Posts

Food for Thought #101

You can be good at many things and still feel wrong doing them. At a certain point in your hashtag # career , your designation starts defining you more than your intent. You're known for a role, a capability, a way of thinking - and that reputation enters the room before you do. What complicates things is that competence often gets mistaken for conviction. But many of the things we're "good at" are simply the result of years of repetition. Practice. Exposure. Pattern recognition. Not always enjoyment. Not always choice. In marketing and hashtag # branding especially, it's easy to build a career around interpretation - reading the room, translating feedback, making things work. Those skills are valuable. They're also easy to confuse with purpose. Over time, the disconnect shows up quietly. You're effective. Trusted. In demand. And increasingly detached from the work itself! I've learned that some of our strongest hashtag # skills are survival skil...

That Rickety Journey From Fear to Faith

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For a long time, I didn’t even realise how afraid I was. Not the dramatic kind of fear, but the quiet, everyday kind. The kind that whispers,  be careful ,  don’t trust too much ,  something will go wrong. It slowly becomes the background music of life. I would walk into new conversations already guarded. Begin new projects already imagining how they might fail. Meet people while secretly preparing to be disappointed. And I thought this was being “smart”.  But all it really did was make the world feel heavy. One day, without a big breakdown or turning point, I simply felt tired of living like this.  Tired of bracing for impact all the time. So I started with a softer thought. Instead of telling myself, everyone is against me , I said, maybe I am protected. Instead of thinking, something will surely go wrong , I whispered, maybe everything is unfolding exactly as it should. It felt awkward. Almost naive. But slowly, something inside me began to open. I noticed I ...

You Can Only Overflow From a Full Cup | A Reflection on Giving

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You can contribute only when your cup is full. Others cannot fill it for you. And you cannot overflow if you are already running on empty. We grow up believing the opposite. That giving more will somehow make us whole. That love, work, purpose, or even another person will pour into us what we are missing. Slowly, without realising it, we outsource our fullness. We wait for someone to show up differently, for life to be kinder, for things to finally make sense. Until then, we keep giving from whatever is left. But an empty cup does not overflow. It only leaks. True contribution does not come from effort. It comes from abundance. When you are full, giving is not a sacrifice. It is a natural movement, like breath leaving the body. When you are empty, every act of giving costs you something. You begin to resent what once felt meaningful. You feel tired even when you are doing what you love. You start asking for returns, for recognition, for reassurance, because deep down you are borrowing ...

The River of Cosmic Love: Shiva and Shakti

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He comes, the  Mahadev , the Ashen King, in terrible grace. He wanders, clad in ghosts, upon the burning ground. His throat a twilight blue from saving a ruined world, he is covered in ash, the ultimate surrender of all form, wearing the stark, ragged banner of detachment. His dance, a fierce whirlwind with the  Bhootas,  is solitary, alone. And yet, she comes. The Golden One,  Adi Parashakti , the First Power. Her silks are woven from the sunset’s fire, her jewels are the starlight. Her gaze holds the entire, breathtaking burst of creation’s spring.  Shakti , the  Mahamaya , the very Power of being, adores him so, but not for the crown, the kingdom, or the velvet of the world. Her devotion seeks the heart's  Alakshya -  the unseen focus of the soul. She sees past the chilling blue, the tattered  Vy a ghr a mbara . She ignores the external, the clothes, the ash, the dire, stark landscape, for she loves the Powerful Soul, the Ever Divine,...

Why Life Gets Harder When You’re Trying to Be Good (And Why It’s Not a Punishment)

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Let’s just sit down for a moment. You’re asking the question that holds the most common pain:  “I’m trying so hard to be kind, to grow, to choose love, and why is that exactly when the difficult situations show up?”  It feels deeply personal, like life is nudging you, saying, "Let’s see how aligned you really are." The exhaustion you feel isn't from loving too much; it’s from carrying a scorecard. The strain begins inside the expectation:  If I’m good, shouldn’t everyone else be good back?  Most of us were taught, very subtly, to put up the guard: "I’ll see how you treat me, and then I’ll decide how I treat you." We call this wisdom, but honestly, it’s fear wearing polite, protective clothing. We interact with preconceived notions, waiting, watching, and protecting ourselves from being the fool. But here is the quiet truth: the shield you use to protect yourself is heavy. This armor confirms your deepest fear, the belief that you  can  b...

Stop Digging: Why You Are Not The Root Cause of Your Own Pain

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For so long, all the counsel, all the systems, and all the psychology, the endless well of self-help has sung the same seductive song: The answer is inside you. You must become the archaeologist of your own pain. Dig deep. Find the old wound. Fix it. Let it go. And so, obediently, every time you felt that familiar ache of rejection, that heavy blanket of sadness, or that sharp sting of being totally down, you dedicated yourself to the task. You sat down with a notebook, meticulously looking through old memories, mapping every trauma, every slight, every fear, always in search of the one thing: what you were doing wrong. But I am here, standing firmly at the water’s edge, to tell you, with the force of a fundamental truth: Stop the digging. Stop the analyzing. You are not the problem. I have come to completely disagree with the models that demand this intense, intellectual picking apart of the self. Here is the quiet realization I’ve received: The more you try to learn, t...

Stop Being the One Who Brings the Change (Seriously, Stop)

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Let's be honest. We all secretly want to be the Gandalf in someone else’s life story. We want to swoop in, drop a pearl of hard-earned wisdom, and watch as their life dramatically rights itself, all thanks to our brilliant piece of unsolicited advice. We crave that "Aha! You changed my life!" moment. We want to be the wise, appreciated sage. But today, I’m going to tell you a little secret:  guiding someone who hasn't asked you for directions is the absolute worst form of love. It’s a toxic little cocktail, and here’s why. The Ego Trap For one, it’s entirely driven by ego. We feel a little bit superior, don't we? We think,  “Oh, if only they did what I did, they wouldn’t be making that mistake.”  That feeling of being "ahead" is a massive ego boost. We're telling them what to do because we genuinely believe we know better, even when they’re perfectly fine finding their own way. And two, when they inevitably don’t listen to your sage advice (because i...