Nikhil's Blog

We overthink too much before revealing our true personalities. I am of the opinion that no person is truly serious. They appear so because they want to project a certain image to people. They are afraid to appear vulnerable in front of others. Vulnerability is being absolutely honest with someone. And we all worry about displaying our softer side, our honest side. But the best moments happen when we let loose. When we shed our inhibitions and enjoy the moment in a way that truly reflects who we…

You never realise you are jeopardising your life in the moment you are doing it. You have no context, while committing the act, that this very act would prove fatal. There is no way to determine that in advance. A person in an inebriated state never realises that this state would become permanent. That he would crave this very state every day, and that craving would destroy everything else in his life. All forms of realisation are acts of hindsight analysis. All of your understanding,…

You don't have friends in your office. That's a bitter pill to swallow. You cannot be friends with someone you're competing against. There's no such thing as healthy competition. Wherever competition exists, one-upmanship follows. You have to withhold information from them. You have to resist the urge to overshare. You cannot, therefore, be completely honest with them. And without honesty, there can never be genuine friendship. Corporations condition you to believe this is your best career…

What kind of a man are you? You should ask yourself this question often in your life. This is an identity-building question. It shapes how you think. Before that, it exposes how you think. It forces you to become the ideal version of yourself. This question opens so many doors for introspection that, if you are truthful, it has the potential to transform you. No amount of resolution, willpower, or commitment holds a candle to this question. Make a promise and keep it. Every time you are tempted…

When I started writing down my thoughts, I worried that someone would read them. The purpose of writing and publishing in public was that I wanted people to read them. This conflict raged constantly in my head. I wanted attention. I didn't want questions. But the two come together. If someone pays attention to what you write, they are likely to ask you questions about it. I wanted people to be curious about my life. But not too nosy. The contradiction grew unbearable, and I gave up on writing.…

People have no clue who lives in their neighbourhood. What problems they are facing. How do they deal with everyday life. Do they have someone to look after them? We have started calling this indifference a lack of time. That we have gotten busy with our routines. That life happened to all of us. That's the most bullshit excuse I have ever heard. I call it bullshit because people do have time to know about other people. They are choosing those people instead. They know more about a content…

You can tell a lot about a man by where he spends his money. It feels strange at first. Counterintuitive too. Money has become the clearest expression of our personality. A lack of money makes us desperate. An abundance of money can make us arrogant. Our treatment of people differs by how much money they have. Your influence depends on how much money you have in the bank. Our reputation hinges on money. We are judged by how much we earn. Heck, if you are a man, you will be loved in proportion…

You do not choose who you fall in love with. No matter what stage of life you're in. No matter how deeply loyal you are in your relationship. No matter how ethical you think you are. You have no control over who you fall for. It's so automatic, so natural, so evolutionarily wired that you can't even register it happening. It happens beneath your awareness. Through the unconscious. You can choose who you stay in a relationship with. Who you marry. Why you marry. How long you stay married. These…

We never pause to consider the consequences of our actions. We only think of the immediate ones. Not the second-order effects. Certainly not the third-order, cascading ones. We want to benefit at all costs. We construct narratives that serve us. Instead of weighing the outcomes of our actions thoroughly. The worst part is the justification we offer ourselves. If everyone's doing it, what's the point of my goodness? And what does it matter? It doesn't mean much. That's how corruption takes hold.…

Explain one thought to yourself every day. No matter how busy you are. No matter how tough you find that activity. Pick up an idea, a thought, something that bothered you throughout the day. And write down everything you know about that thought. What did you feel. Where did you feel it. What does it all mean. How did it actually feel? What was your expectation of that person who hurt you. Why did it hurt so much. These are important questions. A man has to live with himself after all. You…

We want what we cannot have. We want the money the other person earns. We enjoy spending time with the other woman. We are drawn to women we should stay away from. We spend too much on things we don't need. We want that car. That house. That woman. That luxury. The easy answer is envy. We envy those who already have it. We watch them enjoying life and feel we deserve that same enjoyment. We crave that same status. We want to feel special. We look toward other women who make us feel special…

I could sit still for hours, staring out the window, watching and listening to the rain as it strikes the metal and the hard floor below. The sound makes me lose track of time entirely. It's therapeutic in that it often heals me. But it also sends me on a wild ride through my own mind. I've noticed I can get lost in imagination for hours without shifting position once. I lose track of my surroundings entirely; no noise penetrates my inner, meditative state. This is the most beautiful mental…

It is frustrating to deal with people who lack any sort of curiosity. They go through life stumbling from one problem to another, without any inclination to know why the problem existed or how it ever got resolved. Naturally they have no interest in preventing those problems in the future. Even when they try, their idea of prevention is simply erecting more guardrails. The trouble with such people is that they operate from within their personal safety net. Everything is about them. Their…

If you love something, you need to find time in your life to pursue it. To engage with it. To feel alive. To feel worthy enough. When you love something more than yourself, you need to be involved in it. That involvement gives you the sense of fulfilment you so crave. It fills the void inside you that no one else can. If you love playing the piano, find time to play it every day. Not weekends. Not the long holidays. Not whenever you happen to have time. Find time to practice it every single…

The saddest part of a man's life is that he is loved for what he can provide. Not for what he is. Never for what he is. This provision spans everything from financial support to emotional support. You are the protector of your family. You are the financial backbone of your family. You are also the emotional counsellor of your family. The moment you slip from any of these roles, you face your family's wrath for falling short. It's no surprise male suicide rates are the highest in the world.…

As you grow in life, you have to learn to leave people behind. The idea of keeping the same friends is romantic. It looks good too. But it carries a fatal flaw that most people overlook. Your rise in stature also reveals your evolution in thinking, in your priorities, in your overall mindset. If the same evolution is missing in your friends, if they refuse to grow, you will notice a gap in the connection. This gap is often misread as arrogance. About money. About class. About stature. But…

Nobody will love you the way you want to be loved. Everybody wants to be loved in a specific way. You want the other to be passionate about you. You want them to be curious about you, to want to know everything about you, but without being nosy. They should worship the ground you walk on. Such a love is impossible because it demands a paradox be fulfilled. Nobody knows you the way you truly are. The way you are can only be manifested through someone else's lens: the people you have met, the…

The most fundamental question a man asks himself, often. Can he remain alone for his entire life without being destroyed by it? On the surface, that question begs another: why would anyone want to stay alone for life at all? When you're tired of commitments, when the burden of responsibility curdles into liability, when every relationship suffocates you because of how you were wired since childhood, you would rather remain alone for the rest of your life. The human mind is wired to seek…

We want to be desired by everyone we meet. This puts us in constant conflict with other people and with our own inner nature. It is impossible to be liked by everyone. Ninety five percent of the people you meet in life will eventually disappear from it. The person you are closest to today will, at some point, no longer be your closest confidant. Such is the nature of life. It is cyclical. This cyclical nature, coupled with our inability to foresee the future, always tricks us into believing the…

It feels natural to hate everything about a person once you hate that person. Doesn't matter how many arguments they make. Doesn't matter how true those arguments are. Doesn't matter their track record. If we dislike someone, our first instinct is to contradict them. To oppose them. That's simply how our brains are wired. They don't prefer truth, they prefer comfort. This raises a question I love to ask everyone: if you hate someone with all your might but they've made an excellent point, would…

Anger, overthinking, hyperanxiety, depression, or any emotion that exists with such intensity demands a different channel of expression. These are signs that the body is straining under high tension. That tension could come from unresolved emotions, whether from recent trauma or persistent emotional distress. Either way, the body is moving through turbulence without an exit point. In psychological terms, it's called sublimation. The unresolved emotion finds a way out through other means. Every…

We all want to be funny. We all picture ourselves walking into a party and becoming the room's centre of gravity. Girls are dying to talk to us. Everyone wants a piece of the conversation. Even though it's an overwhelming thought, we'd still want it, because it feels good. Especially the sense of humour part. A good sense of humour is a sign of intelligence. But unlike general intelligence, you don't need to remember the facts here. Or the political history. Or the current affairs. You need a…

Our parents are growing older and we are growing busier. This is a tragedy unto itself. They are running out of time and we don't have enough time to give it to them. This is the time we feel we should be spending with them. Reminiscing about their life. Asking them how theirs was. Are they satisfied? Are they happy? I often wonder about asking my father what he thinks about his life now that he has lived so much of it. What would he have done differently? What advice would he give me?…

There are times when we're surrounded by people. We're engaged in plenty of conversations. Yet we walk away dissatisfied. As if we couldn't say what we wanted to say. There's this nagging feeling after every conversation, that you're left holding more inside than what you managed to express outside. Because there was never a moment where you could truly express yourself. This nagging feeling is a sign that you're in the wrong company. Talking to the wrong person. We always focus on how we adapt…

A lot of suffering stems from not knowing what we want. The only way to know what we want is to enquire. All enquiry requires awareness. Of your thoughts. Your feelings. Your urges. Your instincts. That feeling in your stomach when you see something or someone is important data. Pay attention to it. That data reveals what you secretly crave. If you ask someone what emotions they went through today, they will have no idea. They have never bothered to sit still and reflect on their thoughts. They…

Have you ever been overburdened by a barrage of thoughts? Not one or two, but dozens. If you are even half as self-aware as you should be, you would have wondered where all these thoughts came from. They appear mostly random. Straight from the unconscious. No connection between them. You are reading a book, and without realising it, you are thinking about what your friend said three days ago. Thoughts are mostly random. But they are also deeply associative. You wouldn't notice unless you stop…

Empathy is a good thing. Probably the best thing you can offer anyone. To understand someone's pain without rushing to fix it is therapeutic. It is the closest you can come to giving someone the catharsis they need. Every self-help book and video preaches the same gospel. Social media is flooded with this one word: empathy. Most of the time, I advocate for empathy. But there are cases where it becomes a curse. Too much empathy and kindness can turn you into a sponge. That's fine occasionally.…

Every writer explores different writing styles in his lifetime. If you are a serious writer, you know what I am talking about. The style isn't just indicative of how you write. It's indicative of how you prefer to write. How you prefer to think. I have experimented with several writing styles. From stream-of-consciousness writing to short, rhythmic sentences. They were all essential to my thinking process. I realised that the style you choose should be compatible with how you think. Writing…

There's a common saying that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. It holds true in every domain. Hating someone is a display of emotion. Emotional people aren't reliable in crunch situations. They aren't necessarily bad. They simply can't be trusted to hold the fort when the time comes. They will most likely offer you a justification for why their emotions mattered. This is why hatred belongs in the same bucket as love. Both are emotional responses. Except hatred is worse. It consumes…

You can learn more in one year than you did in the last decade. The world has moved fast. Technology has accelerated the passage of time itself, so much so that we can't keep up with it. Every few years we realise we've fallen behind. We aren't slow. The pace of technology is simply too much. We are always playing catch-up. The AI race has made us feel inferior on a grand scale. We haven't had to think about survival in years. Now we do. We have to reassess everything, from the ground up, right…