Artificial constraints

#283

I borrowed twenty-something books from the library three months ago. Some I finished. Most I didn't. And for weeks, I carried around this low-level guilt about the ones still sitting on my nightstand: half-read, abandoned, judging me quietly.

When I voiced this shame out loud one day, my partner asked me: "Why do you have all these artificial constraints!?"

I'd been complaining about always showering before breakfast. That's the rule I'd set for myself, apparently. Why? Because that's how I was raised and I'm rather obedient, so I didn't question it. But then one day I didn't have time. So I ate breakfast first. Waited an hour. Then took a shower.

The world didn't end.

That day, I went and returned those unfinished books to the library. I became aware of the fact that I was forcing myself to finish books I no longer wanted to read urgently or that other activities took priority during that phase of my life. It helped me let go of my own made-up rules that no longer served me.

When obligation becomes the point

The borrowed books weren't the problem. The pressure I'd put on myself to finish them was.

I had borrowed the books with real excitement. New frameworks, new stories, new ideas - I'd wanted them all. But then life got dense. Some books didn't land the way I expected. Others I started and realized I'd outgrown them. A few were just... not it.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that I should finish them. Because finishing things is what you're supposed to do. One of the ways I'd measured success in life. But also: psychology.

There's a concept known as the "sunk-cost fallacy". It's the idea that because you've already invested time, money, or effort (i.e. sunk cost) into something, you should keep investing more to justify what you've already spent. It's a cognitive bias, a trick our brains play on us. We think that the effort we've already wasted somehow obligates us to waste more.

But in reality: that obligation is completely made up.

Turning completion worship into intentionality

My partner noticed a pattern quickly enough when I used to yes to things I didn't have to say yes to, and feel trapped. I created rules and forgot they were optional. I pressured myself to finish because stopping felt like failure and I couldn't tolerate leaving things unfinished.

Sunk costs don't obligate you. Returning the books didn't erase what I'd already read. Breaking the shower rule didn't undo my morning. The sunk costs were sunk either way. Finishing them wouldn't un-sink them.

What finishing them would do is tie me to decisions I no longer believed in.

I gradually learnt that meaning comes from who you are now, not from finishing what made sense five years ago. You don't have to be who you were when you started, because you've grown. You've evolved.

What artificial constraint are you carrying today? What would happen if you broke it?

Continuity over perfection

#282

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." -Aristotle

For three months after I started CrossFit, I kept waiting for the right conditions before I'd go: eight hours of quality sleep, good hydration, zero excuses lined up. That combination hardly ever lined up, so I rarely showed up either. It was irregular, sometimes twice a week, sometimes four times a week to catch up then burning out and skipping a week, then vowing to thrice a week but going at different times of day anyway. The days I went half-baked with less than 6-7 hours of sleep, I realized my cortisol ends up resetting after a while. So now I go regardless. Tired, dehydrated, running on four hours, whatever the day handed me. On Saturdays, when I actually get to sleep in and catch up in the afternoon, all of me thanks me for having gone and showed up at least.

Blogging taught me the same lesson. I'd sit on a post for weeks trying to get a sentence exactly right, and by the time I published it, I'd lost momentum on the next four ideas sitting in my drafts folder. With this year's commitment to myself to uphold weekly publishing on self-care, a slightly clunky post that goes out on Wednesday afternoon beats a polished one that never leaves the folder.

The two versions of me

There's the version who's still negotiating with the conditions: waiting for the right amount of sleep, the right mood, the right stretch of free time to do it properly. And there's the version who just does the smaller, messier thing on schedule. Same person, same goals, and only one of them actually keeps a streak going.

I used to think the gap between those two was discipline. Gritting my teeth through mornings and grinding through. Turns out it's mostly just the size of the bar I'd set for what counted as showing up. Lower the bar enough and willpower has no room left to matter.

Falling to systems

"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." -James Clear

One aspect of James Clear's research on habits is all about how motivation is unreliable, so what works is building a habit that survives a bad day. He calls this identity-based, rooted in who you are rather than what you want, which is why skipping it feels like betraying yourself instead of just missing a goal.

The compounding part that small and consistent beats big and rare, every time, given enough weeks, might sound boring. But boring is exactly why it works. The only thing that survives "every single day, no exceptions" for me is a lowered bar.

The new bar

Now a workout counts if I show up to the gym and work out for an hour instead of 90 minutes, at 60% of my capacity. A post counts if it says the true thing plainly, even when the sentence isn't singing or the words haven't fully scratched the itch in my brain. Some days I still catch myself waiting for eight hours of sleep and perfect hydration before I'll commit to anything. I just don't wait as long as I used to, and on the mornings I go anyway, tired and unprepared, some part of me is always relieved by the afternoon. I also realized I tend to regret not doing something more than doing it and having to pay the price for it later, like being tired the rest of the day and having to push through because of the workout, because deep down, I convince my brain that my body's better off for having done it.

Conflict and repair

#281

"The best fighter is never angry." — Lao Tzu

My partner and I had a disagreement a few weeks ago over something so small I'm almost embarrassed to write it down- it was about taking the trash out. But honestly, it doesn't matter what it was; what matters is that ten minutes in, we weren't actually arguing about the thing anymore. We were arguing about being right. Voices a notch sharper, and both of us digging into positions neither of us fully believed, just to avoid being the one who backed down first.

A day or two after the instance, during a moment of self-reflection, I pondered things like- what was I even defending during the argument? Was it the original thing or my ego stemming from my need to not be the one who folds first because of my belief to be in the right?

I used to think a good relationship meant fewer fights. Turns out one of its aspects is faster repair. The couples who never disagree aren't necessarily healthier. They often might be avoiding something, or one person has quietly stopped bringing things up at all. The actual skill isn't conflict-avoidance. It's knowing how to stay in the room, stay yourself, and still care about the person across from you while you're both a little annoyed.

There's a researcher named John Gottman who teaches at UW and has spent decades studying couples, watching them argue in a lab, tracking who stayed together and who split. His finding wasn't that stable couples fight less. It's that they're better at what he calls "repair attempts". These are small moves, sometimes just a joke or a hand on an arm, that de-escalate a fight before it turns into contempt.

Contempt looks like an eye-roll, a sarcastic jab, or mocking your partner's point mid-sentence. A repair attempt looks like the opposite: a joke, a hand on an arm, sometimes just admitting out loud that you're both being ridiculous. The couples who last aren't the ones without friction but rather the ones who know how to hit the brakes.

I'm glad to have become more aware about these things nowadays. The fix has almost become unglamorous- some days, it's a simple "can we start over." Other days it's even simpler: "I think we've shifted topics." My favorite ones are where one of us comes up with a clever joke or pun to diffuse the situation instantly.

What do you do in the ninety seconds after things get a bit fraught- Do you dig in, look for the exit ramp, or something else entirely?

Joy of movement

#280

Until about a year ago, movement was never really my thing. I wasn't into fitness or working out or even sports at a consistently competitive level. My parents did tai chi and yoga, but I was the kid with a book in her hand, not a jersey on her back.

Then I moved to the US and everyone kept talking about pilates. So I tried it. And it felt hard. Not in a good way but rather in a way that made me want to stop. One day my friend introduced me to CrossFit.  And then, thanks to the coaches, the community, and camaraderie, lifting heavy things became addictive. I felt strong. It felt empowering.

But CrossFit isn't the only movement that found its way into my life. Yoga has been good too. Especially the slow, controlled vinyasa flows. Though balancing poses still require way more focus from me than I'd like to admit. My body's still learning what stability feels like.

Dancing has always been fun. I move differently when music is involved. But I've had knee issues forever, so there's always this low-level fear. That same caution kept me away from sports as a kid. My knees have taught me to move carefully. CrossFit helped me build quad strength that stabilized muscles around my knees, keeping it in place.

And then there's running. I was never a cardio person. Never understood the appeal. But this year, I signed up for my very first run: a 5K. Trained for about 2 months for it. The overall final run felt a bit difficult, but since I had no time goal for myself, I was very happy when I finished the race well under an hour. The medal still hangs in the middle of my living room and I feel inspired by it every time I look at it. I've also started enjoying running way more than before and say yes to the opportunities that present themselves.

All this to say - this is what joyful movement feels like. Not punishment or obligation, and not because I'm trying to earn something or fix something. Just the simple pleasure of feeling your body move the way it's designed to move. Slow, controlled, intentional. Feeling your muscles engage. Feeling your breath. Feeling the ground under your feet.

It's different from what the fitness world sells you. There's no before-and-after. No metric to hit. No goal to achieve. Just the sensation of being in your body and actually enjoying it. The strength in your legs after a long walk. The calm that settles over you during a slow yoga flow. The lightness that comes after you've moved intentionally.

Your body is yours. You get to move it for pleasure. Not punishment. Not because you're supposed to. Because it feels good. Because you want to. Because your body is capable and alive and sometimes that's reason enough.

Memorabilia as self-care

#279

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Somewhere in a box in my closet, there's a card made of pistachio shells.

One of my older cousins had colored the top of each one, painstakingly, shell by shell, and glued them into place to spell out "All The Best". She had made this for my tenth grade board exams. The kind of exam where the whole extended family collectively holds its breath for the first time.

I don't remember much about studying for those exams. I remember the card.

In that same box: a letter from my younger cousin, back when she was still learning her letters — literally. She didn't know cursive yet, so in my reply, I wrote out the whole alphabet for her, looping and slanted, showing her how each letter connected to the next. She wrote back with a drawing tucked inside. Two stick figures holding hands. Big sister, little sister, her handwriting rather neat and coherent for a three-year-old. I can't exactly describe what I feel when I look at it. I've tried to find the word and I can't. Maybe it doesn't need one.

The box also contains gifts from my girl-cousin duo at my bachelorette, the notes from all the birthday gifts my Dad has given me over the years, and origami cranes a tour guide in Japan folded for us on our last day, making it one of the highlights of our trip. Small things creating big waves. 

Over time, an item became a folder. A folder became a box. And soon, it became several folders inside an ever-growing bigger box. I used to revisit the box once a year and wonder if I'd had anything that I wanted to get rid of as part of "Kon-mari"-ing the house. But every year, the answer would be a hard no, since all it would do is make me feel valued and loved and grateful for my family, friends, and experiences in life.

There's a concept in psychology called attachment theory. It's the idea that humans need a "secure base," something or someone that reminds the nervous system it's safe, it's held, it belongs. Usually that's a person. But objects can borrow that job too. The pistachio card isn't just paper, color, and shell. It's a younger version of me being told, in the most literal glued-together way possible, that someone rooted for her.

Marie Kondo asks if a thing sparks joy right now, hands on it, this exact moment. Most days, I'm on board. But some things don't need to spark anything today to matter. The cursive letter doesn't spark joy on a random Wednesday in my closet. It's a record of two sisters learning each other's handwriting, and that's enough of a reason to keep it.

I no longer assess this box on what item earns its keep. Rather, I feel a sense of pride when the box gets bigger because to me, that's what an accumulated life looks like: a slow collection of little things people didn't have to do, but did anyway.

I imagine this box a few years from now. Heavier. Fuller. More folders than it has any business having. Still full of pistachio shells and cursive letters and cranes from a woman in Japan I might never see again.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." -Maya Angelou

Sensory overload

#278

There are days when everything feels too much. Too loud or too bright. Flickering lights that make my eyes hurt. A crowd of people all talking at once, each voice competing for space in your head. So many inputs and stimuli that my nervous system just wants to run away.

So I run away. To my room if possible. Find a quiet corner. Curl up with my knees drawn to my chest - I love this posture. It makes me feel contained and safe. I dim the lights. And slowly, things start to get better. My mind quietens and I can think again. My brows un-furrow.

This is what sensory overload looks like: your brain receives more input than it can process. Sound, light, movement, people—all at once. Your nervous system gets flooded. You need to retreat because you can't process anymore. It's easy to label that as weak or antisocial but it's really just dealing with an overwhelming situation.

After stepping away from Instagram and discovering boredom (see #276 and #277), I started enjoying quiet spaces even more. I love silence nowadays. No TV, no podcasts, no music, just me and my thoughts. And sometimes, my thoughts aren't thinking anything either. I've lately discovered that doing this - just sitting quietly in my room even for 15 brief minutes calms and regulates my nervous system, similar to what writing often does for me.

You can find your own quiet space in whichever way appeals to you when you need it - A corner of a café during off-hours. A park bench early morning. A bathroom with the door locked. Anywhere your nervous system can pause and reset.

This quiet space is sometimes where I come up with blog post ideas in the realm of self-care. Like this post on sensory overload.

The world is loud, bright, and full of competing demands. Self-care during sensory overload isn't necessarily always about meditating or forcing yourself to calm down. Sometimes, it's simply giving yourself permission to step toward outer peace to find your inner peace.

"I'm bored." "Sometimes, that's great!"

#277

In my previous post (#276), I talked about stepping away from Instagram for 30 days. This led to moments of doomscrolling being replaced by my ability to experience boredom. When you're not scrolling, there's no new content and no notifications to constantly stimulate your brain. What happens then?

I watched a YouTube video about someone who stared at white walls for about 15 continuous minutes. What happens from a neurological standpoint there is that your brain activates something called the Default Mode Network—a system of interconnected brain regions that turn on when you're bored or daydreaming. Or when you allow your mind to wander.

Your brain is consolidating memories, making new connections between ideas, processing emotions, generating creativity. The things that don't get a chance to happen when you're constantly stimulated. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that mind-wandering is linked to greater working memory capacity. Your brain is literally thinking better when you're "doing nothing."

Growing up in an Asian household in an extra-Asian society conditions you to fear boredom. To fill every gap with content. With input. With something. Kids get bored for five minutes and parents immediately pull out a screen. Adults feel restless and scroll. We treat boredom like it's a problem to solve instead of what it actually is—a necessary rest and reset.

Look at what happens when you let a kid actually be bored for a while. Really bored. No iPad. No suggestions. Just time and space. Eventually, they stop complaining. They get creative. They build something. Boredom is where independence and curiosity develop on their own terms. This is different from meditation, where you're actively trying to direct your mind. Boredom is the opposite—you're just letting it roam.

That's the Default Mode Network doing its job. Introspection. Memory consolidation. Creativity. Reflective thinking. All the stuff we say we value but don't actually make space for.

When I stopped scrolling, I noticed I started thinking differently. Not in a tortured, existential way. Just... clearer. Ideas came that weren't reactions to someone else's content. I had thoughts that surprised me because they came from me, not from what I'd consumed. Same logic applies for great ideas coming to you when you're in the shower.

The white walls aren't depressing. They're restorative. Minimal visual input means your brain isn't constantly processing external stimuli. It gets to process itself instead.

In a world that's obsessed with optimization and productivity and constant input, boredom has become almost rebellious. Sitting with nothing. Staring at a wall. Letting your mind wander without trying to direct it. That's radical now.

Digital detox

#276

I uninstalled Instagram for 30 days. Just as a random first-of-the-month resolution - the kind I make every once in a while to reset habits that have slowly drifted away from me. Eat healthier. Sleep earlier. Practice violin for 5 minutes a day.

This time it was: see what happens if I'm not watching other people's lives.

It was nice to remain up-to-date with what all my school and college friends and acquaintances have been doing these past few years as we've lost touch. However, the issue with Instagram is that people only show you the highlight reels. Someone's vacation in Bali. Someone's fancy new mansion. Their morning yoga routine. Their pottery creation. Their perfectly plated breakfast. And much more. What it doesn't show you is the fight they had with their partner that morning, or the several jobs they applied for and didn't get, or the three months they spent stressed about money before that vacation happened.

We tend to compare our internal experiences - our doubts, our failures, our ordinary Tuesday mornings—against everyone else's external curated moments. It's not a fair parallel to draw. No one's posting their bad days or their messy kitchen or the fact that they cried during a meeting. So naturally, everyone else's life looks better than yours.

I noticed this wasn't even subtle. Someone would post about a trip and I'd immediately feel the pull. Where am I not going? What am I not doing? Why haven't I learned that skill or taken that class or traveled to that country yet? The comparison was constant. And it was draining. I felt like I was missing out even though I felt perfectly content and happy with my own life.

After about two weeks without the app, these comparisons in my head stopped. I stopped wondering what everyone was up to. Stopped measuring my life against theirs. My mood shifted. I felt a lot more focused. I also repurposed that time and energy towards reaching out directly to friends and family I actually cared about, and of course treasured the voice call to a friend in another city, the long message on WhatsApp to my cousin, and asking my partner about his day way more than doom-scrolling and self-loathing.

Nowadays, when I randomly get the urge to find out what others are up to, I open Instagram on my mobile browser instead of reinstalling the app. I have to log in every single time and I set a 15-minute limit, which helps me snap out of it and put my phone away. This helped convert mindless, endless action into something intentional. Instagram was no longer the default way I spent my idle minutes.

Remind yourself when you face this that you're only seeing one side of the story, and that side has almost nothing to do with anyone's actual life. Majority of folks posting on Instagram make it seem like they're doing something you're not, but in reality, they're just good at making it look that way. Focus on creating real, meaningful connections in ways that appeal to you. Hopefully in no time, you'll be FOMO-resistant!

Let the sunshine in

#275

I remember this song from my 4th grade music class called "Let the Sunshine In", written by Stuart Hamblen. The lyrics go: 

"So let the sunshine in, face it with a grin

Smilers never lose and frowners never win

So let the sunshine in, face it with a grin

Open up your heart and let the sunshine in"

Every time the sun graces us with its presence in gloomy Seattle, my brain automatically starts singing these lyrics. I've lived here more than three years now. The first winter, I was too busy adjusting to notice anything different. Big move from India. New city. New job. New lifestyle. Pretty much new everything. But during the fall and winter the second year - from September to roughly March - I realized I was sleeping at least 10 hours at night! The sun would set around 4PM and it wouldn't turn bright until about 8AM the next day. Also, no matter how rested I'd feel, and regardless of my sleep quality, I'd wake up feeling tired. Some days, I'd even feel kinda hopeless and low. Meh and bleh.

Year three, same thing. And then my friend educated me about SAD. Very apt name for the Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is a type of depression that occurs around the same time each year, typically when daylight hours shorten. Your brain chemistry responds to less sunlight by producing less serotonin. How does one combat it? Several options, including taking vitamin D3 tablets every day, purchasing a light therapy lamp that mimics sunlight, planning trips to sunny cities to escape Seattle winters. These made the hibernation period slightly more manageable.

Just like you allow the sun rays to caress your face, penetrating through the thick, dense clouds, take care of yourself by enabling a glimmer of hope or positivity to pass through despite all the things you might be going through. You're not denying the gloom, you're not weak just by admitting you need help. All you're doing is recognizing that even when your forecast looks bleak, you still get to choose how much light you make space for.

The song rings true. Smilers never lose. Just that they sometimes need vitamin D and a plane ticket south to get there!

Environment design

#274

My partner noticed my two instruments - guitar and violin - both living in their cases. I'd talk about playing them, about wanting to pick them up more. But they stayed tucked away because the effort required just to get them out felt like too much. So one day, my partner bought me two stands. One for the guitar. One for the violin. Nothing fancy, just $8 each. The two instruments sit pretty on their stands, right next to my desk, visible and ready.

Now when I walk past the guitar or violin or sit at my desk, they're just there. No case to unzip or rummaging through a closet. It's an easy grab, and even playing for just 5 minutes a day has become ultra easy. Same impulse I had before - I wanted to play - but now there's no barrier between the thought and the action.


My partner was doing what James Clear talks about in Atomic Habits - Design your environment. Why? Because: environment shapes behavior way more than willpower does. You can have all the intention in the world, but if every single step requires effort, you won't do it. The stands removed those steps.


I do this everywhere now. In the kitchen, my InstaPot that I use every other day, lives on the countertop. Front and center. The toaster - something I use maybe once a week or less often - gets tucked away inside a bottom shelf. It takes an extra two minutes to haul it out. Even with my other appliances - the thing I end up using most is the thing I see first. Environment does the work. You just show up.


Same logic by my bed. I keep a book on my nightstand. A journal. My laptop table setup and ready. When I'm tired at night and my brain won't shut up, the choice is right there. I can read. I can write. I can do two of my favorite hobbies without getting up, without friction. The reading and writing are seamless because the environment made them possible. 


Designing your immediate surroundings so the person you want to be is an easy path to self-care, to taking meaningful action without exercising willpower. And most times, it requires very little effort to remove the friction between you and the thing you actually want to do.

The F Word

#273

Deciding to Let Go

Some wrongs take longer to fade. A job lost unfairly. A betrayal. A conversation where someone dismissed you and you've replayed it a thousand times since. Years later, you're still there—same story, same emotion, same grip. And I've learned to ask myself: What does this serve me?

In my previous post (#272), I wrote about Quiet Agency—the power to choose what belongs to you: your time, your energy, your boundaries, without needing permission or fanfare. Forgiveness is another form of that. It's deciding whether you keep holding something someone else handed you.

The Law of the Garbage Truck

My dad once taught me the concept of "The Law of the Garbage Truck". Many people, he said, are like garbage trucks. They run around full of frustration, anger, disappointment. When they dump it on you—a harsh word, a snapped response, an unfair decision—here's what matters:

1. Don't take it personally. It's a reflection of where they are, not who you are.

2. Let it go. Smile, wave, wish them well, and move on.

3. Don't spread it. Don't let their mood become your mood at home, at work, with people you actually care about. Your emotional state is your responsibility, not theirs.

"New Choice!"

There's a game in improv called "New Choice." You play a scene one way, get a reaction, then the director calls out at any point they wish: "New Choice!" and you try a different response to the same situation. Such as: "Oh how much does this cost?" You say: "15 dollars". "New choice!" "10 pesos." "New choice!" "Umm...2 lasagnas!" This forces actors to break their habitual thought patterns, embrace spontaneity, and justify unexpected changes on the spot. 

It could even get zanier or take on a completely new direction, making a dull, boring scene way more interesting than changing just one aspect from the previous choice, like: “I'm walking my dog.” “New choice!” “This is a robbery. Give me all your money!” “New choice!” “I hate to be the one to tell you – but you're just not cut out to be an astronaut, Daniel.”

Now apply that to real life. Someone cuts you off in traffic. They honk, they gesture. In that moment, your first instinct might be: "How dare they? I'm a good driver. They're reckless. I'm going to remember this for the rest of the day."

But what if you tried a new choice? New choice one: "They're probably late for something. Maybe someone they love is in the hospital. Maybe they're having the worst day of their life. I don't know their story."

New choice two: "That had nothing to do with me. They didn't even see me. This is about their distraction, not my driving."

New choice three: "I'm safe. My car is fine. Nothing actually happened. I don't need to spend my energy on this."

Same situation. Three completely different emotional outcomes. One leaves you angry all day. One leaves you compassionate. One leaves you unbothered.

The Holy Buddha vs Louis Litt

If you've watched Suits, you know Louis Litt. Brilliant lawyer. Ambitious. But also—he seethes like no one else. He holds grudges like they're oxygen. Someone doesn't respect him? He replays it. Someone chooses Harvey over him? He carries it and lets the situation affect him all day. He's the guy who remembers every snub and every moment he wasn't chosen. And it eats him alive. 

He's miserable not because bad things happened to him, but because he won't let them go.

Now here's Buddha. Someone comes to him full of anger, hurling insults, cursing him. Instead of accepting the insult and carrying it, Buddha sits calmly and asks a question: "If someone gives you a gift and you refuse to accept it, to whom does the gift belong?"

The man answers: it stays with the giver.

Buddha smiles and says: "Exactly. Your anger is a gift. If I refuse to accept it, if I don't get insulted in return, your anger stays with you. You're the only one who becomes unhappy."

Louis would have accepted that gift. He would have taken the insult home, replayed it, seethed about it, brought it up years later. He would have made it his burden to carry.

Buddha refuses the gift. He lets it stay with the person who gave it.

It's up to you to decide whose qualities you wish to emulate.

What Happens When You Let Go

You feel lighter. Not immediately. But after you've sat with it differently enough times that the grip loosens.

I spent years replaying a career misstep that wasn't entirely my fault. Blamed myself and my choices. Blamed the person, the company, the world. Held it tight. Then after consciously and constantly trying, I started to move on. I told myself: They're not even thinking about this. I'm the only one suffering here.

So I tried a new choice. I accepted that they did what they could with what they had. I let go of the victim mentality. Thanks to that, I gained space to think about something else. To invest in truly moving forward.

That's what forgiveness is. Not excusing them. Not forgetting. It's reclaiming your energy. It's refusing their gift.

Still a Work in Progress

Some days are harder than others. Days where the same feelings and emotions bubble back up and I find it difficult to let go. Where I want to text someone and tell them exactly how they hurt me. Where the old story plays on repeat and I can't seem to find the new choice.

On those days, I write. Or I cook a new recipe, something that requires my full attention—chopping, measuring, tasting, adjusting. The focus redirects itself. My hands are busy. My mind has something else to hold onto. And by the time I'm done, the grip has loosened just enough.

I'm still learning this. Still trying. But that's the work—trying, failing, trying again. Willingness is step one.

"Like a roller in the ocean, life is motion

Move on

Like a wind that's always blowing, life is flowing

Move on

Like the sunrise in the morning, life is dawning

Move on

How I treasure every minute, being part of, being in it

With the urge to move on"

-ABBA, 1977

I choose me

#272

In my previous post (#271), I wrote about boundaries and learning to say no. Over the years, another aspect I learned is to firstly be by myself and secondly enjoy being by myself.

Alone but never alone

I was and am an only child. Despite not having siblings, I still almost always had someone around - like a parent or a relative. In college, it was always one friend or another, or a group. So being alone felt rather awkward. 

Solo activities were mostly for a purpose - a class I had to take, a task I had to do, a book I was reading. But the idea of doing something alone, in public, for myself wasn't on the menu. There used to be a particular kind of anxiety that came with me being alone in public. Even the thought of sitting by myself at a movie theater or enjoying a coffee all alone at a cafe gave me the heebie-jeebies. On later reflection, I realized not having someone with me made me feel like I was being watched and scrutinized. Others judging me for not having company. Like - "she's by herself, something must be wrong with her for others to be avoiding her or not wanting to accompany her."

Gradual transition

That shame of appearing uncoupled, friendless, weird made me make up excuses for years. I needed someone there as going alone wasn't legitimate. It was kinda sad. American TV has spent decades making jokes about the solo diner, the friendless activities. But there's something liberating and empowering about choosing to sit with yourself. I used to and still admire my partner for being able to be by himself wherever he goes, for most things. Yet another thing I learnt from him to slowly incorporate into my life. One day he urged me "Why don't you just go watch a movie by yourself?" And I did. And nothing happened. It actually felt fine. Everyone was minding their own business. I felt nervous at the beginning and relieved by the end.

Over time, I learnt to take walks at parks by myself from all the free time I had gained from saying no to energy-draining activities thanks to boundary-setting. I started to love this new me-time. I was still in crowds, still out there in the public, but thoughts and ideas accompanied me, making my journey hunky-dory.

Quiet agency

While learning about boundaries from online sources, I also learnt a new phrase which I now use proudly. Quiet agency in this context refers to the intentional, self-directed power to withdraw, set boundaries, and guide your own mental space. It transforms the act of solitude from an involuntary state of loneliness into a restorative, active practice of self-awareness and inner control.

And hey, you just might realize - you're actually good company! With yourself, by yourself, for yourself.

"No" boundaries

#271

I used to be a pathological people-pleaser. Still kinda am, ngl, but I've gotten better at becoming aware of it.

How'd I become an approval-seeking, conflict-avoiding, boundary-less, serial yes-er? A walking apology most times? In short, a doormat?

Well, I was that kid at parties sitting alone in a corner while everyone else was having real "fun". The introverted 1-on-1 talker avoiding groups with her nose in a book while everyone else was... doing whatever it is cool kids do. Didn't have many friends back then. So when college happened and suddenly people wanted to hang out? I said yes to everything. Whatever it took to not be left behind again. Be flexible, easy, ergo likeable.

It worked! I had friends. Kept them too. But also... the cost was invisible. I'd said yes to stuff I hated and bent myself into shapes that didn't fit. I'd cancel my own plans last minute if someone needed me, sit through movies I hated, pretend to enjoy parties, laugh at jokes that weren't funny - just to keep people around. I'd also drop my own schedule to accommodate other people's availability, even when it meant exhausting myself.

Work made it so much worse. Toxic environments are designed to make you afraid of saying no. Say no to a random task and suddenly you're "not aligned with leadership." Say no to a meeting and you're "not a team player." The pressure isn't even about the work - it's psychological. And it works because you're already wired to people-please.

Thanks to my partner, I learned this crazy concept called "Boundaries". It amazed me to see how he was able to maintain his inner circle relationships that looked and felt and truly were way different than with those on the "outside". Implementation for me took several years but because I was a willing learner, I kept at it despite the gnawing uncomfortable feeling in my stomach every time I said "Umm...no...but thanks". Felt super weird the first time, felt a tad less weird the second time, and so on. I wish I could say I am proud to be a comfortable sayer of "no"s today, but at least it's a constant work in progress.

What happened when I started saying no? Surprise, surprise - people didn't hate me or avoid me. In fact, quite the contrary. My girl friends admired me for being a boundary-setter and started asking me how I do it. They wanted to learn from me because they thought it was almost impossible, let alone difficult.

Saying no to harder hikes so I can stay home and cook myself a nice meal? Not missing out. Saying no to extra social stuff to vibe with tea and a book? Not missing out. Happily indulging in JOMO - Joy of Missing Out. The term gained popularity as an intentional, positive alternative to anxiety-driven FOMO around 2016-2018 when people started talking about digital wellness and social media fatigue. Turns out, the thing I thought I was "missing" was just stress and exhaustion. The thing I was gaining? Peace.

The actual tea on how to do it:

One: Stop explaining yourself.
This was hard. People-pleasers love to justify, soften the blow with reasons. "I can't make the hike because I'm tired and my knees hurt and I have laundry..." Nope. "I can't make it. Thanks for asking!" Done. Research shows that reasons just invite negotiation - people try to solve your way into a yes. No reason = no argument.

Two: Check if you're saying no from fear or from actual boundaries.
Fear-based no feels heavy and guilty. Boundary-based no feels clean.

Three: Start small.
Say no to easy stuff first - dinner invites you want to avoid, extra tasks that don't add value.
Build the muscle so when bigger things come, you're not panicking. You've already flexed the "no" muscle.

One of my favorite dialogs is from the Bollywood movie Pink. Amitabh Bachchan says: "No is a complete sentence."
You don't owe anyone an explanation. You don't need a reason. Sometimes there just isn't one. And that's valid.

Brené Brown says boundaries are "the clearest path to compassion." When you know your limits, you actually show up for people who matter. You're not resentful or running on empty, rather, you're present.

Taylor Swift sings: "I wouldn't marry me either, a pathological people pleaser, who only wanted you to see her."

We don't have to be that person anymore.

Ladies First (Everything Else Second)

#270

So thanks to CrossFit, I got myself a gals gang. Didn't plan for it, just serendipitously happened. One workout buddy turned into four of us, sometimes twelve when literally everyone can make it, which is rare but a different, welcome vibe.

We hike. We throw birthday parties where the birthday girl shows up with a tiara she's already wearing and we're drinking wine debating whether Vegas is actually going to happen this year (it might, it might not, we'll probably book it at the last minute like we do everything). We lose our minds at the gym over each other's lifts. Like, genuinely lose it. "OMG your squat looks fly." "Did you just PR that deadlift??"  "Girl, look at those triceps working!!" The kind of loud, unselfconscious cheering that makes our actual partners a tiny bit jealous sometimes. They're happy for us, sure, but there's definitely that little glint of FOMO. Which is kind of hilarious because what are they jealous of? We're just yelling about weights and planning hikes.

Every other month, whoever can make it shows up. No guilt trips if you can't make it. No "where have you been?" No elaborate planning required. Just: you free? Cool, let's go. Sometimes it's three of us on a trail talking about life and philosophy. Sometimes it's ten of us at a restaurant somehow all talking at once about our most and least favorite concerts and other random things that are fun to vote on.

Here's the thing about girl gangs after college: most of them die or gradually turn into WhatsApp chats with muted notifications, where a couple of folks post for a while and then that fizzles out too. People move, get married, have kids, get busy, drift into their own lives. It's normal. It's expected. But with us, CrossFit brought us together and kept us going strong. 

Self-care is simply saying yes to the plans that get made spontaneously. Even on a low or meh day, putting on a dress and stepping out of the house to meet them is the hard part. The rest is taken care of.

Yes, And... Eat Well

#269

There's a game in improv called "Fortunately, Unfortunately." The rule is simple: one person says something fortunate, the next says something unfortunate that complicates it, back and forth. It's about accepting what comes and building on it—never blocking, always adding.

Fortunately, I had a high metabolism since childhood, thanks to my mom feeding me nutritious meals patiently for an hour, sometimes longer. This likely contributed to how my body processes food efficiently now, though I didn't appreciate that gift until much later. 

Unfortunately, I took that foundation for granted. As an adult, I tend to eat carelessly on most days. Fast and mindless, despite knowing how much damage careless eating can do even when your metabolism is naturally fast. Your vagus nerve - the gut-brain bidirectional communication highway - needs roughly 20 minutes to signal satiety to your brain. Rush through meals, and you bypass that entirely. But here's what matters more: your microbiome produces signals for fullness, but only if you eat slowly enough for proper digestion. Sports train your nervous system to actually listen to hunger cues.

Fortunately, that's what CrossFit did for me. I also started paying attention to what I ate. Food after CrossFit satiated not only my appetite but also my curiosity about the science. I also began caring about meeting my protein goals for the day - 0.8g of protein per kilogram of body weight.

Unfortunately, being a vegetarian since forever, and a vegan 6 months and counting, I had to get intentional about sources - tofu, lentils, chickpeas - to cross at least 60-70g of protein every day. 

Fortunately, I liked circling through them to maintain variety and avoid boring meal prep beyond 2-3 days. Moreover, variety helps. People who eat diverse plant proteins have significantly richer gut microbiomes than those who rely on a single source. Gut bacteria thrive on diversity. And they also say yay to fiber! Being a vegetarian, I was already eating a lot of fiber-rich foods without having to try too hard. 

Unfortunately, high fiber only works if your gut has time to process it. Adequate chewing increases enzyme breakdown and lets your gut bacteria ferment properly, producing those satiety signals your brain relies on.

Fortunately, eating well without noise is simple: eat slowly, eat variety, eat what satisfies you. I was never one for counting calories obsessively. I still don't indulge in that, rather look at the amount of protein intake per meal. The CrossFit food philosophy is basically: Meat and Veggies, Some Fruit, Little Starch, and No Sugar. I swap meat for more veggies and protein-rich carbs.

Unfortunately, we've been sold the myth that metabolism is destiny. Dr. Sarah Hallberg's TED talk on managing diabetes via a ketosis diet and the YouTube documentary Fat Fiction dismantle this. Mark Hyman, author of Food The Book, also prominently featured in the documentary, calls it "bio-individuality"—genetics, microbiome, dietary history all affect how you process food. What works for someone else isn't your blueprint.

Fortunately, everyone's body constitution is different. Find what works for you over blocking yourself with universal "shoulds."

Self-care is about listening to the one body you get.

"Taut" Lessons

#268

Paraphrasing Robin Sharma, "Hard becomes easy, and easy becomes hard by choosing hard things over easy things". That was my motto this year - to "Do hard things."

A few months ago, I allowed myself to pause guitar lessons, after only having been at it for about a year.

Why? Because I had hit a wall in my beginner-to-intermediate journey where weekly lessons introduced new songs in every session, and I wasn't putting in the practice time because, well, it was hard. And I used to be a chronic hard-things-quitter.

But come 2026, I decided to adhere to my theme so I thought - what if I picked up something even harder? And I found violin. An instrument I've never touched in my life. Signed up for weekly in-person lessons.

The logic made sense to me: if I learn violin, guitar will feel easier by comparison.

Turns out I was onto something.

Violin absolutely humbled me. The bow control, the pressure, finding the right notes on each string. Playing it initially sounded like a cat being run over again and again. Thankfully I got a mute that made practice easier! But it took way longer and multiple lessons for me to get accustomed to playing it right. I was grateful for in-person lessons so my instructor could correct every mistake immediately in real-time. Plus both my teachers (guitar and violin) are the kind of strict, passionate, hilarious humans who make you want to show up and work harder. They love what they do. And I love that.

And yeah - suddenly guitar didn't feel so impossible anymore.

Now I'm doing both. Taylor Swift songs on guitar (thanks Nena Shelby for making this fun on YouTube!), violin scales and pieces with my other instructor, about 3-4 hours a week total split between them. Both liberate me similar to driving. They help me clear my head, temporarily pausing incessant thoughts and worries.

The key lesson I learned here is that "hard" is relative. A great way to make something feel manageable or easier is to deliberately do something harder alongside it.

There's this concept in psychology called "anchoring effect" - a cognitive bias faced during estimations or negotiations, where the first piece of information you encounter becomes your reference point for everything else. Violin anchored 'hard' in my brain and everything else got measured against it. So guitar looked pretty doable from there. 

Over time, hedonic adaptation kicked in - my brain got used to the difficulty. Week over week, violin started feeling less uncomfortable, so did the guitar, and the journey continues. 

Addicted to the "inner net"

#267

I used to shy away from meditation and meditation-related advice. Someone would say "just focus on your breath" and I'd immediately start hyperventilating. Like, congratulations, now I'm anxious and panicking about my breathing patterns. 

BTW this happens to a lot of people—especially if you've been through burnout or your nervous system's been running on high alert. Focusing inward can feel threatening when your body's already in defense mode. So "just calm down" doesn't work. Your system isn't listening.

Anyway, I decided to give Insight Timer a shot this year because it was free and didn't require me to pretend I was some zen person sitting cross-legged in silence and stillness. The app has these category-specific meditations—anxiety ones, sleep ones, breathwork, affirmations, manifestations, challenges you look forward to because they're short and manageable, and more. I chose the guided meditation track and started with five minutes because anything longer felt overwhelming at the time.

After sticking with it for a couple of months, I started lengthening the duration - to ten minutes, then to fifteen, twenty, going back to ten on not-so-great days, and so on. I also learned to observe my thoughts and feelings without judging them. Not trying to fix them or make them go away—just noticing them pass. My mind would wander and I'd be able to bring back my focus to my breathing.

One thing that helped me, because I'm visual, was to start painting a picture: O2 oxygen molecules entering through one nostril, filling my lungs, making them all happy and buoyant. And CO2 carbon dioxide molecules leaving through the other nostril, taking the dirty stuff with it. Clean air in. Stale air out. Over and over. Watching my lungs expand and deflate like balloons.

There's a book written by Sylvia Boorstein titled: "Don't just do something, sit there." Which is basically the opposite of how I was wired in the olden days (read more about that in my Post #261: Resting Guilt). 

My entire system used to be built on react-now, fix-immediately, keep-moving-or-collapse mantras. Sitting with the discomfort instead of trying to bulldoze through or problem-solve it instantly? Kinda felt impossible. But nowadays? When anxiety starts creeping up, I become aware of it, label it, and say what's happening because putting words to it immediately causes a distraction and reduces the anxiety felt. I no longer panic about the panic. I try to sit with it. Watch it do its dance. It passes soon enough. And I'm still standing.

My best connection this year is the one running between my lungs and my brain. I enjoy continuing to increase that bandwidth.

Being okay with DNFing

#266

Goodreads just added a DNF shelf. Did Not Finish. As someone with a mild, completely-under-control need for closure — we all crave resolution in different ways, don't we? — I am not actually a DNF person though I might portray that confidence. I finish books. All of them. Even the ones that are clearly not my people. Even the ones where I'm reading the last page purely to know how it ends, not because I'm invested in how it ends.

So rather than a DNF list, I have a "finished but felt nothing" shelf. The polite breakup shelf. The "it's not you, it's me — actually it might be you — but mostly it's just taste, and to each, their own, right?" shelf.(See Parts 1, 2, and 3 for the books that did the opposite.)

Self-care, especially in terms of choosing what serves you and letting go of the rest, applies to reading too. Not every book deserves your full emotional investment. Some you finish, close, and move on from gracefully. Here are a few of mine:

Being There — slim, clever, satirical, a genuinely brilliant conceit — left me cold despite my best efforts. Lessons in Chemistry had a premise I wanted to devour and prose I couldn't quite sink into. The Nightingale and Babel both came with enormous hype and my complete willingness to be swept away, given I've read and decently enjoyed other books from the same authors — neither swept me away, though I finished both dutifully and admired what they were doing from a respectful, slightly detached distance.

And Christopher Paolini's To Sleep in a Sea of Stars — I gave it a proper go, truly — but somewhere around the midpoint I realized I was reading to finish, not reading to feel. Sometimes a book is objectively well-crafted and simply not your music, that's not a verdict on the book. Sarah J Maas' A Court of Thorns and Roses fell into the same category: finished, respected, felt nothing particularly lasting. 

No hard feelings. Not every book is meant to be your book, the same way not every song is meant to be your song.

Life is too short and the TBR pile too tall for anything less.

Roots, Rhymes, & Unexpected Finds

#265

Well, would you look at that. I said at the end of Part 2 that I was already thinking about Part 3 — and voilà, here I am, having followed that train of thought all the way to its next station. This one is about the books that were simply always there, the ones that came with the territory of growing up, the poetry that snuck past my defenses, and the ones that found me before I knew I was looking.

The Childhood Shelf — Amar Chitra Katha, Tales of Vishnu & APJ Abdul Kalam

Before I knew what reading for pleasure meant, these were just the books that lived in the house. Amar Chitra Katha comic books — vivid, colorful, mythology and history squeezed into panels I could read in one sitting — introduced me to gods, warriors, and stories that felt both ancient and urgent. Tales of Vishnu followed, deepening the same thread. And honestly? The stories that stuck most weren't the heroic ones. They were the ones where Gods made very human mistakes. Bhasmasura — granted the power to turn anything to ash with a touch, immediately tries to use it on Shiva himself. The very god who gave him the power. Ego overtaking wisdom the millisecond the gift arrives — a phenomenon as old as time and as human as it gets. Vishnu steps in as Mohini, the enchantress, distracts Bhasmasura into imitating her dance moves, gets him to touch his own head, and — well. Problem solved. The lesson? Sometimes the most elegant solution to unchecked ego isn't confrontation. It's misdirection. And then there was the APJ Abdul Kalam biography — a boy from Rameswaram who looked up at birds and decided he wanted to make things fly. I read that one in school and didn't fully understand why it stayed with me. Now I do. Some books don't teach you what to think. They quietly show you what's possible.

A Treasure Trove of Short Stories — and the Tolstoy That Lives Rent-Free

Long before I had a Goodreads account or a reading goal or any opinion whatsoever about literary devices, there was A Treasure Trove of Short Stories — the ICSE school anthology that arrived as a textbook and stayed as a permanent resident of my memory. R.K. Narayan's An Astrologer's Day opened the whole book — and opened my vocabulary too, because somewhere in that first chapter I encountered the word paraphernalia for the first time, and it went straight into my all-time favorites list, alongside mellifluous, kumquat, and lexicography. Jerome K. Jerome's A Fishy Story had me in stitches, and also taught me what plaster of Paris was, which I consider a bonus education. Rabindranath Tagore's The Postmaster had me sobbing for little Ratan — waiting, hoping, being left behind. I felt so sad for her. And W.W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw sends chills down my spine to this date, even though I know what's coming. My favorite however, was Tolstoy's How Much Land Does a Man Require? Read it in tenth grade as part of the English Literature curriculum and kept rereading and retelling this gem to anyone who'd listen. Then lived a few years in corporate, watched people sacrifice everything for the next rung, and suddenly Pahom — the peasant who keeps running to claim more land until he collapses and dies, needing only six feet in the end — felt less like a parable and more like a memo I'd received personally. Some stories are seeds. You don't know they've taken root until years later when you're standing somewhere completely different and thinking: oh hello, Pahom. I understand you now.

Poetry — Joy Harjo, Golden Lyre, & The Ones I Keep to Myself

Before Joy Harjo and Ada Limón, before anthologies with striking cover art, there was The Golden Lyre — a poetry and short stories collection that showed up in school like it owned the place, got assigned, and somehow never left. It was my first real encounter with poetry as a craft rather than just rhyming words on a page — where I learned what allegory and allusion actually meant. Two poems from that era that I still resonate with: Kipling's If—"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you" — which is basically the most elegant way anyone has ever said: I'm not calling you an idiot, I'm just asking if you can keep your composure when everyone around you has lost theirs entirely (then you're on your way to becoming a true gentleman). And Dickinson's Because I could not stop for Death — where Death arrives not as a horror but as a courteous gentleman caller, "He kindly stopped for me", taking her on an unhurried carriage ride through the stages of life toward eternity. Personification at its best — I understood what a literary device could do for the first time reading that poem. Joy Harjo's Catching the Light followed years later, deepening the same thread — poetry rooted in land, memory, and Native American experience, precise and unhurried in equal measure. And then there are the poems I've written myself — at least fifty over the past ten years, sitting in notes apps and notebooks, shared with almost nobody. Poetry, I've learned, doesn't need an audience to be real. Sometimes it just needs to exist. (See also: Rick Rubin. He would agree.) Joy Harjo says it best: "Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you." Honorable mention: Taylor Swift, whose lyrics are so metaphor-laden that you'll easily find viral videos on "Who said it: Taylor Swift or Shakespeare?" quizzes that people can't quite crack. Coincidence? I think not.

The Happy Accidents — Books That Found Me First

These are the ones with no origin story. No recommendation, no algorithm, no carefully curated list. Just a cover, a title, a random Tuesday. Jeanette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? — picked up on a whim, finished in a day, quietly life-altering. Genzaburo Yoshino's How Do You Live? — slim, deceptively simple, the kind of book that asks you one question and then lets you sit with it for weeks. Coming-of-age but for adults alike. Fredrik Backman's And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer — technically a novella, barely 100 pages, and somehow the most devastating thing I read all year. (Yes, more Backman. I contain multitudes.) And finally, Richard Feynman's What Do You Care What Other People Think? — exactly what the doctor ordered. The title alone is a full therapy session. Implementation? Joyfully, optimistically, stubbornly a work in progress. The unplanned ones, the stumbled-upon ones, the picked-up-for-no-reason ones — they have a way of arriving at exactly the right moment, saying exactly the right thing. The books you didn't plan for are sometimes the ones that stay the longest.

Books That Broke Me Open — Part 2: The Outer World

#264

If Part 1 was about the books that rearranged my inner world — the ones about grief, identity, creativity, and what it means to be alive — Part 2 is about the books that rearranged how I see everything outside of me. Systems, money, teams, leadership, and two memoirs that made me feel like I was living someone else's extraordinary life for a few hundred pages. Oh, and a fantasy series that had absolutely no business making it onto this list. And yet, here we are.

9: The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel I went in expecting a finance book and came out with a philosophy book. Housel's central argument: "Financial success is not a hard science. It's a soft skill, where how you behave is more important than what you know." That reframe alone is worth the price. He also says, "Controlling your time is the highest dividend money pays." Not your portfolio. Not your salary. Your time. I've thought about that sentence approximately once a week since I read it. Also: "Spending money to show people how much money you have is the fastest way to have less money." No one could've said it better.

10: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — Patrick Lencioni Written as a business fable — and before you dismiss it as yet another "One-minute manager", give it three chapters, because by then you'll be nodding so hard your neck hurts. Lencioni argues that "not finance, not strategy, not technology — it is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage." The five dysfunctions build on each other like a very depressing layer cake: absence of trust → fear of conflict → lack of commitment → avoidance of accountability → inattention to results. Reading this after years in corporate felt less like discovery and more like diagnosis. Oh. So THAT'S what was happening! "If we don't trust one another, then we aren't going to engage in open, constructive conflict. And we'll just continue to preserve a sense of artificial harmony." Artificial harmony hit the nail on the head.

11: The Hard Thing About Hard Things — Ben Horowitz The antidote to every sanitized leadership book that pretends it's all clean decisions and inspiring speeches. Horowitz opens by saying every management book promises recipes for complicated situations, and then delivers the hard truth: "there's no recipe for really complicated, dynamic situations." He's not wrong. And then there's this, which I think about often: "Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, 'I didn't quit.'" Bracingly honest, occasionally profane, and absolutely essential reading if you've ever been in a leadership role and wondered if you were the only one making it up as you went. You weren't. Nobody knows what they're doing. That's oddly comforting.

12: Conversations Worth Having — Jackie Stavros The quietest book on this list and possibly the most underrated. Stavros introduces Appreciative Inquiry — the practice of asking questions that build on what's already working, rather than fixating on what's broken. The central idea: the questions you ask shape the reality you create. "Change begins with a conversation." Simple, yes — and in practice, it quietly shifts how you show up in every meeting, every relationship, every difficult moment. Less "what went wrong?" More "what made this work, and how do we do more of that?" I've used this framework more times than I can count, and it has yet to fail me.

13: Thinking in Systems — Donella Meadows Reads like a dense academic textbook — hardcore, technical, not a beach read — and also possibly the most important book on this list for understanding, well, everything. Meadows teaches you to see the feedback loops, the delays, the leverage points in any system — from ecosystems to organisations to your own habits. "There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum." She also reminds us that systems don't misbehave — they do exactly what they're designed to do, which means if you don't like the output, you have to change the structure, not just the people in it. And then there's this gem: "You think that because you understand 'one' that you must therefore understand 'two' because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand 'and.'" The "and" is gold. It's the interaction between elements — the relationship, the timing, the context — that actually determines what a system does. Two good people plus bad incentives equals a bad outcome. Understanding the "and" changes everything. Highly recommend if your brain likes to think in patterns rather than anecdotes.

14 & 15: Open + Shoe Dog — Andre Agassi & Phil Knight I'm pairing these two because they belong together — both are memoirs of obsessive, against-all-odds pursuit, both written with a rawness that most business books wouldn't dare attempt, and both made me feel emotions I had not signed up to feel. Agassi opens Open with "I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, and always have." First sentence. First sentence! And you cannot put it down after that. Every day I read it, I felt what he felt — the loneliness of the court, the complicated relationship with his father, the long road to playing for something larger than himself. "There's a lot of good waiting for you on the other side of tired. Get yourself tired." Knight's Shoe Dog is almost as riveting — the early Japan stories, the absurdity of building a shoe empire on a handshake and a prayer, the section where someone finally takes a chance on him when nobody else would. "Let everyone else call your idea crazy... just keep going. Don't stop." Two very different men, same relentless energy. Read both back to back. Clear your weekend.

16: Mistborn — Brandon Sanderson A fantasy series on a self-care reading list? Hear me out though because why not!? I'd never read fantasy before — genuinely thought it wasn't for me. I'll be honest — dragons, thrones, and fellowships — these have never really been my thing since childhood (please don't throw stones at me!) Then I picked up Mistborn on a recommendation and within fifty pages I was absolutely, gleefully, and irrevocably hooked. The world-building is next level, the magic system extraordinaire, and then there's Vin — our protagonist. I can't burn metals, and I've certainly never had to survive a brutal dystopian empire, and yet I related to her more than I've related to almost any fictional character in recent memory. A scrappy, street-smart young woman who discovers she's more powerful than anyone ever told her she was, in a world that spent years trying to convince her otherwise. Sanderson writes: "Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be." Go women empowerment, honestly. I devoured all seven books in the two-part series. Now I'm ready to leave Scadrial behind, set foot into Roshar, and lose myself in the Stormlight Archive. The Cosmere is vast and I intend to explore all of it. 

And that's a wrap! On Part 1 and Part 2. Eighty-odd books distilled into sixteen entries — and I'm already thinking about Part 3. Some things just can't be helped.