Finding joy in pain

During my Civil Services training in Mussoorie, an especially memorable trek was to a place called Rabbit Farm, though we neither saw any rabbits nor any farm. During this trek, people grumbled especially loudly — the hours of climbing and descending sharp...

The high cost of being busy

I was once attending a drug addiction conference in Melbourne, where the speaker on the stage had lost his beloved son to a drug overdose. He started by talking about the loss of his son, and how he could not get timely medical help when he overdosed. After his son’s...

Living for today

When I entered the corporate world in the US after my stint in the Indian Civil Services, I heard this weird notion called ‘paying your dues.’ Apparently, the grunt work and suffering at the beginning of your career earn you the ‘right to live well’ when you are...

Finding balance in the age of busyness

During my days at McKinsey, I once asked a retired senior partner about life before PowerPoint. How did they make presentations to clients? He said that they used to create presentations on big chart papers using felt-tip pens. They would have to write in big font,...

Flow state

The fish packet vanished from right in front of my eyes — how the hell did that happen, I wondered! This happened a few months ago: Sitting in my living room, as I was intently working on my blog, the fish delivery guy rang the doorbell. I absent-mindedly...