Month: September 2025

 

The caption of this post comes from a line inspired by Cal Newport’s Deep Work—a book that should be prescribed along with paracetamol in every household.

 

Caveat: This post is a distraction. But hey, at least it’s a distraction that tells you to stop being distracted. Meta, right? (You don’t have to agree).

 

Alright, please lean in. Stop scrolling for a nanosecond. I want you to do a quick audit, if you can.

Right now, as you’re reading this, how many tabs are open on your browser? Be honest ( I checked, I had 18 tabs open). Is your phone buzzing within a 12-inch radius of your dominant hand? Is there a podcast about optimizing your potential playing in one ear while you’re trying to focus on this with the other?

We’re all running a bizarre, self-imposed marathon on a treadmill of distraction. And we think the solution is to… take a break from the treadmill by checking Instagram? That’s like a fish taking a break from water by going for a swim.

 

The truth is this: distraction today isn’t something you fall into.It’s something you live in. Like smog in Delhi winter. Or traffic on Bangalore’s Outer Ring Road. Or cats on the internet—everywhere, all the time, impossible to avoid.

We’ve got it all backwards, haven’t we people? The mantra for the next decade isn’t “don’t get distracted.” That’s a losing battle. The winning move is to flip the script: Don’t take breaks from distraction. Instead, take breaks from FOCUS.

 

Let that sink in. It’s not the distraction that’s the break. The focus is the heavy lifting. The distraction is the default. And your attention? That’s the most valuable, fought-over currency you have. Every ping, every notification, every just one quick look is a tiny withdrawal from your cognitive bank account. In which your deposits are in any case scanty.

 

Your focus is a supermodel. Stop letting every cheap notification catcall it on the street.

 

If we take a quick world tour( we don’t need Expedia or Booking.com for this), we will discover the following including but not restricted to:

 

The Millennial Hustler( aka The Silicon Valley Techie)- They’ve got the triple-monitor setup, the productivity app that blocks productivity apps, and a standing desk. They focus in 25-minute sprints (Pomodoro, baby!). And their break? Checking LinkedIn and Twitter to see how much more successful everyone else is. They’ve swapped one screen for another. The brain stays in the digital doom-scroll vortex. Zero recovery.

 

The Indian Student( aka the NEET | JEE | any other competitive exam aspirant)- They’re on a brutal 14-hour focus grind. Their “break”? Mindlessly scrolling through memes on Instagram. They jump from the intense focus of organic chemistry to the dopamine slot machine of Reels. The brain never gets a chance to reset. It just gets a different, more chaotic master. The result? Burnout. Anxiety. And ironically, worse retention. (Cal Newport author of seminal books like Deep Work, Slow Productivity and Digital Minimalism) would say their deep work sessions are being sabotaged by their shallow breaks).

 

The Corporate Executive (aka The Mid-Life Marathan):Back-to-back Zoom calls. Excel sheets that stretch into eternity. Their break? A quick cigarette or coffee or both while checking office WhatsApp groups. They’ve traded focused stress for distracted stress. The cortisol never drops. This is the antithesis of the productive meditation Newport recommends.

 

Welcome to humanity’s new bloodstream: distraction.

This isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about strategically taking things off your plate so you can actually enjoy the meal. Because, you are not a machine. You are a human being with a finite amount of attention. Stop letting the world steal it from you in tiny, digital nibbles.

 

We’ve been sold the take a break from your phone wellness jargon so often, we almost believe it. But here’s the heresy: Don’t take breaks from distraction. Take breaks from focus. Because distraction is the new baseline. Focus is the exotic vacation. And if you don’t schedule it, it never shows up.

 

It’s probably called the currency of the century for a reason. If oil fueled the 20th century, attention is the crude oil of the 21st. Everyone wants a barrel of your eyeballs. Netflix fights YouTube, Instagram fights LinkedIn, Zomato fights Swiggy, your kid fights your boss—and you’re the war zone.

The real luxury now isn’t a Rolex or a Tesla. It’s 45 undisturbed minutes to do deep work. Or read Gulzar. Or just stare at the ceiling fan without checking if your Swiggy order is being prepared.

 

This disease is widespread and has no boundaries. Geography is history. In Japan, kids are being trained in forest bathing to reconnect with nature—because apparently trees don’t have notifications. In Silicon Valley, tech bros are paying $5000 for silent retreats where the main activity is… sitting. (I know you are suppressing a chuckle-your grandmother has been doing this for free on her charpai forever). In Bangalore, teenagers binge-watch K-dramas at 3 AM and then sleepwalk through their JEE coaching. Their parents, meanwhile, binge-watch stock market tips at 3 AM and sleepwalk through their careers. In Kerala, uncles claim they’re working from home while half their energy is spent refreshing India Today’s election exit polls.

 

Different geographies. Same disease. We can brand it Distractivitis. 

 

You have been doing different forms of fasting and abstaining for centuries. Karva Chauth. Ramadan. Ekadashi. Lent. Think of focus as fasting. You don’t fast from food forever. You fast for a period to reboot the system. Likewise, you don’t quit distraction—it’s impossible. But you can fast from it by gifting yourself windows of pure focus.

 

Analog is the new luxury. A paper notebook, a pen, and zero chance of accidentally doom scrolling. And if your neighbor’s dog is in open mic mode, use Noise-canceling headsets. 25 minutes of deep work and then the reward, 5  minutes check memes on Rahul Gandhi or you know who…Pomodoro if you will.

 

Warren Buffett once said he’s successful because he can say No 99 times out of 100. Not to investments, but to being distracted.

 

Focus isn’t default anymore. It’s design. Attention isn’t a resource you spend. It’s a resource you invest. And distraction? That’s just today’s monsoon—perpetual, unpredictable, and wetting everyone equally.

 

Before I conclude, taking the liberty of sharing names of few books for all those who want a bite into the perceived forbidden fruit called focus:

Deep Work by Cal Newport: Culminates in actionable routines for regular, distraction-free work blocks.

Atomic Habits by James Clear: Shows how tiny focus-building habits lead to major change, with hacks for routine and attention.

Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey: Explores balancing ‘hyperfocus’ for productivity and ‘scatterfocus’ for creativity in a world of pings and dings.

Indistractable by Nir Eyal: Offers frameworks to curb both internal and external distractions, reclaiming your attention span.

Essentialism by Greg McKeown: Helps ruthlessly prioritize and say no, freeing up deep-focus time.

Your Brain At Work by David Rock: Unpacks the biology of distraction and how to optimize working smarter, not harder.

 

You ever notice how LinkedIn has only one plot line? Yeah, it’s called: “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as…” I tell you this line has more reruns than Friends.

 

If you smell a sense of authority in the caption above, let me tell you that I am trepidation personified as I draft this. And if you see this as some kind of forensic investigation, you might be partly right.

 

Caveat Emptor(Reader Beware): This is an honest attempt. And as I experiment with that, thought might as well do a deep dive into the peculiar psychology of professional announcements.

 

So there I was, scrolling through LinkedIn at 2 AM (as one does when one’s life choices need serious examination), when I stumbled upon the 27th “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as…”post of the day. And suddenly, like a caffeine-fueled anthropologist discovering a new tribal ritual, I found myself asking: What’s really going on here?

 

Let’s get on with it and break down this fascinating specimen( no lab coats required):

 

” I’m happy to share that I am starting in a new position as XXX at XXX “.

 

Translation : “I’m contractually obligated by the unwritten rules of professional networking to appear ecstatic about this career move, regardless of whether I was headhunted by Google or just escaped a toxic workplace that made Chernobyl look like a wellness retreat.”

 

(This one comes from the Republic of Gratitude)- “I want to thank [previous company] for the incredible journey…”

 

Translation: “I will now perform the corporate equivalent of thanking the Academy, even though my previous boss once made me rewrite a two-line email seventeen times because the font wasn’t ‘strategic’ enough.”

 

Yet another one that is competing for The Humble Brag Finale– ” “Excited for this new chapter…”

 

Translation: “I’ve successfully convinced someone else to pay me money. In this economy. Please validate my existence.”

 

This one comes straight from the Valley of Nostalgia Overture- ” My time at [Previous Company] was invaluable. I learned so much, especially how to operate the microwave and which meeting rooms have the best Wi-Fi. I want to thank everyone, especially Brenda from Accounts Payable who once smiled at me in the elevator.”

 

Some seem to seeking validation like an Insecurity Vanquisher– This post is a cry for help wrapped in corporate jargon. They’ve just left the comfort of a job they knew how to do, where they knew which coffee mug was theirs. Now, they’re adrift in a sea of new acronyms. The LinkedIn post is a life raft. Every “Congratulations!” comment is a flare of validation, a tiny hit of dopamine that whispers, “You didn’t make a catastrophic error. Probably.”

 

The subtext here isn’t arrogance; it’s vulnerability masquerading as confidence. They’re not telling you they’re great; they’re asking you to tell them they’ll be okay.

 

Then there are these bunch of corporate hostages. Which is why we must consider and rope in the unwilling participant. You can almost taste the coercion in the text. It’s too polished, too full of branded hashtags (#GrowWithUsAtSynergisticDynamics #OneTeamOneDreamOneCult).

 

This post was clearly drafted by Marcia in Marketing, who cornered them by the printer and said, “We need you to post this. Gary in Sales only got 12 likes on his, and we need to beat that. It’s for the brand.” The employee’s own personality has been surgically removed and replaced with key messaging points. They’d rather be anywhere else than writing this post. Probably updating their actual, private, anonymous Twitter account with: “First day at the new gig. Help.”

 

Welcome to the post that is a philosophical take-letting go of a previous self. Every exit is an entry somewhere. Perhaps the most beautiful interpretation is that this post is a funeral for a former version of oneself. They are publicly closing a chapter. It’s a ritualistic shedding of skin. The “thank you” to the old company is genuine—it’s an acknowledgment of the person that job helped them become, for better or worse.

They are announcing the death of the “Senior Executive, Operations” and the birth of the “Head of Delivering Awesome.” It’s a rebirth. With slightly better health insurance.

 

There it is. We have enough evidence, don’t we? The most crowded temple of modern worship. Not Tirupati. Not Mecca. Not the Vatican. You guessed it- LinkedIn.

 

And the loudest chant in this holy shrine of professional self-expression?
“I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as…”

 

A line so standardised it deserves its own ISO certification. And the coveted blue tick.

 

But what is it, really? A declaration? A confession? Therapy disguised as gratitude? Corporate Horlicks for the soul? Or a notice to ex-colleagues: “Guess who moved on first?”

 

The jury is still out on why the unflinching emphasis on “happy”? Nobody says “I’m moderately okay to announce a new position.” Or “I’m borderline depressed to let you know I’ve accepted employment.”

 

It’s always “happy.” As if happiness is written into the KPI of the announcement. Maybe HR slips it into the offer letter:

Position: Vice President, Market Expansion

CTC: Respectably above cousin’s salary

Condition: Must announce with happiness on LinkedIn

 

I shouldn’t miss out on telling you that there is one variety that stands out, hands down. The master tagger. Ten mentors, three previous managers, the chaiwala from the parking lot—everyone is name-dropped, because gratitude is LinkedIn’s legal tender.

 

And of course the poets in residence: “Thrilled to begin a new journey, turning pages in my life’s career novel.” Gulzar, watch out!

 

Which is when you notice unabashed neutrality which goes something like this, a stoic monk if you will: ” Starting a new role. That’s all.” (This guy is fried but refuses to admit it.)

 

You would have already seen the paradox here. On one hand, it’s insecurity covered in confetti. On the other, it’s a coded hug. A way of saying: “I survived. I still matter. Clap for me.”

 

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Because for every roll-eye inducing “I’m happy to share…”, there’s someone reading it at 2 a.m. thinking, maybe I’ll get out too.

 

So next time you see that familiar phrase, resist the snark for a second. Click the like. Clap along. Comment positively. Because in its own awkward, templated way, it’s just humanity leaking through LinkedIn’s algorithm.

 

And if you really want to shake things up? Post this instead:
“I’m happy to share that I’m still unemployed. Please endorse me for resilience.”

 

So, the next time you see that post, don’t roll your eyes. Hit like. Because behind every “I’m happy to share…” is one brave soul battling FOMO, EMIs, and imposter syndrome—armed with nothing but Canva graphics and hashtags.

 

And yes, one day you’ll see me post it too. “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as… The World’s First Chief Officer of Pretending To Look Busy On Zoom.”

 

Thank you, good day, and don’t forget to endorse me for Strategic Sarcasm!

 

PS: Human beings are rough drafts that continually mistake themselves for the final story, then gasp as the plot changes on the page of living.

 

 

 

 

 

This one’s for every dream that got RSVP’d “Not Happening” by the Ministry of Mediocrity.

 

They said Van Gogh was mentally unstable. They said Einstein was a patent clerk who’d never amount to anything. They said Kalpana Chawla should stick to mechanical engineering instead of chasing space fantasies. And guess what? The gatekeepers were spectacularly, gloriously, magnificently wrong. Every. Single. Time.

 

But here’s the nuclear truth bomb that’ll make your morning coffee taste a little more bitter: For every Van Gogh who painted through the ridicule, there are ten thousand dreamers who never picked up the brush because some gatekeeper convinced them their hands weren’t steady enough.

 

Welcome to the graveyard of dreams, where gatekeepers are the gravediggers and your potential is the corpse they’re burying six feet under.

 

You(or someone you know) would have experienced this: You are seven years old, scribbling rockets in your notebook margin during math class. Teacher spots you, snatches the paper, and declares with the authority of someone who peaked in teacher’s college, “Stop wasting time on silly drawings and focus on real subjects.”

 

Congratulations. You’ve just met your first gatekeeper.

 

These aren’t necessarily evil people plotting your downfall from their ivory towers. No, that would be too dramatic, too Hollywood. Real gatekeepers are far more insidious. They’re your well-meaning uncle who says “engineering is safer than art,” your guidance counselor who steers you toward “practical careers,” your friends who roll their eyes when you mention your startup idea for the fifteenth time.

 

They’re armed with the most dangerous weapon known to dreamers: the phrase “be realistic.”

Akio Morita pitched his idea for a personal stereo to focus groups who said, “Why would anyone want to listen to music through headphones?” Sony’s Walkman went on to sell over 400 million units. Those focus group gatekeepers probably still use boom boxes.

 

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw started Biocon in her garage in 1978 when biotechnology was as foreign to India as snow in Rajasthan. Banks refused her loans because they thought biotech was too risky, too complex, too advanced for an Indian woman. Today, Biocon is a $10 billion company, and those bankers are probably still explaining to their grandchildren what biotechnology means.

 

Wright Brothers—Two cycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, told they were “unqualified dreamers” by experts in flight. Today, we eat stale peanuts at 35,000 feet because of their delusions.

 

Narayana Murthy, before he was Godfather of Indian IT, was rejected by his future father-in-law because he had “no future.” (Imagine if he listened. Infosys would be an unfulfilled Google Doc.)

 

Stan Lee, told by his publisher that superhero comics would never work. Enter Spider-Man. The rest, like Peter Parker’s love life, is complicated history.

 

Surround yourself with dream amplifiers, not dream killers. The Bharat Matrimony founder Murugavel Janakiraman found his tribe of believers who helped him build a platform that’s  connected millions of hearts. Your dreams need cheerleaders, not critics in the stands.

 

Sometimes, not knowing something is impossible(Strategic Ignorance) is your greatest advantage. The Wright Brothers didn’t have aeronautical engineering degrees. They had bicycle repair experience and an unshakeable belief that humans could fly.

 

The gatekeepers aren’t going anywhere. They’re a permanent feature of the landscape, like taxes and traffic jams. But here’s what they don’t want you to know: they only have the power you give them.

 

Every time you water down your dream to make it “more acceptable,” you’re not being realistic – you’re being complicit in your own creative murder.

 

Dhirubhai Ambani was a petrol pump attendant who dreamed of building an industrial empire. Gatekeepers laughed at his ambition, questioned his methods, doubted his vision. Today, Reliance is one of India’s largest companies. The gatekeepers are still explaining to their children why they didn’t invest in his dreams.

 

Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for “lacking imagination and having no good ideas.” The same guy who created Mickey Mouse was told he had no creativity. Somewhere, that editor’s descendants are still trying to live down the family shame.

 

The choice is yours: Will you be the dreamer who broke through, or the cautionary tale who gave up?

 

Because in the end, the world doesn’t remember the gatekeepers. It remembers the dreamers who refused to let them win.

 

The “right way” is often the well-trodden path to mediocrity. Elon Musk built rockets reading textbooks, not waiting for NASA’s permission.

 

Gatekeepers, I am afraid do not have the same range as Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and they come mostly in three flavours:

 

The Riskophobics – “What’s your fallback plan?” (As if dreams need mattresses.)

 

The Degree Dealers – “Are you even qualified to do this?”

 

The Has-Beens & Never-Was-es – “When I was your age…”(Yeah? And look how that turned out.)

 

They are gatekeepers to nothing but their own boredom.

 

Dreams are allergic to committees. Don’t crowdsource your courage. Because we weren’t born to behave. We were born to build.

 

The most dangerous gatekeeper isn’t your boss, your parents, or some industry expert. It’s the voice in your head that sounds suspiciously like all of them combined.

 

This internal gatekeeper is sophisticated. It doesn’t just say “you can’t do it.” It says “you can’t do it YET” and “you can’t do it WITHOUT proper preparation” and “you can’t do it UNLESS you have a backup plan.” It’s rejection with good manners and a safety net.

 

A.R. Rahman could have listened to his internal gatekeeper that said “you’re just a keyboard player, not a composer.” Instead, he composed music that won Oscars and revolutionized Indian cinema. That internal voice is now probably his biggest fan.

 

Remember, if everyone gets it, it’s not a dream. It’s a brochure.

 

It’s not about what we achieve, but who we become in the process.

 

I don’t mean to sound morbid, but let’s start with a funeral.

You’re there. Black suit, uncomfortable shoes, that faint smell of old books and regret. Someone is reading the eulogy. They list the deceased’s achievements: VP of This, Director of That, closed the Q3 deal, member of the exclusive golf club.

And you sit there, in the squeaky pew, and you think: Is that it? Is the sum of a life—the laughter, the quiet courage, the scars that taught us everything, the love we gave when it was hard—really just a bullet-point list of corporate milestones and acquired assets?

If that’s the final score, we’ve all been playing the wrong game.

We’ve been sold a lie, wrapped in a corner office and tied with a golden parachute. The lie is that the destination is everything. That the peak is the point. But the truth, the gut-wrenching, liberating, terrifying truth, is that the mountain doesn’t give a damn about you planting a flag on its summit.

The mountain’s only job is to make you into the kind of person who could.

 

Here’s the beautiful irony that’ll make your brain do backflips:

 

When you stop chasing achievements and start focusing on becoming, you often end up achieving more than you ever imagined. But by then, you don’t give a shit about the achievements because you’ve become someone who knows their worth isn’t tied to external validation.

 

It’s like trying to fall asleep – the harder you chase it, the more elusive it becomes. But focus on relaxing your body, calming your mind, becoming someone at peace, and sleep finds you.

 

Same with success. Chase becoming courageous, and opportunities will chase you. Chase becoming wise, and people will seek your counsel. Chase becoming kind, and the world will open doors you didn’t even know existed.

 

Start becoming. The world is waiting.

 

Looking for inspiration? Here are a few unsung heroines and heroes from whose book you can take a leaf out of.

 

Jia Jiang( also known as the Rejection Collector and founder of the concept Rejection Therapy) decided to get rejected 100 times in 100 days. Asked strangers for ridiculous favors. “Can I borrow $100?” “Can I teach a college class?” “Can I plant a flower in your backyard?”

 

He got rejected. A lot. But something magical happened in the space between ask and no: he stopped being afraid of other people’s opinions. The achievement wasn’t the book deal or the TED talk that followed. It was becoming the kind of person who could ask for anything because he knew his worth wasn’t tied to the answer.

 

During the 2008 financial crisis, James* lost his job, his house, his sense of self. Started baking bread at 3 AM because insomnia is a ruthless companion. Neighbors smelled the magic, started knocking. Soon he was feeding half his block for free.

 

Never opened a bakery. Never wrote a cookbook. Never became the next Great British Bake Off star. But he became something more precious: the guy who knew that feeding people feeds your soul in ways that profit margins never will.

 

Meet Lisa*( Failure Archivist, if you may- and this could be me, you, anyone), who started a museum of her failures. Every rejection letter, every botched presentation, every startup that face-planted. Visitors come expecting a pity party and leave with a masterclass in resilience.

 

The twist? She’s never had a major commercial success. But she’s become someone who transforms wounds into wisdom, setbacks into stepping stones. That’s not an achievement you can put on a résumé, but it’s the kind of achievement that puts something in your chest that glows.

 

*The good news is that there is a Lisa and a James in all of us: I don’t mean this as a Spoiler Alert.

 

If we let it, our culture would want to validate us ONLY if we are successful in the binary sense of the term. Because, ‘apparently ‘ productivity and success are hand in glove. The best way to counter it is to Practice Productive Failing.  Pick something you’re terrible at and do it in public. Sing karaoke badly. Try stand-up comedy. Learn to skateboard at 35. Or play the guitar at 55. The goal isn’t to get good (though you might). The goal is to become someone who can suck at something and still show up.

 

What would you do if you knew no one would ever applaud? That’s your becoming compass. Not what brings recognition, but what brings you alive. That’s where you will discover your 3 AM truth.

 

Ask people about their failures, their struggles, their moments of doubt. You’ll discover that every interesting person is a collection of beautiful disasters that shaped them into who they are. Become a story collector. No better place to extract inspiration from.

 

Think of the most inspiring people you know. I’m not talking about the billionaires on magazine covers. I’m talking about the real ones. What do you admire? Their net worth? Or their worth? Their title? Or their tenacity? Their possessions? Or their peace?

The magic doesn’t happen when you cross the finish line. It happens in the daily, gritty, unglamorous grind of becoming.

 

Let’s ditch the usual examples. No talk of Edison’s lightbulb or JK Rowling’s rejections. Been there, done that, bought the overpriced motivational poster.

Consider instead the Japanese art of Kintsugi. The practice of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The philosophy is breathtaking: breakage and repair are part of an object’s history, not something to disguise. The flaw is not a failure; it is the source of its unique beauty and strength. The achievement is the pristine vase. The becoming is the gold-veined, more resilient, more beautiful masterpiece that emerged from its shattering.

 

Our life is the same. That startup that failed? That’s not a line item on your failure CV. That’s the gold lacquer filling your cracks, making you more interesting, more empathetic, more strategic. That heartbreak that leveled you? That was you shedding your too-small shell, hiding under a rock for a bit, preparing for a growth spurt your old self couldn’t contain. That period of burnout or depression? That was the forest fire, clearing the deadwood so that something new, something stronger, could take root.

 

We live in a world where “achievement” is celebrated like it’s oxygen. Promotions, degrees, IPO valuations, follower counts — the dopamine buffet is endless. But here’s the truth no LinkedIn humblebrag will tell you: what you get pales compared to who you become in the process.

 

Take Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition. Spoiler alert: he failed. Never made it to the South Pole. But his crew survived two years trapped in ice — because Shackleton became the kind of leader whose grit and humanity turned hopelessness into survival. History doesn’t remember his “failure”; it remembers who he became.

 

Look at the people you truly admire. If you permit me a bit of audacity, I recommend auditing your heroes. Reverse-engineer their character, not their accomplishments. You don’t want Elon Musk’s bank account; you want his irrational, delusional persistence. You don’t want Brené Brown’s book sales; you want her revolutionary courage to be vulnerable. Go after the trait, not the trophy. The trophy is just a byproduct. Beyoncé: Forget the platinum records. It’s her refusal to quit, her insistence on authenticity, that turned gawkers into believers. She’s living proof you can build an empire rooted in vulnerability. Closer home: Dipa Karmakar. She didn’t win a medal at Rio Olympics. But she attempted the “Produnova” vault — the death-defying move only a handful had even dared. India didn’t get the podium. But it got a new definition of courage.

 

Chase experiences that change your perspective more than your resume. Achievement is temporary, but character is compounding interest. Seeking the bruises is a worthwhile pursuit. Journal your lowest moments. That’s where alchemy happens, where yesterday’s panic becomes tomorrow’s wisdom.

 

And for all the beautiful, messy humans that are: This isn’t a call to abandon goals. Goals are fantastic. They give us direction, something to row towards. But stop worshipping the distant shore and start falling in love with the strength of your rowing arms, the calluses on your hands, the way you learn to read the currents, and the camaraderie you build with fellow travelers.

 

The world adores achievement because it’s easy to count—awards, promotions, likes. But look harder. The rare ones—the truly changed—shine with a light no finish line can buy. So next time you’re gasping for that next milestone, ask: Who am I forging in the fire? Achievement ends. Becoming, thankfully, never does.

 

Go forth. Don’t just win—transform.

 

Picture this: You’re standing in front of a vending machine at 2 AM, desperately jabbing the coin return button because your Snickers bar is dangling by a thread. You could walk away, find another machine, maybe even discover a 24-hour bakery with fresh croissants down the street. But no—you’re committed to this mechanical hostage situation because you need that sugar rush right now.

 

Welcome to your entire relationship with ASAP, my friend.

 

Full Transparency: I have been toying with this blog post idea for the past several weeks. Researching and scribbling points as time went by. Even got our designer at ISD Global to craft something( see below) and our video editor to conceptualise a video as well which you might want to watch here. It could have been published probably in June. But, instead, I asked: “What’s possible with this idea that I haven’t explored yet?”

 

The ASAP version would have gotten published sooner. The possible version might actually change how you think about time, decisions, and what matters.

 

Which would you rather read?

The greatest achievements in human history—from the pyramids to the internet—weren’t built by people asking “How soon?” They were built by people asking “What if?”

 

You feel it, don’t you? That tiny, digital fist that clenches in your gut the moment you see those four capital letters. ASAP.

It pings into your inbox, slides into a Slack channel, is muttered in a meeting. It’s the Swiss Army knife of corporate vocabulary—seemingly versatile, ultimately clunky, and almost always used to pry open a can of urgency that didn’t need opening.

We’ve been conditioned to treat “ASAP” as the pinnacle of priority. The alpha and omega of action. But I’m here to tell you, with the conviction of a man who has seen one too many “URGENT!!” emails about the font size on a footer, that ASAP is a trap. A sleight of hand that steals the Possible to worship the Soon.

It’s not a timeframe; it’s an anxiety-induced coma dressed as productivity.

 

The genius of the acronym is its disguise. It sounds so reasonable! A plea. Almost apologetic. As Soon As Possible. Who could argue with that? We all want things to be possible!

But that’s the heist. In practice, the ‘P’ is quietly kidnapped, thrown under the bus, and never seen again. What’s left is just “AS” – a frantic, breathless, panicked race to Just Do It Now.

The focus shifts violently from “Is this even a good idea?”to “How fast can I make this look done?”Quality, strategy, sanity—they are all sacrificed at the altar of speed. We become short-order cooks in the kitchen of innovation, slinging greasy ideas instead of crafting a Michelin-star meal.

You’re not being asked to do what’s possible; you’re being demanded to do what’s immediate. And there is a galactic difference.

 

Everyone talks about software bugs and missed deadlines. Let’s talk about the weird stuff. The history rewritten by ASAP.

 

Back in 1772, a Dutch orchestra commissioner, notoriously impatient, sent a letter to a young Mozart demanding a new symphony “a.s.a.p.”(or its 18th-century equivalent, “with utmost haste, post-haste!”). Mozart, needing the guilders, cranked out Symphony No. 22 in C major, K. 162, in a matter of days. It’s… fine. Pleasant. But, you guessed it, forgettable. Meanwhile, the pieces he was allowed to marinate on—like his later piano concertos—changed music forever. The world got soon instead of sublime. We lost a possible masterpiece for a hurried assignment.

 

1950s America fell in love with instant coffee because it solved the ASAP problem perfectly. Why wait 5 minutes for coffee to brew when you could have it in 30 seconds?

 

The trade-off nobody calculated: Instant coffee didn’t just sacrifice taste—it rewired our expectations about what coffee could be. For three decades, Americans forgot that coffee could be complex, nuanced, or worth savoring.

 

Then came Starbucks, which committed the ultimate sin against ASAP culture: they made coffee slower. Espresso machines that took 25 seconds per shot. Baristas who ground beans fresh. Foam art that served no functional purpose. The “inefficient” result? Starbucks turned a $2 commodity into a $30 billion cultural experience. The deeper truth: Sometimes the fastest way to transform an industry is to completely ignore what the industry thinks it needs ASAP.

 

Dr. Sarah Chen, trauma surgeon: “The doctors who kill patients are often the ones who rush. The ones who save lives take an extra 10 seconds to think clearly, even when every instinct screams ‘move faster.'”The paradox here is that even when speed is actually critical, effectiveness trumps urgency.

 

1969: America put humans on the moon. The obvious next step? Mars ASAP, right? 56 years later: Still no humans on Mars. From an ASAP perspective, this looks like spectacular failure. But consider what happened instead: By taking time to ask “What’s possible with space technology?”, we got:

 

GPS (which revolutionized everything from dating to pizza delivery)

Weather satellites (that save thousands of lives annually)

Communication satellites (that made global internet possible)

Materials science breakthroughs (that improved everything from medical devices to athletic equipment)

 

The Prognosis or rather The profound realisation: Rushing to Mars ASAP would have given us a few footprints in red dirt. Exploring what was possible with space technology gave us the modern world.

 

The most radical act in our ASAP world? Taking your time.

 

The rebellion is not in saying “no.” It’s in reclaiming the question. When ASAP comes hurtling at you, your new power move is to gently, deftly, and irreverently drag the “P”(possible) back into the light.

 

The problem with ASAP is not urgency. Urgency is fine. Firefighters need urgency. Paramedics live on urgency. The problem is false urgency—the kind that confuses soon with possible. When Jeff Bezos started Amazon, he didn’t say: “We’ll become the Everything Store ASAP.” He said: “We’ll start with books. Possible.” When ISRO put Chandrayaan on the moon, it wasn’t ASAP. It was “As Possible Given 30% of NASA’s Budget.” Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Not ASAP. Not even close. It took 4 years, neck cramps, and a paintbrush dipped in stubbornness.

 

If these giants had fallen for the ASAP trap, we’d have half-written books, half-built rockets, and a chapel ceiling that looks like it was whitewashed by a drunk intern.

 

ASAP is the currency of the anxious. Possible is the language of the impactful. Soon is the Opiate. Possible is the Oxygen.

 

Stop racing to be soon. Start striving to be significant. The world is clogged with the mediocre results of hurried work. What it desperately needs is the brilliant, the durable, the truly innovative—the things that are only ever possible when we give them the time and space to breathe.

So the next time that four-letter acronym assaults your peace, smile. Remember the forgotten symphony. Take a deep breath.

And go do what’s Possible. Because urgent and important are NOT two sides of the same coin.