Thank You 2018
Each year we become more mature, more capable. Today is the time to thank the passing time and experiences for making us “who we are today!”
Happy New Year!! May you be happy and your dreams come true.
I want this blog to be lookback of my learnings during the year 2018. The things I will be mentioning aren’t something I copied from online sources. In fact, I haven’t read any literature for this blog. Everything is my own experience or I have learned them from my friends. Please note that if I am recommending you to do something in this blog, I would have already experimented it on myself.
Note: I have mentioned the names of a few apps in this blog. Please note that this isn’t any paid promotion of such apps.
Learning appears to be an exponential curve to me lately. Each year, I am feeling more confident, capable, calm, blessed, happy… The best thing I learned this year was communicating with people and realizing the power of having them by my side. Here are some of my key takeaways:
Don’t ignore strangers right away, give them a chance to show their value
There was a person whom I knew since a long time, we were like an acquaintance, never talked openly. Last year, I had a chance to talk to that person, but it was me who ignored the texts. This year, I again got that opportunity. Luckily, we gave each other enough time to put one’s on the table. Today, that person is my best friend forever. (Thank you Akruti)
Show your gratitude
You may not realize, but showing gratitude does as good as to you as to the person whom you are showing towards. You will start loving your good words. Try saying someone words like Thanks, You made me smile, You are awesome, You made my day, You deserve my claps, I love you, I want to hug you… I can type many more without even thinking. Every time I repeat one or the other, I feel good.
Today is the best day to say the things you have never said to others. Surprise them by writing a good letter, full of wishes, full of love. The letter should make them smile, make them feel good about your presence.
If you will be sending new year wishes to your friends and family, do make it personal by including their name in the wishes. Sending a common message seems like wishing others just for the sake of a checklist (Thanks Hanu).
Stop spamming
If you feel people spam you, then stop spamming others. I hope you hate WhatsApp forwards too. Now take an example of WhatsApp status, I have changed the visibility of my WhatsApp status to just a few people whom I feel actually look at them (I do keep switching the visibility of my status based on the content). This way, I easily get to know if someone missed my status.
Gift your vulnerability
“Vulnerability can be a bedrock for friendship”- The School of Life
Gifting vulnerability shows that we are strong enough to be weak and our dark sides aren’t the final verdict of “who we are”. Unburden yourself by gifting some of your hidden self to someone who is capable of holding it. This is something I had learned from The School of Life Youtube video (do follow the channel for such wisdom)
Life is Yin Yang
There will always be rise and fall in your life. Just don’t forget, each of them is a dot, waiting to be connected in future. Please read my blog Connect the Dots for a detailed description.
Believe in yourself
What are you searching for? Look inside… it’s in you. (Thank you Kung Fu Panda)
Start Documenting every single important thing
A library isn’t useful if you can’t find your desired book.
Hope the above point summarized it well. I use a mixture of apps like Trello, Evernote, Keep for organizing things. My friends do agree with the fact that I maintain proper documentation of my learnings and so I will be having a separate blog soon for the details.
Do start writing a daily diary. I would recommend you to have any online note-taking application rather than a physical one. It will enable you to use search features and add photos on the go. I use Evernote for my purposes. I have been doing this for 1000+ days and can say it is worth the time.
Somehow, when I started documenting the coincidences in my life, they started increasing in amount. I can’t ever summarize how many dots I have had in my life after I wrote my blog “Connect the Dots”. I have had multiple cases where I needed someone and that person has messaged me before my move… and this example is just of one the many other coincidences. My life feels more magical than ever before to me because of all such coincidences. I enjoy that the universe keeps on giving me surprises.
Respect Creators
It’s easy for us to be a critic, then to be a creator. This was something I realized when I started this blog. It is easy for us to append our views on someone else’s literature but it is extremely difficult to create our own. There were the times when my very close friends were the critics even though they didn’t even read the blog properly (I could see using analytics). Contrary, they were the times when some stranger read it and expressed their feelings. Be the critic of creation, only if you have given it the time it deserves.
It took us 66 million years to create our world whereas it took more than 13 billion years for the universe to create us. Give respect to the creators, it is comparatively easy to mould and add the things once the foundation is ready.
There are many artists, bloggers, writers, YouTubers, standup comedians, developers etc. out there who work because they enjoy doing it. They create values lacking in this world. They aren’t someone who work 5 days for the remaining 2. Every day is work for them, every day is their holiday! Help them create the world you like, give them the respect they need.
Think of the last time, you didn’t give credit to the author for a work you copied from online, you installed the app without giving money to the developers, you downloaded a book from Libgen… etc. I agree that you can’t afford everything, you had to use some dark tactics out there. But at least you can respect some of your favourite creators. You can help them reach more audience by sharing their content. Maybe, you can mail them wishes and compliments for the work they are doing.
I used to download pro cracked apk of many apps. I have now started to purchase them. Believe me, it feels good when you pay to a developer for their creations. Few months after purchasing the premium version of navigation gesture app, I mailed them regarding the few bugs. I was glad to know their perspective behind their creation and they even shared me the latest build of their app (without those bugs) which isn’t yet available on Play Store. This is how I was benefitted by mailing them. I also had an amazing conversation with Slowly app developers and I have realized creators do care about your feedback.
Find the creators you love, it can just be a small youtube channel you stumbled on by mistake, write a note to them, show them how much you love their work. Who knows, your letter could make them the next Picasso!
Good advice from a professor
Once one of our professors asked,
“Why companies look at your CGPA?”
What do you think, why they do? (Hint: never look at the direction a magician is pointing, cause the hidden secret lies where he isn’t)
The answer was simple, they want to know how much capable are you in doing the things you DON’T like…because probably you have to do the same kind of work in their company.
There are a few fields where the work is completely justified and loveable. Most probably you will end up doing the things you may not want in your life. Either change those things or learn to adapt…crying over it isn’t a solution.
(Thanks to Prof. Venkatesh Balasubramanian for sharing this knowledge)
Best days of my year
2 -16 June 2018: My trip to Taiwan for a workshop on Brain Sciences and Bio-Imaging at Taipei Medical University. The amount of learning deserves a whole separate blog which I will release in a few days.
Best experience
I think it is not an appropriate place to discuss such things (unfortunately, I don’t live in Canada). I have no intention of shaking hands with any kind of trouble at the beginning of a new year… so if you are interested, add me on Snapchat to hear about it. Sorry if you didn’t get it :P
My favourite app — Slowly
Don’t you think it’s easy to connect with people you don’t know and who are far enough to never interfere in your life?
Do you ever feel you need to change your environment so that you can be who you are without being judged by the people based on your past?
Do you want to be open to someone but have none other than your diary?
If you feel the above statements relatable, like I do, then this app is for you! The app brings traditional letter writing experience to your smartphone. You can send letters to any user across the globe. Farther the pen friend, the longer it takes. The community is awesome and so the conversations are always meaningful. I have some awesome pen pals from India, Poland, Taiwan and UK. It feels good to exchange experiences with them.
Disclaimer: it is not something for tinder fellas.
(Thank you Ankush Bhaiya for sharing the app)
The best advice
Never let your curiosity die. I believe curiosity comes above happiness. Happiness is a vague term and can be too confusing to comprehend. Happiness comes when you are too lost in your work, you are “present” in the moment. To get so much lost in the work, you need to have a mission, you should be creating some value for yourself or for others, or you should be learning. Curiosity gives you a mission, a reason to work, a challenge to win.
The same stimulus over a long period of time no longer makes you happy, because it is the SAME stimulus, nothing is NEW for you to EXCLAIM!!!
Be like a child who keeps exploring.
Keep improving yourself
Ask your friends about improvements you can make in your life. It’s always a good choice to take advice from a bunch of people, take their intersection to remove false positives and implement in your life.
I have to say a lot on this topic. I will have a separate blog for it in the future.
Year in emojis
I liked the way of describing the year using emojis, recommended by Twitter. It took me an hour to make it. Maybe you can try it too and ask your friends to guess it for you. It is an entertaining activity.
Fun Fact
This blog is 2018 words long. Yeee :D
If you think this blog deserves a round of applause, don’t hesitate to hit the clap button multiple times. Follow me for reading more blogs coming down the road.
Thanks for reading it till the end. Comment with your takeaways during 2018. I would love to hear them.
I have been travelling lately and didn’t get time to properly edit this blog. Unlike my other blogs, this one didn’t go through many iterations. If you feel there are errors in the blog, please write to me.
Mail: vismay.iitm@gmail.com
Follow me on social media: vismayagrawal (LinkedIn, Twitter, Insta, Snapchat, FB, Github)P.S. Welcome 2019!!
