One day, a friend noticed some indicator of worry or sadness on my face and asked me if I was okay. I just smiled and replied that everything was fine. I could see he was not convinced and expected him to probe more. But he asked me just one thing.

How can I help?

It’s a simple question but it shows an involved offer of support that other polite statements like – let me know if there is anything I can help with – don’t. Both sentences mean the same thing and are probably said with similar sentiments. But these four words show the other person that you are not just taking a back seat, waiting for them to come to you. Rather you are taking an active involvement. Secondly, we can express it even when we don’t know what the issue is. And if the person doesn’t want to share, he/she still derives a deep level of comfort and reassurance from the fact that someone cares genuinely and is not just making a polite overture.

It’s now something I actively try to say when I want to offer support but don’t know the right words. How can I help?

Failure is a feeling, long before it becomes a result.

I am always aiming to be as precise as possble which is reflected in how I think, speak and write. As a result, I feel frustrated when I have to talk in abstracts because I sense that the other person is not getting the same meaning out of the conversation as I want them to.

But why should they? If they got exactly the same understanding as me, there is no scope for further interpretation. Whereas, the beauty of abstraction is that it can take on a different meaning depending on the audience and their context at the time. This way, the exploration nevers ends.

When we are at odds with someone, spitting mad at them or cannot comprehend how he/she could do a perceived bad act, it is easy to forget – People are more than the worst thing about them.

The first death that affected me was my grandfather’s. He died after a prolonged illness which as a kid I wasn’t aware of, so it was a shock to see him that way. The second one was also another grandfather. This time, I was older and the thought that kept going through my mind was how the world was still revolving and people were continuing to go about their lives. It felt like despite this momentous event that had occurred, nothing around me had stopped. And more recently, that was reiterated when SPB passed away.

In my mind, death should be one of the hardest things to deal with. It has a finality to it, there are no second chances, no retries. But it seems that very fact – finality – also makes us deal with it faster than we would any other life altering event, like a breakup or a diagnosis. This is ofcourse not a given all the time. Sometimes the pain can be too much that we are still unable to accept and move on.

Is the finality life’s way of allowing us to move on? I don’t know the answer. At the end of the day, it is what it is. And it depends on us what we make of it. Whether we are able to use it to start healing or not.

Learned helplessness. It is a state that occurs after a person has experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. As a result of which, we come to believe that we are unable to control or change the situation, so we don’t even try, not even when an opportunity for change presents itself.

The important thing about this phrase is the term learned. We were not born with this. Rather, as kids, we are far more gutsy and unafraid of failure. This is something we learn as we grow into adults. And more often than not, it is just our brain making noise, sowing seeds of self doubt.

Chris Evans explains it well – telling your mind to quiet down sometimes is not denying the problem but rather rising above it. Like he says, it cannot be defined as a generic rule of thumb which category a situation falls under. We learn the knack of telling the difference once we experience it for ourselves.

Sshhh… Deceptively simple but powerful.

I consumed a lot of good, thought provoking material during the pandemic lockdown. And in today’s post, I wanted to curate the list of content from different platforms that I have listened, read or watched over the last year (2020) and found to be impactful. I plan to do a deep dive into these in my blog posts over this year with my impressions and opinions. As a start, I am listing down my recommendations.

Books

I read a higher number of (non-fiction) books than the previous years and among them, the following were all insightful in some way or the other.

• Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations by Dan Ariely
• The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip and Dan Heath
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
• Barking up the Wrong Tree: The Suprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong by Eric Baker
• The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
• The Upside of Stress: Why Stress is Good for You and How to Get Good at It by Kelly McGonigal

Podcasts

I really got into a variety of podcasts this year, listening to them while cooking, laundary, walking,….you name it. And this is the collection (some of them technical) that I have found interesting enough to continue listening.

• Hidden Brain
• Revisionist History
• Michelle Obama Podcast
• The CloudCast
• Rails with Jason
• Go Time

Miniseries

I have not watched a lot of new video content this year but the following are some really great mini / web series from 2019-2020 that are a must-see.

• Unbelievable
• Chernobyl
• Stranger Things
• Delhi Crime
• Inside Bill’s Brain

Looking back on this list, I am happy to have consumed all this good material even though it falls way short of my goal for 2020. I hope 2021 is enriched with many more books, podcasts and videos that open my mind and broaden my thinking.

It has been one crazy rollercoaster – the most tumultuous year of our lifetimes. There have been events with massive long-term impact before but none that have had such drastic and pervasive effects on the entire globe.

Many have lost loved ones, livelihoods, houses, money and much more. For those of us who have been fortunate, these past 10 months have still been a time of change and contemplation. At the end of the day (or rather the year), we have all been shaken from the trajectories we were on. There has been good and bad. It is what it is. The only thing we are in control of is choosing how these events and changes shape our lives.

Farewell 2020, you have taught us much.

Earlier this year, I was going through a personal hard time. At the beginning, I couldn’t talk about it to anybody, even with the one friend who reached out to talk. Then a couple of months later, I was able to share with a couple of close friends but the conversation always left me feeling emotionally drained and hollow inside.

Recently, almost a year later, another friend reached out and this time, when I shared, I found it to be cathartic. I could see differences in the way I talked about me, my feelings and the events that transpired. I found myself being more honest than I had ever been before. As less as a few weeks ago, that would have been unthinkable.

This taught me a valuable lesson. The process of healing and growing takes time. As we progress on that journey, we are able to respond and handle things better. While there will definitely be some steps we can take to help along the healing process, we cannot fast forward it to the finish line. Because the journey is what determines where that line is.

I also learnt something else. I couldn’t have reached my current place without having that initial time to myself. Neither could I have done it without that first friend who reached out nor the others who have helped in their own way at different points. We each have a role to play as a friend or family member to help in a loved one’s hard times. What is more important to note is that we all have different roles to play, each of which helps that person and none of which is purposeless.

Recognizing this crucial fact is freeing and allows us to truly be there for the people we care about. Because who we are at that point in their lives is just one of many stepping stones along their journey.

In a relationship, when one person says to the other, “I need you to agree to my so-and-so condition”, the result is usually a debate or argument. At best, it is a level headed discussion that hashes out all sides of the topic. The latter may work sometimes but not in the long run.

On the other hand, I have noticed that the most effective response comes from those who don’t reply to the words directly. Rather, they address the emotion behind them. And they do it over a period of time, not try to steamroller though it in a single conversation.

Why do I say it is the most effective? Because it comes from understanding that the words spoken are stemming from a place of fear, insecurity or anxiety. By reassuring that there is no need for such feelings with words and more importantly actions, we make the other person feel secure and loved enough to see that it is not a this-or-that situation. Rather it is a journey which both parties are in, together.

This is not a hack or trick to manipulate the other person. It only works when we really try to understand and empathize with their feelings. When we do, our actions and words will genuinely assuage their fears.