7 Life Lessons I Learnt in the Last Decade

We think so hard before helping someone

Last year, I visited my guru’s ashram in Puttaparthi (India). A young girl came begging for food just as I was going into a restaurant for lunch. I decided to get some curd rice for the girl. After lunch, I found the girl and gave her the curd rice, but she didn’t want it. She wanted dosa. I insisted the curd rice is good (I like curd rice), but the girl was firm she wanted only dosa. In the end, I just gave her the curd rice and left.

Whenever I’m at a restaurant, or ordering from DoorDash, and looking over a menu full of options, and can’t decide what I want, this girl comes to mind. Didn’t she have a right to choose?

Effectiveness > Efficiency

With a day job, side hustles, and hobbies, I spent years trying to work out how to be more productive and efficient, so I could get more done each week. I was in a constant state of “busyness” and eventually got burnt out. That’s when I learnt that the key is to be less efficient, and more effective. It’s about slowing down, taking time off to think, reflecting on what you want from life, and making time for what’s important. Efficiency is about doing more. Effectiveness is about putting in quality and heart into the few things that move the needle for you. A book I read recently, Make Time, has incredibly practical ideas on how to make time for the important things.

Smile More

An Uber driver once gave me a heartfelt smile when I was getting down at the airport—his smile was imprinted in my mind even until I went past security, and it was a great feeling. I realized we don’t smile enough. I don’t think it’s that we don’t want to smile. I think we don’t think of it much. We don’t practice smiling. There’s a certain inertia when it comes to smiling. We don’t think of the effect it’s going to have on the other person, as well as the positive effect it has on us—have you ever smiled at someone and felt bad? It’s the easiest thing we can do to feel better instantly.

Small Teams > Large Teams

In one of my startup attempts, we were four of us. The team quickly grew to seven at one point. While it was fun to have that many of us working on a shared vision, it took us three years to realize that this wasn’t going to work. It’s tempting to team up with more people, because you think you can go faster, but we learnt the hard way that you actually end up going slower. More time is spent debating opinions rather than focusing on the things that make a real difference.

Art > Artist

Recently, I was part of a photography exhibition, where my photo was displayed, along with many other photos shot by amazing photographers. During the opening night, friends and family visited, and we were huddled around my photo, and I was telling them how I shot the picture, and all that jazz. After the event, something felt seriously wrong. There were so many amazing shots all over the wall—and I was just talking about my photo.

A few weeks later, on the closing night, I tried something different. I hardly spent time around my picture. I took my guests around the other photos, and we talked about how the photographers might have shot them, and what their thought process might have been—it was so much more inspiring and enjoyable than just talking about my own photo, and I think my guests got a little bit more interested about photography.

I realized that art comes before the artist.

Structure > Freedom

Once, someone asked me if I could do their photoshoot in December. It was June, and I was like I have no idea what my schedule is next week, how could I commit to something six months away!

Staying non-committed means you have more options—you’re not locked into anything, you could travel whenever, and most importantly you have the option to say yes to a possibly better opportunity that comes your way. But, you’ll likely end up living a life that doesn’t move towards anything purposeful.

I found that having structure is actually more liberating than trying to have freedom. Having structure allows me to be more intentional with my time. Thinking harder about what I want to commit to, blocking my time for things that are worth my time, and wholeheartedly commiting to those things allows me to have a clearer perspective on the time I have available for “freedom”.

Acknowledging > Sharing your opinion

Once my dad called to complain about my mom—something silly, I don’t remember what it was. It’s always amusing to get in the middle of their fight, but anyhow, on that day, I heard what my dad had to say, but I didn’t really make an effort to feel what he was feeling. Before he could finish his story, I was like, Appa why do you have to get so worked up about these silly things, and cut him short, and we went on to talk about other things.

But, it made me think. He had called me to share his feelings. He just wanted me to listen—nothing would have helped him more than me just listening to what he had to say.

When someone wants to talk, resist the temptation to share your opinion. Acknowledge first.

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