Heaven and Hell

I've been stressing out about my relationships my entire life. The lack of a romantic one, the superficiality of my paternal ones, the lack of depth in the ones with my siblings, and the consistent inconsistency in all of my friendships. I've always heard that you're born alone and you die alone, and you're pretty much always alone so better get used to it. I remember when I was younger, I used to fantasize about it. How weak these simp like men were who were being controlled by women. How wonderful a truly independent life would be. How ideal. How freeing. 

To my mind now, only my brother Bhuvan seems to be living an ideal life. Full of challenges for sure, not without his own share of terrible suffering, but still happy, and kind. Never allowing himself to get bitter and depressed. That's what it seems to me now anyway.

Past few days I've been going back and forth on it. On one hand I thought the new year and the Christmas weekend are a time to socialise and be with other people. I thought it was supposed to be spent strengthening my connection to those around me. On the other hand I have never been happier just staying in my lane, keeping my head down and doing my work as regularly, consistently, and long term as possible. I want to do nothing more than ignore the calendar and stick to my schedule as faithfully as possible.

Here’s what I've learned the past few days:

- Self determination theory. A theory about the causes of motivation. Competence, Autonomy, and Relatedness. (CAR) I had heard of the concept before but I never knew the name or its origin.

- The single biggest thing I can do to fulfill my needs is to keep a happy mind. One that's free from stress, worry, anxiety, or fear. Devoid of a focus on inconsequential nonsense.

- Keeping my mind focused on what's in front of me. Accepting whatever is happening as I learn about it. Being calm and peaceful. These are the foundation of excellent performance.

- To get what I want I need to do a lot of work and improve my chances. Sure there's a lot of other stuff to. There's even a lot of complications in that train of thought itself. But sitting around philosophizing leads to nothing but circle. To move forward we have to keep moving.

- It seems that taking micro breaks actually help a lot in maintaining a pace instead of burning out and derailing.

- No matter how much I do, it will never be enough. The whole point is to take it all in as it happens. Nothing could be more fulfilling than the process. The highs are nice and the lows give meaning, but the middle is where life is worth living.