Author: Suresh Dinakaran

 

“Originality consists of returning to the origin.” – Antoni Gaudí

 

I read this quote a few days back and the credit for this blog post must be attributed to the inspiration drawn from this one profound line. So, let that marinate. It’s not a forward command. It’s a homecoming.

 

Antoni Gaudí was told his architecture was ‘impossible.’ Today, 3 million people visit his ‘impossible’ cathedral every year. His secret? Going backward.”

 

We have all been been taught to look out there for inspiration—to competitors, to trends, to what’s “hot” right now. But the great ones? They look in here. Not navel-gazing introspection, but something deeper: the fundamental truths of their craft, their culture, their core.

 

It is not a chicken or egg situation. Let’s ask what came first. Before the complexity, before the layers of “best practices,” before everyone started doing it this way—what was the original impulse? In writing, it’s storytelling around a fire. In business, it’s solving a real human problem. In art, it’s making someone feel something.

 

The lesson possibly here is to look at the masters before the masters. Not just look at competitors. Tracing the lineage back to go upstream. Jazz musicians study Bach. Chefs study grandmothers. Tech visionaries study libraries. Counter intuitive, yes. Effective. Bloody hell YES!

 

Coco Chanel didn’t invent fashion. She returned to the origin of how women wanted to move and feel, liberating them from corsets and excess, giving them back their bodies.

 

Ray Kroc didn’t invent the hamburger. He returned to the origin of what Americans wanted—fast, reliable, consistent—and built an empire(McDonalds) on the fundamentals.

 

And I am sorry to disappoint the K-Pop fans. You think BTS’s “Dynamite” is original? On the surface, it’s a shiny, disposable pop confection. But scrape the gloss. Its origin isn’t in a Seoul recording studio; it’s in the funk and soul of 1970s America. They didn’t copy it; they absorbed its DNA—the origin of feel-good, dance-floor joy—and rebuilt it with Korean precision and a 21st-century heartbeat. They returned to the root of rhythm to create a new branch.

 

Your grandmother’s recipe for that perfect, crispy-laced dosa. It’s not in a cookbook. It’s in the memory of her hands, which learned from her mother, who learned from the origin of fire and flour. The “food blogger” who adds truffle oil and quinoa to it isn’t being original. They’re just decorating a ghost. The true originality is in making it exactly as it was meant to be—a perfect return to the origin of taste and tradition.

 

See the pattern? Originality isn’t addition. It’s subtraction back to essence.

 

The best films are exceptional not because of what we see but because of what we don’t see.

 

Tadao Ando grew up poor in Osaka. Boxing was his first career. Architecture? That came later, self-taught, through books and buildings, with no formal degree cluttering up his vision.

 

When he finally designed his first house, he couldn’t afford furniture. So he embraced the origin of Japanese spatial philosophy—ma, the concept of negative space, the void that gives meaning to presence. His “empty” rooms weren’t lacking; they were full of possibility.

 

Today, Ando is one of the world’s most celebrated architects. His concrete walls, his play of light and shadow, his ruthless elimination of the unnecessary—all of it traces back to that original poverty that forced him to ask: “What do we really need?”

 

The Western world, drowning in excess, now pays millions to experience the “minimalism” that Ando discovered by necessity. He didn’t invent it. He remembered it.

 

We have fallen hook, line and sinker to the origin myth story we have been sold for aeons. We live in an age drunk on novelty. “Disrupt or die,” they say. “Move fast and break things.” Every startup pitchman promises to reinvent the wheel, reimagine the paradigm, revolutionize the mundane. We’ve confused originality with newness, and therein lies our spectacular error.

 

Antoni Gaudí—is the mad genius who gave us Barcelona’s Sagrada Família—he understood something profound that would make most Silicon Valley prophets weep into their kombucha: True originality isn’t about inventing something from nothing. It’s about rediscovering something we forgot we knew.

 

When Gaudí designed his masterpieces, he didn’t conjure alien geometries. He looked at nature—the original architect. The spirals of nautilus shells. The branching of trees. The hexagonal perfection of honeycombs. He returned to the origin, to the fundamental grammar of the universe itself, and from there, created buildings that had never been seen before.

 

The paradox is perfect: He was utterly original because he wasn’t trying to be.

 

Jorge Luis Borges lost his sight in 1955, right around the time he was appointed Director of Argentina’s National Library. Cruel irony? Perhaps. Or perhaps the universe knew what it was doing. Out of sight, but then look what came out of his mind!

 

Unable to read, Borges returned to the origin of storytelling—oral tradition, memory, the ancient art of weaving tales from the threads of what we carry inside us. He began dictating his stories, drawing from the vast library of his mind, from myths and legends that predated the written word.

 

And what happened? He created some of the most innovative, labyrinthine, mind-bending literature of the 20th century. “The Library of Babel,” “The Aleph,” stories that played with infinity, time, and parallel realities—all because a blind man returned to the oldest way humans ever told stories: one voice, one listener, one shared dream in the dark.

 

The takeaway isn’t subtle: When you can’t move forward, sometimes the universe is telling you to dig deeper.

 

Ando had poverty. Borges had blindness. Gaudí had a client who wanted something “different” and the freedom to experiment. Constraints aren’t obstacles—they’re the fingers of fate pointing you toward your origin. As Ryan Holiday calls it ” The Obstacle Is The Way “.

 

In an age of artificial intelligence and infinite content, the most original thing you can do is be fundamentally human. In a world of shortcuts and hacks, the most disruptive move is to master the fundamentals. In a culture addicted to trends, the most radical act is to be timeless.

 

Gaudí spent 40 years building the Sagrada Família. It’s still not finished. But it’s already immortal.

 

Why? Because he built it on principles as old as creation itself—geometry, light, growth, aspiration. He didn’t chase the zeitgeist. He chased the eternal.

 

Your most original work won’t come from trying to be different. It will come from being so deeply yourself, so rooted in first principles, so committed to the essence of what you do, that imitation becomes impossible.

 

Not because you’re weird. But because you’re true.

 

In closing, sharing something as food for thought. A couple of them. So that we stop chasing originality and start embodying it.

 

–Become a “Why” Archaeologist:Before you create anything—a presentation, a marketing campaign, a sourdough starter—ask not “What’s new?” but “What’s the first principle?” What is the fundamental problem? The primal need? The core emotion? Start there. The answer is your origin.

 

–Embrace “Intelligent Naiveté”:Pretend you’re an alien seeing your field for the first time. Ask the dumb questions. “Why do chairs have four legs?” “Why do meetings have to be an hour?” “Why does a website need a homepage?” You’ll be stunned how many “rules” are just barnacles on the hull of the original ship.

 

–Steal from the Soil, Not the Surface:Don’t copy your competitor’s latest feature. That’s theft from the surface. Instead, ask why it works. What human need does it tap into? Steal that primal need—the origin—and build your own, better solution from that foundation. That’s originality.

 

So, go on. Be a cosmic archaeologist. Dig. The most original version of your work, your art, your life—it’s not a distant star. It’s a seed, buried deep, waiting for you to remember where you planted it.

And when you find it, water it with your own unique weirdness. Watch what grows.

I have a feeling Gaudí would approve.

 

Bill Bernbach, the mad advertising genius( and undoubtedly the original punk rocker of Madison Avenue who blew cigar smoke right into Madison Avenue’s uptight nostrils), the man who gave birth to DDB and revolutionized advertising forever, dropped a missile that still echoes through the corridors of every boardroom, every startup garage, every activist’s midnight planning session:

 

“It is not enough to be right — you must also be compelling.“

 

But here’s where Bernbach went full savage mode, delivering the kind of insight that makes comfortable people squirm:

 

“A dull truth will not be looked at. An exciting lie will. That is what good, sincere people must understand. They must make their truth exciting and new, or their good works will be born dead.”

 

Born dead. Let that phrase marinate in your brain for a moment.

 

This wasn’t cynicism. This was a wake-up call for everyone with something genuine to say. If you want your truth to live, don’t send it out in tattered clothes. Make it sing. Make it strut.

 

We live in an attention-deficit apocalypse. The feed scrolls faster than your brand can blink. The competition isn’t your category—it’s the cat video two thumbs away. If your story isn’t arresting, it isn’t. Period.

 

Being compelling doesn’t mean being dishonest. It means being a storyteller with a backbone. It means showing up with truth in a way that moves the blood, not just the brain. It’s about packaging your principle with some swagger.

 

Look around. The exciting lies are winning. They’re shiny, seductive, and algorithmically amplified. They promise six-pack abs in six days, financial freedom with one crypto coin, and eternal happiness in a scented candle.

And what are we, the “sincere people,” doing? We’re countering with PDFs. With white papers no one will ever white. We’re serving a five-course meal of facts on a dented tray to an audience high on the cocaine of clickbait.

This is not a call to lie. This is a call to war. A war fought with the weapons of story, surprise, soul, and savage simplicity.

 

How many brilliant ideas have you buried in PowerPoint graveyards? How many world-changing solutions have you suffocated with jargon and bullet points? How many times have you watched inferior ideas triumph simply because they knew how to dance?

 

Being right is kindergarten. Being compelling is graduate school. You’ve got to dress your truth in leather jackets, sequins, and a scream that will break the internet. Or anything equivalent.

 

Closer home, rewind to Amul ads. India was hearing “milk is nutritious” in government posters since Nehru’s time. Yawn. Then Amul comes in with “Utterly Butterly Delicious” and that wide-eyed polka dot girl poking fun at everything from politics to cricket. Same truth: milk nourishes. But the delivery was delicious irreverence. Who remembered the poster with cows grazing? AND who remembers Amul topicals decades later? Exactly. They didn’t just sell butter—they sold wit, wisdom, and a wink.

 

Take Apple in the 80s. Personal computers were beige boxes of doom. IBM said, “Work better, compute faster.” Bernbach-esque Apple said, “Here’s to the crazy ones.” They turned truth (a PC on your desk really does change your life) into poetry, rebellion, and theatre. Beige truth vs neon revolution. Guess which one etched itself into retinas.

 

Your brilliant ideas could die a silent death. Unless you do what Archimedes did- they found Archimedes naked in a bathtub, screaming “Eureka!” at the top of his lungs.

 

They didn’t find him sitting quietly in a corner, whispering his discovery to the wall.

 

Think about that for a split second. The man who cracked one of physics’ greatest puzzles didn’t just have his moment of truth—he performed it. He made it impossible to ignore. He turned scientific discovery into street theater.

 

That’s the difference between changing the world and changing nothing at all.

 

Look at Elon Musk. The man could tweet about launching a car into space, and suddenly everyone’s talking about Mars colonization. He doesn’t just build rockets—he builds stories around rockets. He doesn’t just create electric vehicles—he creates a movement around sustainable transport.

 

Meanwhile, thousands of equally brilliant engineers toil in anonymity because they never learned that innovation without communication is just expensive masturbation.

 

In our own backyard, watch how the late APJ Abdul Kalam made rocket science accessible to children. He didn’t dumb down the science—he lit up the imagination. He turned complex aerospace engineering into dreams of flight that every village kid could touch.

 

Even in advertising, remember how Ashutosh Gowariker made “Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola” stick in our collective consciousness? He could have said “Coca-Cola is refreshing.” Instead, he made it a cultural code, a shared language.

 

Closer home again: Swiggy’s Instamart ads—deadpan humour, surreal visuals—turn the very mundane act of grocery delivery into a cultural chuckle. Groceries arrive faster, but the brand arrives first in your mind.

 

Here’s what Bernbach understood that most people miss: Complexity is the enemy of adoption.

 

The most profound truths are often the simplest ones, dressed up in ways that make people want to believe them.

 

Gandhi didn’t just protest British rule—he spun cotton and walked to the sea. He turned political resistance into performance art. He made truth visible.

 

Steve Jobs didn’t just build computers—he built desire. “Think Different” wasn’t about processors and memory. It was about identity and aspiration.

 

Your noble intentions don’t entitle you to anyone’s attention.

 

The world doesn’t owe you an audience just because you’re right. Being right is table stakes. Being heard & seen requires artistry.

 

This isn’t about manipulation—it’s about translation. It’s about taking your beautiful, complex, nuanced truth and making it sing in a language that busy, distracted, overwhelmed humans can actually hear.

 

So, how do we make this work? As the saying goes- sell the sizzle, not the steak. Start with the scar, the Achilles Heel, not the solution. People don’t care about your product—they care about their pain. Nike doesn’t sell shoes; they sell the feeling of victory. Apple doesn’t sell phones; they sell the promise of human connection. Ariel’s “Dad’s Share the Load” campaign didn’t lecture about gender equality—they showed one father realizing his own blindness. Personal story, universal truth. Find the universal in the specific. Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad worked because it violated every expectation about what a brand should say. The contrast made the message unforgettable. Use contrast like a weapon. 

 

Male your revolution seductive. The future belongs to those who understand this: Truth without theater is just noise.

 

Your breakthrough research? Useless if it dies in academic journals. Your innovative product? Irrelevant if it can’t break through the marketing clutter. Your social cause? Impotent if it can’t inspire action.

 

The revolutionaries who change the world aren’t just the ones with the best ideas—they’re the ones who make their ideas impossible to ignore.

 

In closing, fellow truth-teller, allow me to put out this (Bernbach) Challenge:-

 

Take your most important idea—the one that keeps you up at night, the one you believe could change everything—and ask yourself:

 

Is it compelling enough to compete with cat videos? Is it sexy enough to survive the scroll? Is it magnetic enough to make people stop, think, and act?

 

If not, you don’t have a truth problem. You have a translation problem. And that is the most solvable problem in the world.

 

Because the truth isn’t just out there waiting to be discovered. It’s waiting to be performed.

 

PS: Bill Bernbach was an Advertising Hall of Fame Member. Some of his landmark campaigns included ” Think Small ” for Volkswagen Beetle and ” We Try Harder ” for Avis Rent A Car.

 

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. 

 

 

Clutch too hard, you bleed. Let go too soon, you fade. The dance is in the timing.

 

The most advanced AI on the planet, the kind that can write sonnets and doom-scroll through cat videos, is fundamentally incapable of understanding this. It can optimize, it can calculate, but it cannot feel the sacred pain of holding a newborn for the first time, nor the liberating agony of scattering a parent’s ashes. That tension? That’s not a bug in the human code. It’s the feature. It’s what makes us alive.

 

From the favelas of Rio to the tech hubs of Shenzhen, from the coffee plantations of Kerala to the startup garages of Tel Aviv, the same pattern emerges: Those who master the dance between gripping and releasing become the forces that reshape the world.

 

” This is the cruel contract of all experience, of aliveness itself — that in order to have it, we must agree to let it go “- Maria Popova | The Marginalian

 

The secret isn’t in the holding. It isn’t letting go either. It’s in the electric tension between them—that space where miracles happen, where breakthrough innovations are born, where ordinary humans become extraordinary.

 

The cherry blossom doesn’t cling to the branch, yet the Japanese hold onto the memory of its fleeting beauty for centuries. They’ve mastered holding onto the essence while letting go of the form. Result? A culture that finds profound beauty in impermanence. The art of holding on by letting go.

 

For 400 years, Swiss watchmakers have held onto tradition with religious fervor while constantly letting go of outdated techniques. They grip heritage while releasing obsolete methods. Today, they still dominate luxury timepieces in the age of smartphones.

 

On the ghats of Varanasi, in UP, India, life and death perform their daily tango in broad daylight. Families hold on to their loved ones with every fibre of their being, their love a tangible force. And then, in the ultimate act of faith, they let go. They release the physical form to the flames and the sacred river. They don’t just understand the paradox; they breathe it. The holding on (to memory, to tradition, to love) is given its power precisely by the act of letting go (of the body, of attachment to the mortal coil). It’s not a contradiction; it’s a completion.

 

Our belief is besieged by the myth of the permanent grip. Where, the mantra is “Never let go.” Hold on to your youth (hello, botox). Hold on to your job title. Hold on to that grudge from 2012. Hold on to that toxic relationship because God forbid you be alone. We’re hoarders of the soul, terrified of the empty space that letting go creates. But nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the universe. That empty space isn’t void; it’s potential. By refusing to release, we choke off our own power supply. We’re trying to breathe in without ever breathing out. It’s not sustainable. It’s a one-way ticket to a panic attack.

 

Life is basically a tug-of-war between a toddler refusing to drop his toy and a monk burning down his attachments in the Himalayas. And the real energy — the juice that powers our existence — comes from that exact polarity. Holding on. Letting go. Two opposite poles, same battery.

 

If you only cling, you choke. If you only release, you drift. The art (and science) is knowing when to clutch tighter than a Bollywood mother( none more qualified than Nirupa Roy, I dare say) in the final act, and when to let go like MS Dhoni lofting that World Cup-winning six into the Wankhede Stadium night sky.

 

Amul held on to its farmers-first cooperative model for 75+ years while letting go of old advertising formats — who else can run a butter girl campaign that’s still fresh in the age of Instagram reels?

 

Let’s not forget Buddha, who literally walked out of the palace, letting go of gold-plated comfort to hold on to a higher calling.

 

Netflix held on to storytelling while letting go of physical DVDs. (Blockbuster couldn’t let go — and boom, R.I.P.).

 

Apple held on to obsessive design purity but let go of buttons, disks, ports — heck, they’d remove oxygen if it messed with symmetry. That letting go gave us sleek devices we now can’t let go of.

 

Post-WWII, Japan let go of samurai swagger and empire dreams, held on to discipline and craftsmanship, and reinvented itself into Toyota, Sony, and sushi-as-global-currency.

 

Every empire, every brand, every love story is a game of grip and release.

 

Every lesson from Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra is a cosmic reminder: Don’t clutch too hard. Don’t release too soon. Ride the voltage.

 

Nelson Mandela held onto hope in a cell the size of a Mumbai bathroom, but let go of vengeance when the door opened. Japanese artists painstakingly glue shattered pottery and call it Kintsugi. They hold onto the cracks, let go of the shame. The repairs are the story. Suns rise because night lets go.

 

It might be worth auditing your grip. Ask yourself — what are you strangling that should be surrendered? A toxic client, a business model past its expiry, an outdated identity? Re-inforce what matters. What’s worth white-knuckling? Your core values, your integrity, your community, your health.

 

Letting go is not quitting. It’s making a strategic choice to reallocate your energy. It’s the tree shedding dead leaves so it can bud again in spring. It’s not failure; it’s rhythm. So, embrace the sacred release.

 

What are you clutching too tightly? And what are you finally, gloriously, ready to release?

 

Fear is a reaction, creativity is a response!

Yours in the beautiful struggle– SD

 

Dear Charles Darwin, if you thought humans evolved from apes, wait till you see what WhatsApp forwards have turned us into. Spoiler alert: We’ve gone backwards.

 

They say laughter is infectious. Clearly, they’ve never been added to a family WhatsApp group — that, my dear reader, is full-blown plague.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts — we are about to take a guided tour of the world’s biggest free Ivy League: WhatsApp University. Zero entrance exams, zero attendance required, and 100% guaranteed certificates — in conspiracy theories, half-baked health tips, and breaking news that never broke.

 

All of us have dealt with the Patriotic Uncle who believes that forwarding a flag emoji is synonymous with nationalism. His WhatsApp status is always “Proud to be Indian” with 47 flag emojis. Or the Corporate Warrior who Shares “motivational” quotes that Gandhi never said but are attributed to him anyway. Believes success is just one forward away. And the quintessential Health Guru who has the cure for everything except the forward addiction. Ironically, the only thing that can’t be cured by their remedies.

 

Welcome to the Economics of Absurdity where WhatsApp forwards have created their own economy. Where the GDP(Gullibility Domestic Product) measures how easily a population believes unverified information. And that is where inflation rate is the speed at which nonsense multiplies in group chats. Not to mention the unabashed unemployment as fact-checkers have given up and moved onto organic farming.

 

The international impact of these forwards cannot be under estimated. Rumors are rife that the United Nations is considering adding WhatsApp Forward Pollution to climate change discussions. Experts suggest the hot air generated by fake forwards is contributing to global warming. Several countries are embarking on high-level diplomacy with WhatsApp University. The Vatican is contemplating offering a PhD in Divine Forwards.

 

The WhatsApp University: No entrance exams, no attendance, no tuition fees. Just unlimited free degrees in Medicine, History, Geopolitics, Sports Management and How to Cure Cancer With Turmeric Latte. Forget AI, Blockchain, or Climate Change — the greatest contagion of our times is that cousin-in-law who believes WhatsApp forwards are Nobel-worthy research papers.COVID was a pandemic. WhatsApp forwards? An endemic. Unstoppable, hereditary, and immortal.

 

Your phone is not a phone. Not anymore. It’s a petri dish. A digital incubator for the most virulent, mind-boggling, and occasionally sanity-snatching strain of information ever conceived: The WhatsApp Forward( yes, the same thing that educates, medicates and occasionally eliminates). They are the reason you’ve seen a video of a lizard giving birth to a shivling, a grainy image of a miracle cloud that looks suspiciously like a Photoshop 2.0 filter from 2003, and a 47-minute voice note explaining how eating raisins at 4:17 PM will align your chakras with Elon Musk’s satellite network.

 

If you take a global tour of this contagion, there is lots to unearth. First things first- please note that the virus mutates to suit its host environment. Observe. The Latin American Variant where you get to see  frantic forward about a new mosquito that lays eggs in your laundry if you leave it out after 6 PM. It comes with a picture of a normal mosquito photoshopped to look like it’s wearing tactical gear. Or the North American Strain where a A 5G-tower-causes-COVID-consipracy theory, followed immediately by a forwarded chain mail from 1998 warning that AOL CDs are mind-control devices sent by the Illuminati. The consistency is breathtaking. While The British Mutation comes with a solemn warning that the EU has banned curved bananas and that Her Majesty the Queen (or now, the King) personally drinks a specific brand of tea every day at precisely 4:59 PM, not 5:00 PM. The audacity.

 

The Indian Sub-Species is in a class of its own. Had to be. Home is where the forwards don’t just spread misinformation; they spread with a sense of profound, unshakeable duty. It’s not spam; it’s seva. Where we are privy to The Medical Miracle. ” Good Morning. Do Not Eat Cucumber and Drink Water Within 17.5 Minutes of that. My friend’s nephews’ colleagues’ dog died. Forward to all your groups within 87 seconds “. The urgency is palpable. The grammar, a tragedy. The medical advice, a war crime.

 

Or messages that are Religious Ransomware in disguise( Kaspersky, are you tuned in?). A picture of a glittery Ganesha. The caption reads: “This is not a normal forward. This is a divine test. You will receive good news at 11:47 AM tomorrow only if you forward this to 25 people. I ignored once and my Wi-Fi broke for a week.” This is digital dharma, people. You wouldn’t want to risk your Wi-Fi, would you? And wait, let me not forget the Nostalgia Nano Bot– “1990s kids had real childhood. They played with stones and friendship. 2020 kids only with iPad. Like if you agree. Share to make others remember.” Because nothing says “real childhood” like aggressively forwarding a message on a $1000 smartphone.

 

If you haven’t seen these messages yet, I pity you. Anyway, suggest you wait, your turn will come. ” Forward this to 17 people and Mukesh Ambani will personally top up your Jio balance for Rs 99“. ” UK scientists stunned: applying onion juice to your navel guarantees IIT admission “. ” NASA confirms: chanting Om can recharge your Wi-Fi router.”

 

Global students are no less diligent. Americans get “Bill Gates is giving away $500 if you forward this.” (I always knew that an idle mind is a devil’s workshop). Nigerians specialise in Prince inheritance. (Royalty has to be passed on you see). And somewhere in the Middle East, “If you type Bismillah in Microsoft Word, your laptop becomes halal.” (We are in a consumption economy you bet). And this one is worth the Oscar if ever there was one for WhatsApp forwards. ” Coconut oil cures everything from pimples to Pakistan.” — courtesy of the WhatsApp R&D division.

 

The amount of flexibility that WhatsApp forwards have will put the best gymnast from China to shame. Especially when it comes to motivational forwards and audacious history revisionism. ” If you wake up at 4 a.m., drink hot water, and say ‘I am unstoppable’ ten times, you will become Adani.” (Currently, all we became is constipated.) ” Dalai Lama said this…” (No, sorry to disappoint you, he didn’t. He has better things to do). Shakespeare apparently wrote, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” Sorry, that was Dr. Seuss, but WhatsApp insists otherwise. Suddenly, everyone from Subhash Chandra Bose to Albert Einstein is misquoted. UK forwards swear Queen Elizabeth once texted LOL to Prince Charles, meaning Lots of Love. Little wonder it is said, love is blind.

 

So, the next time you receive a forward, remember: you are just a sneeze away from being Patient Zero of Digital Typhoid. 

 

Those Good Morning messages( yes, the ones that come at dawn, like clockwork – A blizzard of sunflowers, dewdrops, motivational quotes, kittens doing yoga, and folksy wisdom) are actually weapons of mass distraction.

 

When your phone convulses with the collective anxiety of a hundred forwards, remember: you are not alone. We are all unwilling graduates of WhatsApp University, holding advanced degrees in Applied Nonsense.

 

PS: Forward this blog to ten people, or risk having your charger only work at a specific angle for the next week. You’ve been warned.

Yours in digital delirium,

Suresh Dinakaran (Professor Emeritus of Not Forwarding That Nonsense, WhatsApp University – Honours Dropout)

 

 

Introspect. And the Archaeology of Self  will reveal that your scars are not your story’s punctuation marks. They’re the commas in a sentence that’s still being written.

 

Every wound whispers: I own you. And every healing whispers back louder: Not on my watch.

 

The human condition has this funny way of playing trick-or-treat with us. One minute you are basking in the glow of a promotion, a love confession, or your startup’s first investor cheque… next minute you are punched in the gut by betrayal, rejection, redundancy, or a WhatsApp “seen” without reply.

 

We confuse the hurt for the whole. We stitch our identity to the fracture and forget the rest of the fabric.

 

But here’s the raw truth: There’s always more to you than what hurt you.

 

What if healing isn’t about forgetting what hurt you, but remembering who you were before the hurt tried to define you? What if your story gets better from here? Because, your trauma is not your personality. Your healing is not your brand. Your wholeness is not conditional on your pain being productive.

 

Let’s reconcile to one fact that your hurt wouldn’t want you to know. You are NOT a walking wound. You are not your worst day, your darkest moment, or your most painful chapter. You are not the person who left, the opportunity that slipped away, or the words that cut deep. You are not even your most heroic comeback story.

 

You are something far more extraordinary—you are a universe in motion, constantly creating and recreating yourself.

The culture, as it would have it, told you a story of the crack, but never about the light that got in.

 

Maybe it was a betrayal that left a permanent chill in your bones. A failure that echoes in every quiet moment. A word, a look, a rejection that became the ghost living in your hallway, whispering the same old lies: You are not enough. You are what happened to you.

 

We are not running away from the truth. Your hurt is real. It is valid. It deserves a seat at the table. But here is the revolutionary, earth-shattering, needle-moving truth: it does not get to order for everyone else.

 

This isn’t just fluffy self-help. This is the raw, gritty narrative of the human spirit, from Mumbai to Manhattan.

 

Pushed from a moving train by thieves in 2011, she lost her leg. The world saw a victim. She saw a mountaineer. In 2013, she became the world’s first female amputee to climb Mount Everest. The hurt was a horrific fact. It was not her fate. That is Arunima Sinha for you.

 

A divorced, unemployed, clinically depressed single mother living on state benefits. Society’s definition? A statistic. Her own definition? A writer. She gave the world Harry Potter not in spite of her pain, but by channeling its echoes into a story about love, loss, and the boy who lived. That is your global phenomenon: J K Rowling.

 

Oprah Winfrey, who endured childhood abuse, didn’t let that become her headline — she rewrote it into power, influence, and impact.

 

In Indian mythology, the wounded Karna was constantly denied legitimacy, but his pain sharpened him into one of the most formidable warriors of the Mahabharata.

 

Think of Amitabh Bachchan in the 90s. Bankrupt. Written off. Newspapers calling him a relic. Hurt in ways that would’ve flattened most.
But the man didn’t stop at “failed producer.” He went back, rebuilt, reinvented. Kaun Banega Crorepati wasn’t just a game show. It was his resurrection.

 

AR Rahman turned the grief of losing his father as a child into a lifelong devotion to music that reshaped the cultural landscape.

 

Steve Jobs? Kicked out of the company he founded. The ultimate professional heartbreak. Instead of being defined by exile, he built Pixar, and then returned to Apple to redefine the world.

 

The person who grew up with the searing label of “not good at math” and now runs a successful business, their Excel sheets a quiet middle finger to that old shame. The one who loved and lost so deeply they thought they’d never breathe again, but now uses that capacity for love to nurture profound friendships.

 

The pattern is universal. The hurt is the setting, not the protagonist. The protagonist is you—the you that existed before the hurt, and the you that is being forged, diamond-like, under immense pressure, right now.

 

What hurt you is part of you. But it’s not all of you.

 

And since we live in the Republic of Not Enough and most things in life are centred around ROI, here’s some food for thought: when we over-identify with hurt, we end up smuggling yesterday’s grief into tomorrow’s opportunity. We risk hiding our brilliance behind our bruises, just in case life hits again. And we end up pretending cynicism is maturity.

 

But healing does not mean forgetting. It means re-anchoring. Pain is only a place you visit. So, please don’t go house-hunting there.

 

This matters because right now, someone you know( probably you?) is stuck on repeat, playing their greatest hurt like a broken record. Because leaders who confuse wounds for identities end up building organizations from insecurity. Because you can’t inspire, build, or love fully if you’ve given your hurt the keys to your soul.

 

So, in conclusion, don’t audition for victimhood. The world loves a survivor’s story, not a martyr’s rerun. Rename the scar. Don’t call it failure — call it curriculum.

 

Stop letting trauma hold the pen. Hand it the highlighter, maybe. But the pen? That’s yours.