I’m writing this, because it’s a Hobson’s choice: I could not write this and spend the rest of my night feeling anxious - or I could write it and feel absolutely great about having expressed it.

My website, although I don’t relate to it largely at the moment, has always said that I’m enjoying the journey to the end. I have to be honest, that wasn’t true - till I started enjoying it. Have you ever smiled, when someone’s telling a story, and you slowly begin to visualise how pieces of the jigsaw fit together to solve the puzzle/tell the story? I’m inspired by stories, but even more so by the ability to tell stories. That, cultivating that natural skill to be able to do that - that’s what I’m now motivated by - that’s the Means to my End. And I don’t know how that will shape up, but I’ll find out.

I found my End - I’ve always known it - I just never really noticed. I was able to piece that together a few months ago, but the lack of Means really felt like a handicap. That’s not entirely true though, I’ve always had so so many different options open for a really long time. Opportunities that have come my way that I am grateful for, but I’ve found myself repeatedly having cold feet about these plausible destinations - until I found one that really fit.

My journey of trying to figure out what really strikes is a journey of experimenting with being the listener, talker, do-er, and thinker. Historically, my journey has been sprinkled with luck, privilege, and the desire to always go above & beyond. Although lately - things have been different - the magic of luck has died down, skill never played that big of a role anyway, the desire to go above & beyond had died, privilege exists to some extent although that is diminishing too. I’ve been told to enjoy the journey, but practically speaking, nobody really embarks on a journey without an end destination, even if you end up changing it in between.

A good friend, and colleague, Aastha once told me that I might have cracked what I want with life, but that I will never be happy if I do whatever it takes to reach the end, and that I needed the journey itself to be meaningful. Well, Aastha - you might be happy to know that I might gotten a large level of clarity since that conversation.

Another friend, colleague, and current bossman - Tanuj, read my one-year plan. He was only mildly impressed, probably because the plan showed SOME level of clarity considering I’m quite young. Importantly, he told me that what I was doing is not sustainable and that I my income had vastly surpassed my skillset, which essentially makes me inherently unemployable. This started a chain of confusing thoughts, and also this feeling of impending doom.

Kaavyya, my dearest friend - we’ve had so many conversations about where we are professionally and all of the mini decisions we’re making, but what really never leaves my mind is this one time when I told her that I’m having trouble figuring out what facet of mine the online world should be seeing - her answer to ‘Who am I?!’ was stupidly simple: ‘You’re you’. Somewhere along the line, and this is why I drove my newsletter to the ground, I started writing in a serious tone, the fun & stupid side of me was gone. Somewhere along the line, I stopped caring about form, the part of me that cared about presentation was gone. Somewhere along the line, my work became more about getting stuff done, more than me want clients to feel like they got 3x what they paid for. Somewhere along the line, I had lost myself. Thinking back, I now realise that I was putting up a face that could have been easily perceived as ‘oh he’s being unapologetically himself’ while the truth was that I was being everything but me.

I was never much of a talker, unless I’m feeling extremely laid back. Lately, I’ve been doing a mix of both - and I’ve heard some wonderful things about myself. Meher, thank you for telling me that you think I’m emotionally mature. Random woman who I’ve been emailing for 15 days straight - thank you for telling me that we might be better off as flowers in the garden’s of people we care about (and not the other way around). Nehal, thank you for coming back into my life after so many years and walking through a river of shit with me. Chandni, we’ve met thrice and you’ve spoken nothing but sense, it makes me wish I were less deaf. Ila, your tremendous ability to be able to tell how I feel by just looking at me is a god-send.

You’re wondering why I’m thanking my friends on this post. Well, it’s a way of telling myself that I hope they’re there when I’m at the end.

I guess this is not so much so the blog I was hoping to write, which was meant to help you find your Means, but it’s now ended up being a story of how I think I have finally found my Means to the End.