Life Updates - 2020 (Part 2 of 2)

You can read part 1 here.

What I have learnt over the last two years

Privilege:

The concept of privilege that is realizing the benefits you unknowingly has has changed me. It is a topic I have often referred to recently on my blogs. It has made me more aware of myself and shaped my political ideology. You can read about it here, an article that is a copy-paste of one of my essays that I submitted during the Ashoka University application process.

Time management - Work/ Life Balance

A vast majority of people I know/ knew lacked either time management or having a work/life balance.

Concerning time management, people do not realise the amount of time they have. Friends and classmates (and even a member on the Sciences Po interview panel) have been surprised about how much time I have (to spend time with them or engage in a particular activity), considering my extra-curriculars, (recreational) sports, academics, voluntary work schedule etc. Although I often do not reply to that statement and just brush it off, in my head, I am always reminded that we all have the same 24 hours in a day, but if we changed our mentality a bit, we could use it more efficiently. Here, I must admit that even I am not the most efficient in utilising my time, but I am confident that I do it to a better extent than some people because I do not feel overburdened by the amount of things I do, but often do many different things.

Often due to upcoming exams, people stop all social engagements. I have never quite understood why.
If your exam is for 3 hours in the morning, in most cases, one does not study at least for a couple of hours after. Fitting in a quick lunch with a friend (even though you have your next exam right around the corner), is possible without effectively 'wasting time' as the time would have anyway been 'wasted' doing nothing. For some of you reading this, it may seem obvious, and you may be following it. However, that is not the case with many people I know and thought I should write about this. I have never quite understood why people impose a lockdown on themselves and even the thought of going out for a couple of hours seems daunting and a ridiculous thought.

Most people try and compartmentalize their lives into three parts. One for recreation. One for daily work. One for work that requires high amounts of focus, for a limited period (for example - exams).

Many people I know will engage with just one compartment at any given point of time. If they have a high-focus engagement, recreation and daily work are ignored. Similarly, when they engage with only 'recreation', the other two compartments are ignored or neglected.

Rather than trying to find a sufficient balance and effectively juggling all three aspects, people often try to focus on just one, and in my opinion, end up being unhappy or do not have enough time on their hands because, at any given moment in life, they are only focussing on one aspect, and not living life to their fullest by having a combination of all three. Think about it. Would you prefer partying and having fun for five days continuously and then slogging it out for the rest of the year or would you make time for yourself over the year more frequently and enjoy life by having a small breather from time to time? Your opinion may differ, but I prefer the short breathers every week that you get at the end of a Monday-Friday workweek. Even though many people believe that living for the weekend is not a good thing, I think it's the best compromise. We have to make, in our limited capacities, an end goal in the short run and the long run. Calling the weekend your short-run goal is okay. It gives you something to look forward to and motivates you to put in your best during the week and for the lack of a better phrase, 'chill out' on the weekend.

Patience

Cliched, isn't it?

You can ask my parents. I am not the most patient of people, so I have made a conscious effort of working towards it. Although Government offices always put my patience to the test and having made four visits to the passport office, for the issue of two passports in the last 6 months (and apart from only occasionally and briefly losing my cool while there), I can quite confidently say that I have become a slightly more patient person :)

Jokes aside, being patient has ensued betterment multifold. Right from waiting for colleges to respond to driving in stressful Bangalore traffic, my patience has been tested time and again. Therefore, I have developed a foolproof way that in most cases, won't stress me out; the following thought:

"Stress is never going to help me advance or do whatever I am doing faster or better. It only causes irrationality and a lack of clear thought that I ever so need because clear thought can help me overcome whatever is causing stress."

Although this sounds like something that any self-appointed preacher would talk about, I realised that by actually implementing these ideas, I could see a visible change in myself and therefore decided to write about it.

Comments

The Great Omani Coastal Route

Route 15 : Muscat-Nizwa The parents, seemingly forever, had been planning a trip to Oman. Why Oman? Well, that’s a question I asked myself too. My dad, in the 90s, spent close to a decade in the UAE but barring a work trip, had never visited Oman. Fast forward to the 21 st century, countless Oman Air flights from India to Europe later, he found himself stranded in Muscat. A ‘technical difficulty’ they said. He visited the Sultan Qaboos Mosque but didn’t get to see much more – it was only a 24-hour layover. However, the constant propaganda he was subjected to via the in-flight entertainment, and the cabin crew he made conversation with, convinced him that the country has a lot to offer. A friend from the UAE, who spoke highly of Oman, apparently also played a role. The parents had their mind set on Oman. The stars aligned and clubbing together a bunch of bank holidays in India, they decided on visiting in April. Unfortunately, or fortunately (the jury is still out), ...

Life during the COVID-19 lockdown

The past three weeks have impacted people around India in different ways. The migrant labourers and daily wage workers have unarguably been affected the worst. It has been an interesting three weeks in which the concept of privilege was spoken about vastly in the media. Even though the salaried middle class is also affected, their lives have been phenomenally better than, for example, those they employ to clean their houses or wash their dishes. It is at times such as these that I realise how lucky a majority of my friends and I are. While most of the country is suffering (suffering in the real sense of not being able to afford and procure three square meals a day and NOT because a shop ran out of imported cheese) in lockdown, my parents could work from home, without intruding into each other’s personal space and could carry out some, if not most of their work from the comfort of their house, unlike the majority of the country. I have been reading articles about the shortfalls of in...

Beating the winter blues - Morocco

After having spent just over two months in England, with short trips to America’s east coast on work and Paris for Diwali, I was itching to travel somewhere new – somewhere I hadn’t been before. I found myself in one of the study rooms at university, unable to focus on my readings. Winter was setting in. The days were getting shorter, London was getting greyer, and the sun had gone into hibernation. An important question was running in my mind – one that would determine how I would overcome the impending winter blues – what will I do during the Christmas break? A typical international student’s response would be simple – book a return ticket to your home country. However, as a seasoned international student, my response had to be different, right? With a not-so-powerful passport in hand, I grappled with my options. Limited by choices of visa-regime friendly choices, I first laid out a bunch of criteria for an anti-winter blues holiday of choice. I wanted three thing...

Yulu Miracle - app based electric scooters

Those of you who live in Bangalore, especially in places such as Indiranagar, Koramangala and Whitefield may have noticed different looking and noiseless blue scooters whizzing past you as you are stuck in traffic. These new scooters that can be hired through a mobile app called Yulu are used by all age groups. Currently, a majority of people (including me) use it for joyrides rather than optimizing their travel. For those of you who still have no idea, refer to the picture above! These electric scooters that are provided by Yulu are known as 'Miracles' and can be hired per 10 minutes through their app that can be downloaded on the Play Store as well as the App Store . Having clocked at least 15 hours on these exciting new scooters in the past few weeks, I have many stories to tell. Although there is more awareness about these scooters today, as close as three weeks ago, barely anyone had any idea about it. Riding these scooters were fun and the closest I coul...

The Actual Effectiveness of the Cap on Movie Ticket Pricing in Karnataka

Source: Google The Karnataka Government, announced in its budget in March 2017 that it would be capping the price of movie tickets at Rs. 200+Taxes+Internet Handling Fees (if any). This decision taken by the Government was lauded by many. While this decision was originally lauded as a good one, here is what one must consider before commending it further. The Rs. 200 cap excludes all Gold Screen/Seat Tickets. All Kannada films is priced at a maximum of approximately Rs. 233 (all inclusive*), but tickets for non - kannada films are at a maximum of Rs. 300 (all inclusive). {1} While the Budget announcement by Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah sounds ideal, by reading the above facts we can gather that the actual price of tickets for Non-Kannada movies will not be much lesser than what it was prior to the 2017 Budget. This brings me to my next question. Should this budgeta ry decision be lauded as much as it is being done today? Siddaramaiah Source: Google Considering that m...

Opinion on the Tax Rebate - Budget 2019

Source The Union Budget of India that was presented on Feb 1, 2019 was a populist-vote bank driven one filled with proposals to woo all possible stakeholders who are eligible to vote. Be it farmers, the middle class or the economically stronger ones, all sections of society after a brief glance at the highlights of the budget will be content with what Piyush Goyal has to offer in the sixth and final Budget of this term of the NDA. Although I found many parts of the budget a questionable waste of money to fuel populist schemes, I did enjoy certain parts of it, especially the newly introduced tax rebate. The proposed tax rebate in which income upto INR 5 lakhs is essentially tax-free is one that I wholly welcome for many reasons. The tax-rebate proposal and terms is something that I welcome unconditionally but the way how the Finance Minister has portrayed income up to INR 6.5 lakhs tax free (with the disclaimer that this is only possible if all the 'right' investments ar...

Investment Advice #1 - Direct Equity - is it really for you?

Depending on who is reading this article, you may or may not know that I have been investing my money since 2015 when I was just 13 years old. The concept of money growing in value by doing minimum or no work at all intrigued me and led me to learning about the various ways to invest money. Having been in this business for the last four years, I will try and 'advise' you in a way that will convince you to invest in the right way. This article is not going to advise you to invest a certain portion of your income or invest in a stock(s) or anything else that you will probably be able to read elsewhere online. Instead, this article, and the ones to follow will give you my learning experiences that I think may help a new investor. You may or may not agree either because you are in denial of reality or you may not have faced a particular challenge but I recommend that you give these tips a read and let me know what you think! Tip #1 Direct Equity - is it really for you? Most o...

Sanjith Rao

Search This Blog