maatam

Kal tak apni naakami ka maatam manaye za rahe the.
Aaz hamara zanaza ja raha hai.
Apne na-umeede me hum simte rahe zindgi bhar.
Kisi se kuch paya nai, bas lalak se reh gaye the dil me.

Sab tha uper wale ka diya hua hamare paas, bus ek jine ka zariya nai tha. Koi maksad aisa tha he nai ziske liye hum ziye. Ek kisam ki kami se the zindgi me, ek dard sa reh gaya tha. Apne bete hue kal me dub dub ke filsal se rahe the ham. Apni aaz me jina chor diya tha, bite hue kal me he dubki lagaye za rahe the.

Ab dum nikal gaya, ab mitti me mil gaye ham, wo siyasat, wo kaamyabi ka pulanda bhi saath jala diya auroo no. Kya kisi ke paas kuch waqt baza hai auro ko yaad karne ka is duniya mae. Kaun kisi aur ka kalma padhta hai aajkal. Sab khoi hua hai, sab gum hai is duniya ke chakachaaundh me.

entrepreneurship

I see people preaching about becoming an entrepreneur and breaking into entrepreneurship. I have my aversion to these sales pitches or evangelism.

Entrepreneurship is not clearing an engineering entrance or a medical entrance exam where you read a syllabus and jump in to qualify.

Entrepreneurship is not a 9 to 5 job with a steady income or life in luxury and comfort. Putting everyone on the entrepreneurship treadmill will result in a more distorted society with a generation of stress and trauma. As statistics say, 99% of startups fail.

There is a dark side to entrepreneurship: full of failure, stress, loss, and pain. The media, shark tank, and others never talk about it.

Entrepreneurship happens with a cause, purpose, and fickle-mindedness. The journey is rough and mostly a failure. So make up your mind if you want to get into this.

Please join it with conviction, not for sexiness. Because mostly, you are alone on your own in the uncertainty.

Don’t waste time listening to a podcast or reading books on how to be an entrepreneur venture, knowing what all you have to lose or win.

Jump into entrepreneurship for the right reasons.

rant

How much can we progress in life if we rant non-stop?
How much time will be left to love ourselves if we criticize the world?
Our progress depends on how we see the world, not what the world has to offer us.

We can waste our time criticizing others or seizing the moment.
It is easy to complain than to create. It is easy to preach than practice.

The path is yours: it is on you to define your journey, stay as a person criticizing the world for life or be part of the world and make it better.

own

How much do we have to keep ourselves in hiding? Why can we not own our flaws and walk boldly for the rest of our life? Nothing stopped Helen Keller from writing. She knew she had to live with it throughout her life.

Our life on this planet is limited, and not all of us are born perfectly or live healthy life. But this does not mean we should stop living or hide from the world.

People survived the worst of their traumas because they owned and accepted to realize to live beyond it. Now that this has happened, sulking is not the solution. Accept, own, and thrive.

Pioneers and Settlers

Adam Grant talks about Pioneers and Settlers in his book Originals.

Pioneers are the founders and organizations that lead innovation.
They depend on the first movers’ advantage.
They launch early with the hope of grabbing the entire market.
In most instances, they are category creators.
They take risks, do price exploration, and do product chops.
They win big or lose big.

Settlers are the founders and organizations that follow pioneers.
The settlers learn from pioneers.
Settlers move on a defined marker with less pain and experiment.
A lot many things are less experimental for them. Settlers are copycats.

In short, your strategy defines what you want to become, a settler or pioneer.

freedom

Freedom means you are an adult and aware of your responsibility. You don’t have someone monitoring your everyday work. At the same time organization makes you part of its own with a belief in mutual progress.

Time and again, it has been observed some are taking advantage of it. As a result, everyone suffers.

Peace

How much peace are you with yourself?
You have been running in your early 20s to uplift your family.
As a good son, you have been at your parent’s service.
In your late 20’s got married, and now you have one companion to talk to and live life together.
You want to bring the best of the world for her.
You are working, running a sprint, and managing your best work-life balance.
You become a father in your early 30’s.
You are working hard so is your wife, an ideal family.
You have a stable job.
You will retire in your 60’s.
You will start working towards your child’s secure future.
You will get him an education, pay for his education, and get him married.
The universe is in your favor.
You will die peacefully.

When you were a child, you wanted to be a painter.
You participated in many competitions.
You were a shining star.
You died.
You have forgotten yourself.
All you did was react, a sprint for the betterment of others.
You were a machine.

Are we supposed to be a machine?
Do we not have our own identity?
Do we not have the right to live on our own?

Who are you? Are you at peace with yourself or a born robot running on a societal treadmill?

enemy

The enemy is within us. We are our own daemons. We torment, suffer and cry within. We constantly fight, blame, and anger ourselves. The fear, hate, and lovelessness of ourselves make us lose even before we start anything.

Why are we like this? Is it generational? Is it because of our fight-flight response or our lizard brain? I don’t know.

But I do know that unless we overcome our insecurity, start accepting ourselves, and start being grateful and forgiving to ourselves: we will not succeed.

agent of change

Some people walk into our life, make us better and stay with us for eternity or disappear. After my class 10th, my mother sent me out of Bihar for higher studies. I believe this was one of the milestones in my life.

Later on, during engineering, participating in FOSS and open source technology and meeting folks like Vivek/Karunakar cemented my career for good. I have always been an outstanding student(mass bunking, focusing least on studies).

The same happened while starting taghash six years back, meeting Karthik, Krishna (my partner in crime), and other early believers.

They have all been agents of change and shaped my course of life. I am not saying life has been a smooth ride. I have had my share of failures in losing people and opportunities.

Our life is how we see it. It is not easy, painful, and full of failures. But during the journey, we end up meeting a few people at instances who end up being our agents of change. We have to seize those opportunities, trust them and join the cause.

We have options to cry on all our misses or celebrate our wins.

trust

A lot of my friends tell me I trust people easily. As a result, I suffer. I don’t know about the suffering part. One thing is sure: radical trust has been a mixed bag for me. I have made lifelong friends, lost money, and suffered emotionally. All of it has happened. But when I see the bigger picture, it has been a net positive for me.

The advantage of radical trust has been that I am all in, and without a doubt, I give my 100%. I understand the downside of it.

I have the option to be a radical trustworthy or a cynic. I choose to be former as it gives me a good night’s sleep and less heart pressure.