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Focus bubble

A few years ago, a friend inadvertently showed me the secret of extreme productivity. Here is the story. This friend was on a short sabbatical and popped into my office, asking if he could help me with anything. Knowing how bright he was, I asked him if he could flesh...

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FOMO and addiction

To get addicted, you don’t need the ‘white powder’. Here is my story. In my early days as an IPS officer, when I was back home after an intense, stressful day, I wanted a break. Since I never partied or socialized, watching TV became my ritual. And before long, I...

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Finding joy in pain

During my Civil Services training in Mussoorie, an especially memorable trek was to a place called Rabbit Farm, though we neither saw any rabbits nor any farm. During this trek, people grumbled especially loudly -- the hours of climbing and descending sharp slopes...

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The high cost of being busy

I was once attending a drug addiction conference in Melbourne, where the speaker on the stage had lost his beloved son to a drug overdose. He started by talking about the loss of his son, and how he could not get timely medical help when he overdosed. After his son’s...

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Living for today

When I entered the corporate world in the US after my stint in the Indian Civil Services, I heard this weird notion called ‘paying your dues.’ Apparently, the grunt work and suffering at the beginning of your career earn you the ‘right to live well’ when you are...

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Flow state

The fish packet vanished from right in front of my eyes -- how the hell did that happen, I wondered! This happened a few months ago: Sitting in my living room, as I was intently working on my blog, the fish delivery guy rang the doorbell. I absent-mindedly motioned...

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Bouncing back from failures

In week-2 of the 1st semester at IIT Kanpur, I got my first big life shock - the physics quiz. This quiz was pretty nasty: An ant was supposedly crawling on a rotating disc and we were expected to figure out its motion in polar coordinates, or something like that....

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Finding Happiness

20 years after we first met, I ran into Mr. Michael Siromani, a retired IAS officer, under curious circumstances -- he was collecting roadside weeds in a plastic pouch. After the initial greetings, seeing a quizzical look on my face, he explained, “These are medicinal...

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How to win in an unfair life

It was an unequal race -- not fair. During my 6th grade, our sports teacher announced an impromptu bike race to celebrate the end of the annual sports day. The near-certain winner was the son of the Commanding Officer of the local air force station, who had an...

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Clarity is only in hindsight

My good friend and first boss in the IPS, Vinod Thomas, was a cop on a particular Friday. The next Monday he was a private equity investor. He probably made the world’s most dramatic overnight career transition, going on to manage more than a billion dollars in...

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Finding meaning beyond material success

The clock is ticking. Once out of college, you have to be ‘30 under 30.’ God forbid, if you miss it, ‘40 under 40’ is your absolute last chance. If you miss that as well, shame on you. If you are in a job, you are wasting your life -- look at all your classmates doing...

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