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Listen to understand not to respond

Today, I’m sitting at a Starbucks not because it’s quiet, but because it isn’t. I wanted to think in the presence of noise and see whether something meaningful could still emerge. The theme I want to explore today is simple, yet difficult to practice: listening more than we speak. The reflection began with a line inspired by the Bhagavad Gita: “When your intellect is no longer disturbed by the noise of opinions and remains steady in inner stillness, then you will attain true wisdom.” There is something deeply grounding about this quote. It immediately forces a question: how much of my thinking is actually mine? Noise and Opinions Most of our judgments are not born in silence. They are shaped by what people say, what trends reward, and what opinions are repeated often enough to feel like truth. We live in a world powered by Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, platforms built on opinions. This is good. That is bad. You should read this. You should watch that. The volume never drops. And slo...
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How I Stopped Wasting Weekends: A Blueprint for Structure Without Sacrifice

Yesterday I caught myself four hours deep into a TV binge I didn't even enjoy. My weekend had evaporated into a blur of scrolling, mindless entertainment, and that familiar Sunday night dread. Again. Here's what nobody tells you about weekends:  the same freedom that makes them refreshing can make them destructive. Without the structure of your workweek (the office environment, the meetings, the deadlines), it's remarkably easy to drift into chaos. I'd lose myself for 40-60 minutes in distraction, then spend another hour just trying to get back on track. The problem wasn't laziness. It was lack of design. I used to read books on weekends. I'd hit the gym consistently. I felt energized and intentional. Then gradually, without noticing, I'd replaced depth with distraction. So I decided to solve this. Here's the framework that transformed my weekends from wasted time into my most valuable 48 hours. The Core Problem: Environmental Vacuum During the week, you...
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I Checked My Phone 47 Times Yesterday. Here's What I'm Building Instead.

 I checked my phone 47 times yesterday. Gained nothing. Lost everything. Cal Newport calls social media 'the new cigarettes.' He's right. And like any addiction, the first step is admitting you have a problem. I came across this idea when I was reading Cal Newport's digital minimalism and how it argued that the social media apps in the world are engineered so that we disrupt our attention and go into a highly frenzied extremely connected information state and we go back and forth in that. There were 2 principles he mentioned that are important. The positive reinforcement of dopamine and the social validation. As humans, we crave social validation - our ancestors needed it for survival. Today, we don't. But the craving remains. In 2009, Facebook engineered the famous like button, the like button served exactly these 2 things. First, it gave you a dopamine hit when somebody liked your photo, or when someone commented the photo looks great. Second, it gave you social v...
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Perform Your Duty: Returning to Structure Through the Bhagavad Gita

It has been one of those weeks that feel chaotic, unstructured, and mentally noisy. I am not entirely sure whether the chaos came from the hackathon itself or from how I allowed my time and attention to become fragmented. What I do know is this: structure is more sustainable. Sitting down for an hour with structure is far easier than sitting for an hour without it. To reset, I returned to something simple. I read one verse from the Bhagavad Gita and decided to sit with it slowly. “You have the right to perform your duty, but not to the fruits of your actions.” Bhagavad Gita 2.47 This verse is timeless and deeply practical. It has the power to remove chaos and bring us back to structure, provided we are willing to understand it properly. The Right to Perform Your Duty When the Gita speaks about our right to perform our duty, it points to something liberating. We control effort, not outcomes. You can develop good software. You can prepare thoroughly for a presentation. You can train hard...
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Minimize attachments

Happiness does not come by maximising our possessions, but minimising our attachments. This quote, is not mine. But this to me is a beautiful quote, I want to expand this from a practical standpoint though. What do we really mean by maximising our possessions and why does happiness not really come from that. Why is it that happiness comes from minimising our attachments. It's a beautiful thought. Let's go through each topic one by one.  Maximising our possessions Our possessions can mean everything. Suppose if we believe that we possess a particular person, or a particular thing, that in our head is a possession. Money is also a type of possession. Don't get me wrong, utilising money in the right way is not possession, and by any means I am not saying don't earn money. What I am trying to say is earn money but don't be attached to it. Be loosely coupled to all of these things if I had to say in technical terms. Maximising possessions, can also mean that you are stro...
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Sitting with Discomfort: How Patience Transforms Our Lives

Today was a good day. I managed to maintain my structure, leave the cohort early as planned, and make it to the gym. There's something about completing a workout that makes everything feel right. During the cohort session, I even got a laugh out of everyone when the instructor joked about "overloading Alice" and I quickly typed "Poor Alice" in the chat. It felt good to bring some lightness to the moment. But beyond the small wins of the day, I've been thinking deeply about something more fundamental: the relationship between discomfort, patience, and growth. Where Growth Happens Discomfort is where we grow. Silence is where we meet ourselves. Noise is where we meet others. This simple truth has become increasingly clear to me. Every meaningful change in my life has emerged from moments of discomfort that I chose to sit with rather than run from. The theory is straightforward: whatever discomfort we experience in life is useful for us, if we can learn to be p...
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What are you avoiding?

It’s not usually the case that I watch TV. At least, it wasn’t. Somewhere along the way, TV quietly crept back into my life, not as joy, not as rest, but as numbness. I don’t even enjoy it that much. And yet, it consumes time. Time I don’t want to lose anymore. The truth is, TV gives dopamine, but not fulfilment. And that difference matters. I didn’t go to the gym today either. Not because I didn’t want to, but because my structure broke. I wasn’t able to leave the cohort early, even though I start earlier than most people. That’s a logistical problem I can solve, but what’s more important is recognising how fragile structure really is. When structure collapses, numbness rushes in to fill the gap. And numbness is dangerous. TV Isn’t the Problem, Avoidance Is. Let me be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with watching TV. Thirty minutes of good content is fine. What’s wrong is using TV to avoid your emotions. When I watch meaningless content, I’m not resting, I’m escaping. I’m avoi...
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