Meditations on the frustrations of Life and some end of year reflections
It’s an interesting choice for a title ‘Frustrations of Life’. But I’ve come to realise that one emotion that I overwhelmingly feel is frustration. Frustration with what I’m doing in my life, the resources I have, my habits, my relationships, my outlook in life etc. I, like many others, am always battling the battle of who I am vs. who I want to be. What makes it more frustrating is that for the most part, people already know what changes they need to make to achieve what they want to. It is the inability to execute that eats one inside. But out of these very frustrations arise very important insights into Life. More importantly, how to live one’s life the way one wants to. It is only when you are wholly dissatisfied with something, do you realise what you value in life and why you value it. As much as it sucks, every emotion, as frustrating as frustration is an important emotion. And every emotion demands to be felt.
Meditations
Over the past year, I have internalised one principle in life i.e.
Always be very clear about why you’re doing something, what you’re in it for, and what is the cost of doing it.
These three questions now form the basis of any major decision that I take in life. In the US Constitutional Law culture, there is a term known as Strict Scrutiny. It technically is a high standard set by the courts that the state must pass to justify certain sort of discriminatory state action or law. What it signifies is that for very important cases, the Court goes into minute details of the intent and effect of the state action or law that is argued to be discriminatory. I think your actions should also pass the metaphorical strict scrutiny test in three areas of your life.
Health(Mental and physical),
Career,
Romantic Relationships.
What this largely implies is that any decisions that you take in these three fields of your life, should ideally be logically and reasonably thought out decisions. Don’t date that person just because you’re lonely or it looks cool to be with someone over social media. Don’t stop eating food completely because that’s what one YouTuber suggested is the fastest way to lose weight. Don’t study engineering because that’s what everybody does. Decisions in these fields should rarely be copied, or taken by imitation or in haste. Because then it is not your decision. You’ve merely succumbed to convention. It is worth going through the difficult motions of thinking about your actions and choices deeply to gain clarity in these aspects of your life.
But coming back to the three questions. Let me give you an example. I went to Law School on a partial student loan. In my first year, I realised that the fastest way to pay off my educational loan was to get a corporate job. Because of this clarity, I was able to tailor my law school experience in a way that would maximise my chances of getting placed with a Law Firm. Thankfully I also found an area of corporate law that I enjoyed. And it worked. I am a corporate lawyer working with the firm I wanted to work with. But other than achieving what I wanted, this choice had to pass the strict scrutiny test for me to be okay with my choice. Let’s look at the three questions in this context:
Why am I working as a Corporate Lawyer?
Firstly, because it pays well and can help me pay off my student loan comparatively faster than other options. Second, I like Antitrust Law and working with one of the best Antitrust teams in India is a great experience.
What is in it for me?
Experience. The experience of working with the smartest folks in my field, and of working on some of the best corporate law transactions and antitrust investigations. This experience is very valuable.
What is the cost of doing it?
By cost here I mean the opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is the cost of doing one thing over the other. Within the constraints I have, I don’t think there is a better option than what I am currently doing.
Now because I have the answer to all three of these questions, I am satisfied with my choice of career for the time being. I know I have chosen the right thing for myself. But I must state here that finding the answers to these questions is not an easy process. Of course, now that I have written it out, it seems very obvious and easy to understand. But the first few months of my job were very tumultuous in terms of finding my feet and more importantly, contextualising my choice of career in the broader scheme of my life. I have written about how starting work fundamentally changes your life here. So if these answers don’t come easily to you. Fret not. These are not easy questions. You will have to spend considerable time thinking deeply about your choices and actions before you arrive at an answer. But I think it is very important that you think through these decisions and choices in life.
Of course, these three questions aren’t the be-all and end-all of good decision-making in life. There are a couple of other principles that I follow (and countless others that I am sure I either do not follow or am not aware of). One of the principles I follow is incremental change, a refined version of which I have picked up from one of my seniors at work. Every six months, he asks himself if his life is how he wants it to be, and makes a decision about his career accordingly.
For me, it is very important that I incrementally get better. At my work, at my interests, at my projects etc. So I try to ask myself a very basic question i.e. ‘Have you gotten better at X?’ It is natural that if you keep doing the same thing over time, you will get better at it. At least marginally. Then the question to ask oneself is, are you learning at a respectable pace? This question is quite tricky to answer. Mostly because it is very difficult to measure your progress. For example, I am finding it very hard to track my progress since I started my job six months ago. I have to rely on other’s feedback. But I must satisfy my internal benchmarks and goals. And for that, I need to track my incremental progress. Also, it is not just in the context of work, but personal life as well. Over time I have gotten better at controlling my emotions and handling events or emotions that earlier used to trigger me. And that can only happen if you first, monitor your reactions over time and second, consciously change the knee jerk reaction to such situations and implement thought-out and robust thinking mechanisms (Disclaimer: If you are thinking about going to therapy, please do. It does help).
Overall I am quite obsessed with the idea of progress and incremental change. Locally, in myself and globally, in the world. Most of it is because of the absolute wonder that fills my soul looking at the things that humans have been able to achieve, but also because I am deathly afraid of stasis. It is one of my worst nightmares. Second only to losing my curiosity. Chalte jaana hai rukna nahi hai.
All this suffering for what?
2023 was a very tough year for me. It obliterated my emotions and my expectations from most things in my life into pieces. But it was also the year of the most personal and professional change. It felt like I went through spaghettification and barely made it out alive. But the rough and tough treatment also made me stronger thankfully. More than stronger it gave me a ton of perspective on many things. I also realised that the adage ‘if you aren’t uncomfortable, you aren’t growing’ is very true. I have been very uncomfortable the past year in almost all parts of my life. And even though I can’t quite see most of the apparent progress that has happened, sometimes I catch a glimpse of it and try to reassure myself that I should trust the process.
You naturally find yourself asking, why did I have to go through all this suffering and now that I have, is there anything that I have learnt from it? For the first part, it is mostly futile to ask why specific unfortunate things happened to you and not others. it is a pointless expedition. Thus one must look at the second part of this big question - did this experience teach me something? And this is where the frustrations of life come into play. It is very frustrating to live in almosts. But it is only when you burn in the fire of the moment, do you shine brighter when the moment has passed. So here are some of the things 2023 taught me in terms of perspective. I am skipping some reflections because of potential issues it might create for me (you know what I mean). If you want to know what they were (which I would be surprised about), please feel free to reach out to me via email or twitter.
It is not worth chasing anyone ever.
Physical health is really important. 99% of physical health comes out of discipline. Be disciplined, you will automatically be healthy.
You’re in complete control of your emotions. You control your emotions, not the other way around.
Your time is the most important thing in life, make careful decisions about who you want to spend it with and what you want to spend it on.
Family is very important. Whenever you can make time for them, do so.
Love, whenever it has to come, will come. The most one can do is make oneself ready to receive it with open arms. First, be okay with the person you are, and second, know that you are worthy of love.
You suffer more in imagination, than in reality.
Count the good moments. They’re important.
No matter how impossible something may look at the moment, know that on every such previous occasion, you have done it and you will do it again.
What if you believed in yourself? Try that once.
Keep your mind open. Very open about many things. Speak to as many interesting people as you can. Keep your interests alive. Do not let anything take away what makes you feel alive.
Don’t let inertia catch hold of you. Move fast and take justifiable risks.
Surround yourself with people you admire and learn from them.
Don’t lose your awe.
Trust yourself more often. You’ve gotten yourself to where you are now. You will figure it out.
Be more optimistic than pessimistic. Optimism is an underrated edge.
One more year
It’s the first of the month (and year)! I hope this year is much better for me and for you as well, dear reader. I wish that I read more, I discover lots of new music, I meet very many interesting people, that I am able to execute the insights I have been able to gather until now, that I do good work, I discover some sort of work life balance, am able to take more time out for my family, am kinder to people and most importantly to myself. I want to be a much calmer person this year. A more balanced, determined and optimistic person.
I wish I do some cool projects this year. I want to focus more on my podcast and at least produce one episode per month. I also want to increase my writing output. I recently realised I had written 41 posts in 18 months between 2020-2021 and then wrote just 11 articles in 2022 and 2023 combined. That was dismal to see. I hope to write more this year!
Do I hope to be happy? Perhaps. Even though I do not explicitly chase happiness. For me it is worth chasing meaning over happiness. Anyhow these two intersect a lot and it is mostly futile to box away these emotions into exclusive categories. I also think there is a certain sort of freedom in giving up the perpetual pursuit and obsession with chasing happiness. However, I also want to dial down on my obsession with finding meaning in my work. I have also started to realise that even the most high-impact jobs produce impacts that are very minute in the grand scale of things. I want to be free of the outcome. Because if you want to work on hard civilisation-scale problems, nothing that you can work on will have an instant civilisation-level effect. Most great things take time, and human lives are too short. To tie yourself to the outcome is to tie yourself to lifelong suffering. Sure, aspire to have a great end product but focus more on the process and not on an elusive idea of what the perfect outcome can look like. One of my friends, Tarini used to quote this line from the Geeta often, “कर्म करो फल की चिंता मत करो।” which translates to ‘do your work and do not worry about the outcome’. I want to embody this saying this year. Cheers, and a happy new year!