final three, but only two were selected. It would've been epic.

We came to Bangalore together for the internship, stayed together in clumsy room at a paying guest accommodation, made our first honest buck together, and had some truly spectacular experiences - the most notable being witnessing Wayne Rooney's bicycle kick winner over Manchester City at the official United Bar, and then attending a Bryan Adams concert the next night. My leg was in a cast, which made the weekend even more epic!

We ended up taking a flat together with Gunjeet when we started actual jobs after the internship - he continued at Juniper and I moved to GS. He was always moving around the house with a football at his feet, kicking it against the walls. I think it helped him think. He was obviously doing brilliantly at his job.

He was always calm - I've never seen him get really angry at someone or raise his vocie (The only time I've seen him irritated is when people called him "Rose", which was his nickname!). He was infinitely patient - I've seen him on the phone for hours, trying to help his dad figure out what was wrong with his modem. He was witty and fun - he could poke and irritate people without uttering one abusive or angry word. He was always confident, always moving forward, always looking for the next best thing, and not afraid to reach out for it.

My last memory of Harry is us dancing around like idiots at a foam party, then watching the second half of a football game and playing pool. And then, me saying "good luck" to him that fateful morning as I drifted out of sleep for a few seconds as he was leaving.

I miss him. I miss him when I watch football. I miss our crazy conversations and stupid arguments. I miss being jealous of him because he was so amazing. Now, I'll never have the chance to try to beat him. I probably wasn't his best friend, but he probably was mine. And I'm not ashamed to say I'm crying as I write this.

His father said that even though he'd had a tiny life, his son had made him proud.

His screen name was "reallyunreal". It was just perfect.

Be at peace, brother. And shine on!

Don't Forget To Be Awesome

I am awesome.

Well, sometimes. And of late, I guess I'd forgotten to be awesome. And as I've been realizing, the key is to let the awesome version of me control the idiots, and thus increase the percentage of time I spend being awesome!

On a related note, I found this blog. This guy Joel Runyon is awesome. Whatever he says is pretty much along the lines of whatever I've been thinking of late, and it's good to know the thoughts of someone who's already done what you're trying to do. Get disciplined, not motivated!

In his words: "If you want to do something, just freaking do it already."

I've piled up quite the reading list of late so I'm going to go and start reading and being awesome.

I am back!

I'm the kind of person who believes things cannot be forced - there has to be some kind of internal belief and acceptance for me to do anything, really. If something is going wrong, I probably will know that it is, and I probably will make half-hearted efforts to set it right, but until that belief is not there I'm not likely to succeed.

I have been neglecting this space, and on a personal level been kind of on a downward spiral. Thank you to my dear readers (numbering one) for making me realize that I can do so much, and for making me want to. 

I am back, and feeling good about it!

Emptiness

I'm in shock. I have no idea how the last three days went by. I practically haven't touched work, and I can't figure out how I spent those hours in the office.

Everything seems more vivid, and yet blurred at the same time. The sights and sounds of the city seem brighter and clearer, and yet more distant. The experiences beckon to me, and yet even if I have them now they will be incomplete. The dreams seem closer, and yet more out of reach.

There is an emptiness inside me, an infinite void.

However, there is also cautious optimism. The anguish will pass, the mind will be still once more, and I will come out of this experience stronger, happier and more mature. And so will she. Hopefully we will be better individuals, and better together.

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My feelings of despair and delight are quite well represented by this beautiful music: 

Project FixMe

I've been reading a lot about habits. Whoever said "we are creatures of habit" was right. Everyone has habits, good and bad, and everyone lives their daily lives on the basis of these habits.

I used to think that I'm a strong willed person, and I could do anything if I really wanted to. The more I think about it and observe myself, however, the more apparent it becomes that I'm a slave to my habits, just like everybody else.  I used to think that I could change all the bad things about myself in one shot if I really tried hard enough. Again, an illusion. Your habits are who you are, and its not exactly easy to change who you are overnight.

It takes concentrated effort to actually change something about yourself, and you're more than likely to fail at the first attempt. I now realize that becoming who you want to be is an ongoing process, and you may be successful after several iterations and changing yourself in tiny bits. And it will probably take a lifetime.

I've also realized that I tend to put things off by giving myself arbitrary excuses. However, the logical me believes that unless there's a strong reason for putting something off, there's no better time to start than now. 

In that spirit, I christen this effort to reprogram myself as "Project FixMe". I've opened a publicly accessible Google spreadsheet (link below) to mark my progress against some pre-decided goals, with the aim to achieve these goals and make them habits.

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Interesting reading on "habits" can be found here and here.

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My spreadsheet can be found here. My first goals are sleeping by 12AM each night, and getting 8 hours of sleep.

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"We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit"
- Will Durant

Football Randomness

It's funny and almost pathetic, how I keep hoping that Cristiano Ronaldo has a secret contract to come back to Man United. And how every summer I think he'll come back and United will win everything.

Football videos can be really inspirational you know. I just decided that Paul Scholes is my favourite footballer. The way he stays away from attention and controversy, does his job well, and continues to remain the backbone of one of the best teams in the world is just amazing. I'm starting to think of him as a role model.