Authenticity

Every Person’s Idea Of Success Should Be Different

  • Reading time:4 mins read

I was sitting on Facebook, as per usual, doing some work, or pretending to do some work, while I stalked some of my friends and friends’ friends. And I saw that a friend of mine was visiting Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is a major Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fiend, and thus, her post was about how she spends all of her time in KL either working, or taking lessons for both of these sports.

Instantly, my mind which can be an evil place, ran to putting me down. When I was in KL the last time around, all I did was work a little bit, walk around, sit in coffee shops, write, and shop.

Of course, in my head, her trip was a success, and mine was not. I berated myself for being lazy, and more.

Why did I do that to myself? I had so much fun on my trip, doing the things that I loved to do. Why does her trip seem like a success to me, and mine does not? Why am I using someone else’s benchmark for a successful trip for my own? (more…)

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Why Are People So Afraid Of Intense People Like Me?

  • Reading time:5 mins read

“Dial it down.” “Calm down.” “Don’t be so much.” “Stop being so high.” “You are too intense.” “Why are you always too much?”

I have heard these statements all of my life. It wasn’t mildly annoying to hear these words thrown at me on a daily or weekly basis. It was extremely degrading, and humiliating. I hated myself for being too much. I wanted to feel less, I wanted to be less, and I wanted to do less.

Cool as a cucumber. Cool as so many of those ice princesses roaming around, who felt nothing, or at least they looked like they felt nothing. I wanted to be like them. Desperately.

Over time, I realized it was a hopeless endeavour. I wasn’t ever going to be like them.

If someone broke my heart, I wasn’t going to be calmly posting about it on Instagram or prowling the clubs dressed up to the nines looking for my next victim. I was going to be raging against the machine, screaming, crying, wailing about the unfairness of it all. And more. (more…)

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Saying No Is One Of The Most Important Things You Can Learn

  • Reading time:12 mins read

When I was younger, I thought a mark of a successful person, a successful woman, was one who would say ‘Yes’ to everyone and everything. IF I could be one of those superwomen, who does everything, and who is able to balance everything, then I would be successful.

I needed to be the perfect daughter, perfect sister, perfect employee, perfect friend/coworker, perfect lover, perfect dresser, and more. If I wasn’t saying yes to everything, and moreover, doing everything perfectly, then I wasn’t the perfect successful person that I aspired to be.

As you can imagine that was a tall order to fill, not only for a person like me, who’s in essence lazy, but also, for anyone on this planet. No wonder there are so many women who are going on Riddelin, and other over-the-counter stimulants, to balance out everything that they need to do in their busy overfilled lives.

Not only do they need to have children, and be perfect mothers to them, going to all of the meetings, and baking cookies at every occasion, but they need to be the perfectly coiffed wife, ready to go to any and all parties, as arm candy at a second’s notice. Also, they need to be the perfect employees, making oodles of money for the company. And they need to do it all in heels! (more…)

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I’m Not A Writer. I’m Not A Singer. I’m Not An Actor. I’m Not A Dancer.

  • Reading time:6 mins read

Ever since, I moved to Chiang Mai (CM), not that long ago, I have been on a personal pilgrimage. I started off thinking this trip was going to be about one thing – working on my business, and that alone was my reason to come to CM. The first week passed in a flurry of getting used to my apartment, finding internet, finding a water delivery service, finding good places to eat at, fixing broken microwaves, lamps, and finally, getting used to the damn heat.

Throughout this, I kept on doing my morning pages that I had started on September 11th, 2016. Every morning, I sat down like clockwork, and wrote 3 long-hand pages of stream-of-consciousness. Due to my move to CM, and the resulting loss of identity, ego, and routine, I found that the morning pages were revealing long-lost parts of myself. I rediscovered a love for the theatre, singing, watercolour painting, walking, and fashion. It was as if I had been asleep for a long time, and all of a sudden, I was waking up.

Self-Discovery Is A Journey, Not The End Product

The self-discovery process is still going strong, but a lot of my ‘I’m nots’ have been disappearing away. I used to believe, I’m not an actress. I’m not a singer. I’m not a dancer. I’m not a writer. I’m not a storyteller. I had a billion stories I told myself, all of which were false. In taking these stories out of myself and seeing them for the falsehoods they were, I realized, Yes, I’m a writer, singer, dancer, actress, painter, and whatever else I wanted to be. (more…)

Continue ReadingI’m Not A Writer. I’m Not A Singer. I’m Not An Actor. I’m Not A Dancer.