Nikhil's Blog

How many times can you try before you give up entirely? How many times should you try before giving up becomes acceptable? Nobody has arrived at a fixed number of iterations one must endure before giving up becomes normal or necessary. I have been writing for a long time, yet I do not know how consistent I need to be. Sometimes a first-time author becomes a bestseller, while someone else writes ten books and still manages to sell only a thousand copies. The contrast is stark, and the advice…

It’s late at night on a weekend as I write this. I’m craving whiskey and a cigarette, but I have black coffee instead. I like the bitterness of black coffee. It reminds me of the rare, true things in my life. There aren’t many things I consider honest, except black coffee and the words I write on this page, including the stories. I like this blog because almost everything I’ve written here is a product of how I felt in that moment. Some days you overcome your emotions; on others, they overcome…

We should all count our experiences instead of our achievements. I have read and heard it so many times — that when you are lying on your deathbed, counting your breaths, wondering which one will be your last, your life flashes before you. And when that happens, I am certain the achievements don't surface. Sure, one may think about their convocation ceremony, their wedding, their firstborn, their first great adventure — but all of these are also experiences that brought genuine joy into our…

The strongest person in the room is the one who doesn’t need the room to exist. They exist on their own terms, by their own will. They move through the world as if they belong to it, yet can walk away from it at any moment. If the room didn’t exist, they would still be equally happy, equally content, and equally independent. Your greatest weakness, and your idea of strength, both originate in the mind. What you believe shapes what you become. If you think you cannot do something, you won’t be…

We have all been misunderstood at some point in our lives—sometimes to the extent that no matter what we say, how we say it, or the context in which we say it, it is still interpreted incorrectly. Misunderstanding is essentially a gap in context: the distance between the intent behind what is said and the way it is received. Several factors come into play when someone misunderstands us. One of the most important is how we deliver our message. Something said harshly in the middle of a quarrel is…