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My Musings

Not your ordinary tales

When Everything Falls Apart, Keep Moving

The fifteenth rejection email showed up while I was eating cereal straight from the box at 2 PM. Three months into my switch from design to recruiting, and I'd basically become a professional disappointment collector. I remember staring at that email for way too long. Not because it said anything particularly brutal—just the usual "we've decided to go with someone else" fluff. But something shifted in me that day. Maybe I was too tired to care anymore, or maybe I'd finally hit that weird place where rock bottom starts feeling solid under …

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The Day I Learned Other People’s Moods Aren’t My Report Card

The email hit my inbox at 2:47 PM while I was sitting in that overpriced coffee shop on Brigade Road, nursing my third espresso and pretending I had my life together. Two lines that felt like a punch to the gut: "We're terminating the project effective immediately. Invoice for work completed." No explanation. No phone call. Three months of design recruitment work vaporized in thirty-two words. I closed my laptop and stared at the barista making someone's elaborate matcha creation, watching normal people live their normal Tuesday while my …

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The Five Seconds That Taught Me Who I Really Am

I was standing in my Koramangala kitchen at 9:47 PM, phone in hand, when something shifted in the most ordinary way possible. My neighbor had texted asking if I wanted to join her and some friends for dinner at that new place on Brigade Road. My fingers had already typed out "Sounds great! Looking forward to it!" because that's apparently what I do—automatic yes before my brain can catch up. But as my thumb hovered over send, I heard this quiet voice in my head: "You don't actually want to do this." Not dramatic or mystical. Just …

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The Weight of What We Don’t Need

The peanut butter sandwich that changed everything was objectively terrible—stale bread, cement-thick filling—but I was sitting at 4,247 feet with steam rising from my socks when the math finally added up: thirty-eight years of carrying weight that was never mine to begin with. The sandwich was terrible—stale bread, cement-like peanut butter—but I was sitting on this waterlogged piece of wood with steam rising off my socks, and I felt lighter than I had in years. My feet were destroyed, my shoulders ached from carrying twelve pounds that …

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What the Mountains Taught Me About Being Truly Alive

There’s a point on every tough climb when your body screams, your lungs burn, and your legs threaten mutiny. It’s not the kind of moment that feels triumphant or Instagram-worthy. Usually, it’s ugly, sweaty, and close to the edge of giving up. Yet, oddly enough, that is the moment I feel most alive. Not on the summit or in the stunning views, but right there, lost in the gritty struggle of putting one foot in front of the other. It took me years and several treks to realize that being alive isn’t about skipping pain or chasing …

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When Exhaustion Looks Like Failure

There’s a weight that settles in quietly, the kind that doesn’t announce itself but slowly seeps into everything you do—or don’t do. It’s not about hitting rock bottom or having some grand breakdown. It’s the slow erosion of energy until even the smallest things—like standing under running water, or eating something real —feel out of reach. The to-do lists pile up, the plans circle around and around, but nothing moves forward. It’s tempting to call this laziness. But that’s a lie we tell ourselves when we’re too tired to hold the …

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