From past four years, I’m doing an annual review of my life. It’s the time when every year I take a pause and reflect back on my successes and failures in the past year. I publish it here in this Blog which keeps me publicly accountable for the goals for the coming year. Here is it for this year –
This is my fifth annual review, you can access my previous reviews for 2016, 2015 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), 2014 and 2013. This year also I’ll answer three questions, same as past 3 years:
What went well this year?
What didn’t go so well year?
What’s am I working toward?
Hope it will be insightful and interesting for some of you. Lets cut to the chase.
I’ve been reading on Medium.com since after a couple of years (around 2014) it’s launch back in August 2012. I’ve seen it grow from few thousands of readers to millions of readers now.
Lately, they changed the branding of Medium.com from a green theme to a classic black and white with above Monogram logo. Even though I felt comfortable with the green theme and logo but this classic update to the site is welcoming. Nonetheless, the reading experience is the same and better.
I found very deep and moving articles on Medium.com and I would recommend my readers at Lifestyle Architecture Lab to make reading on Medium.com a habit. Because it’s really good and will help you grow intellectually than quora/Facebook/Twitter etc.
It’s a long-form reading experience made awesome. You won’t even notice when you finish 1500-2000 words long article in a jiffy.
Here is the link for you. or you can just click the logo and go to Medium.com.
My most popular Instagram post recently —
Just met this amazing @furballstory crew at the airport.
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When I talked to them. They said they were helping people out, who were in stress due to delayed or missed flights with the help of these therapy dogs.
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Met cuckoo (who my sister is holding and Angel (who im holding). They were amazing and indeed our stress was relieved after meeting these amazing people and these super furry trained dogs.
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They are based out of Delhi but were visiting Bombay for the first time.
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Bombay! We need some more of the @furballstory
The Girl at the Bar – After a long time I felt connected to written words. I story which moved me. Poked me somewhere deep inside. I can’t say it’s a love story or a tragedy, it’s woven with love, tragedy and nostalgia. That’s what make it beautiful.
A quote from the article to give you the intensity of it –
“People say whiskey is a complicated drink,” Toshiko said. “But for me, it’s a very simple drink — it just happens to be mixed with a lot of complicated feelings.”
U2 released their next Studio Album yesterday (1st Dec 2017). When I found it on Apple Music I felt extremely excited, because their 2014 album ‘Songs of Innocence’ has powered my long running workouts since then and I found a connection with this old band which I couldn’t find with the latest rock bands.
I’d recommend you start with the below playlist on YouTube, which starts with the song ‘You’re The Best Thing About Me’.
I don’t know there is something about U2…
Quote I’m pondering on lately –
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
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Finally, I could finish up my long overdue Annual Review post for last year – 2016. Coincidentally last year also I posted it in the middle of the year and this year too.
But interestingly that delay gave me the leverage of putting a few learnings from past year into the new year 2017’s resolution list and work on them till this Annual Review was published (meaning now).
I would encourage you to check out my post for interesting insights, patterns and stats. Click here or just click on the picture above to access the article.
It was a long day. Glad we made out alive at least for today from this black hole of a place filled with white collared labourers.
We were walking through the subway tunnel, our hands sometimes brushing each other’s. It was a strangely good feeling. We were on the platform, awkwardly waiting for the train. Praying in our minds that train never comes. Her eyes were shyingly looking at mine. But never really making the contact.I was pretending to be looking
I was pretending to be looking inside my phone like my universe resides in there. But I was never actually looking inside my phone but always pretending for not having the courage to look into her eyes.Then the moment of my life came. I looked up, to look right into her eyes.
Then the moment of my life came. I looked up, to look right into her eyes. Those brown coloured eyes, always shy. But they had this odd light. In that light, I saw myself. Loved.
It was a moment’s contact between her eyes and mine, why did it feel like ages. Why didn’t her talks said what I could see in the depth of her eyes? I was still trying to figure out when we heard the horn of the approaching train. It was my train. And then we heard the horn of the second train going the other way. This was her train.
I took her hand and squeezed it gently in affection. She just stood looking at my face as I entered my train. I waved her good bye and signalled to catch her train before it leaves. She smiled shyingly as usual and turned around to get into her train and she did.
Both our trains honked once again at the same time almost in sync like both our lives were now, in sync with each other.
My train was empty, I took the right side window seat and looked outside. She was standing in the gate of that train boggy. Our trains started moving.
I was looking at her through the window of the moving train. As our trains crossed, I saw her smiling at me.
Entropy: Why Life Always Seems to Get More Complicated – This is an article for which you should free yourself from other trivial things, go to a coffee shop order a Latte and nibble on this article. It’s about life and how we get it to be more complicated.
You’ll find a gem or two in this one. A good one from one of my favourite authors – James Clear.
What I’m reading/watching/listening to —
Well! This is the best piece of content I stumbled upon this week. It’s a video of Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech. He told 3 Stories and not a single one of them left me without giving goosebumps.
It’s a must not miss video. Please watch and get some inspiration.
Quote I’m pondering on lately –
“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.”
Join my reader’s list – It helps us a lot when you become a subscriber, it smoothens you experience on Lifestyle Architecture Lab. Being on email list provides you additional benefits like some exclusive content, webinar’s, free goodies and all of it will be FREE. Please click the link above to join now or put your email address in the below box and hit subscribe.
From past three years, I’m doing an annual review of my life. Cause I want to pause and reflect back on my successes and failures of the previous year and publishing it here in this Blog keeps me accountable for the next year.
This is my fourth annual review, you can access my previous reviews for 2015 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), 2014 and 2013. This year also I’ll answer three questions, same as past 3 years:
What went well this year?
What didn’t go so well year?
What’s am I working toward?
So this is gonna sound cliché but I’m the man of making resolutions and working on them, every year. So this year also I created a list of new year resolutions like last year. Coincidently I’m posting this annual review almost at the end of second quarter of the year like last year.
I think I’m liking this schedule as it gives me some more visibility on the new year’s resolutions and I can add some more context to the happenings of the year. If that doesn’t make sense, just read it as I was feeling lazy!
Just kidding.
After the successful year of 2015, last year was not that successful overall but it was no less satisfying. I also experienced various sort of serendipities.
serendipity
sɛr(ə)nˈdɪpɪti
noun
the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
Ok! That was not an editorial mistake I knowingly put that word definition above. Why? Because I’ve fallen in love with this word “Serendipity”.
Serendipity in my own definition is a state when we fall in love with the universe and start accepting and loving the present moment, then the universe starts loving you back in the strangest of ways.
There happened many serendipitous events in the year of 2016. Through which I felt strange new feelings derived from wandering, wondering and affection.
I’m keeping this post as a single post, unlike last year’s 3 part post which took so much time and complexity to get published. Hope it will be insightful and interesting for some of you.
This post is the progression of my earlier travelogue posts (Day 1, Day 1 Continued, Day 2 and Day 2 Continued) on Benares trip earlier this year, Hope you enjoy it.
Benares – Day 3
In the day 2 post where i mentioned i met a few photographers and travelers while i was having my late lunch at the Cafe Zoe near Assi Ghat. We discussed a lot on traveling, photography and life in general, among other things. Life in their countries and life here in india. It was then that i started loving my travels more, cause they made me meet people from across the world who thought like i did.
We met in the evening again on the same day. While bidding goodbyes for the night they invited me to their place for breakfast the next morning. I was so psyched to meet them again. The best part! we didn’t exchange our numbers, they just gave me their address and told me to be their in the morning.
The next morning, i was up at 7 o’clock. Got my shower and ready to go in the next half hour. Then, I started for their hotel where few of them had been living from the past few days.
It was a Welcome Heritage hotel on the far north side of the Main ghat. As i walked towards this hotel, i had to go through two really scary and shocking spots, which i didn’t know were there on my way. First was the living area of the Aghori Babas.
Oh boy! That place scared the living shit out of me. But as i digested all that was going around while crossing that spot, i made peace with it. These Aghori monks are said to be an mysterious ancient tribe who feast on human flesh as part of their rituals, as well as drinking from human skulls, chewing the heads off live animals and meditating on top of cadavers in search of spiritual enlightenment.
Here a picture of an Aghori Baba taken by an Italian photographer Cristiano Ostinelli who spent time with the tribe to discover more about their way of life. Here’s the complete article.
Aghori Baba | Photo credits – Italian photographer Cristiano Ostinelli
I wasn’t even back to my wits yet, then came the scariest moment of my Benares Trip. It was a heavy feeling of weird kind of energy when i passed by the “Manikarnika Ghat”*. I’m getting goosebumps even right now, as i’m writing this. I couldn’t even take my camera out, when i was crossing this place.
This post is the progression of my earlier travelogue posts (Day 1, Day 1 Continued and Day 2) on Benares trip, Hope you enjoy it.
Benares – Day 2 Continued…
Once i crossed the Flower boat, i started heading towards north again. Then as i was just crossing an area where a pundit was doing a ceremony, just after a family arrived back to the Ghats from a boat which had gone to immerse ashes of their deceased beloved in holy Ganges. It looked like a rural south Indian family, I tried to capture a few portraits of them.
I was expecting intense emotion of grief, but most of them were having happy faces except for the wife of the deceased. I tried to talk to them and found out the deceased was in pain and suffering due to a long hold malady. So the whole family was having a relief that at least now their beloved will not have to suffer through that pain which he was experiencing from a long time. Here are a few portraits:
I call these photographs collectively – “The Faces”.
This post is the progression of my earlier travelogue posts (Day 1 and Day 1 Continued) on Benares trip, Hope you enjoy it.
Benares – Day 2
“Subah-e-Banaras” is the local term (originated from Urdu) used for Benares Sunrise! Which is one of the many exciting charms of Benares. I didn’t know what to expect. But regardless, i had set my alarm at 4:30AM to wake up early in the morning, to get up, shower and make it in time till the Ghats.
The eve before i had asked a boatman if he could take me to the Ganges banks on the other side of the Ghats. He agreed and was to be found at 5AM on the main ghat as promised. When i reached there, neither i could find him nor his boat. The first disappointed of the evening.
Then i started walking north from the Main Ghat into the early twilight of the morning while sun was still below the Horizon. Here is the picture of the particular moment.
From past two years I’m doing an annual review of my life. Cause I want to pause and reflect back on my successes and failures of previous year and publishing it here in this Blog keeps me accountable for the next year.
This is my third annual review, you can access my previous reviews here (2014) and here (2013). This year also I’ll answer three questions, same as last 2 years:
What went well this year?
What didn’t go so well year?
What’s am I working toward?
Keeping yourself accountable is a great thing I’ve learned from several people in the last year’s timespan. Many famous Bloggers/Vloggers and authors have mentioned it, they’ve mentioned one more thing which is – “In-order to make yourself accountable, you have to let someone else be the judge”. I couldn’t do that as of yet, but it’s in my resolution list for year 2016. [I’ve compiled a new year’s resolution list as well, will be tagging that here shortly] This year I want to remove a few not so good habits from lifestyle as well. So making myself accountable for the actions i take will be a good start, so I’m gonna let some of my close friends who can be as ruthless as this task will require to punish me if I don’t do well in this task. So that’s gonna be interesting, only time will tell.
2015 has been the greatest year of my life till yet. After the last 2 Annual Reviews, this year when I kept record my doings and held myself accountable for things I was doing for myself I felt more control over my life, far far better than in any other year of my life. It was like in some way I knew where i was heading. From the learnings of the last year 2015, I’m finding acquainted with more knowledge about areas of life which were untouched earlier which eventually led me to be in a self aware mode. I was completely in the zone of doing things in the last whole year.
I’m keeping this post in 3 parts to avoid it becoming a really really long post (longer than my target of 3000 words per post). First part will be – ‘What went well this year?’ I’ll just keep the next two parts as to be continued. In-fact i just don’t want this post to read like desperately moving towards closure but want to make it really in-depth and insightful.
Lets cut to the chase. I hope you find it interesting.
