Welcome
Hi everyone! Welcome back to my newsletter. It’s been a while huh? Well, I’m glad you are here. This post will be a short, welcome-back post with some hints to what I have been up to.
It’s always the walks that do it…
As the sunlight beams on my face during my 10-minute morning walk, I finally had the urge to write a post for my newsletter. Immediately, thoughts came rushing into my mind. Good ones and not-so-good ones. The overwhelming ideas to write in the post overshadowed the bad thoughts. My brain flashed through images of the last 3 months. I wondered how I should approach writing after such a hiatus. I questioned if anyone would find my writing interesting or if I would have anything interesting to say. I thought should I do a recap of everything? Or should I just write about anything that’s been interesting recently? If you are reading this, then I’ve beat the doubtful thoughts (yay). Maybe the title of this section should be How to Get Started with Something after a Break (since I Succeeded). Even though I had the energy rush in the morning, I just started writing about 8 hours later at 6 PM in a humid New York City apartment. I am glad I did it. As you and I both know, the hardest part is starting. I already feel at home in my writing chair. Words are appearing on the screen 2 feet away as classical music is driving me into a writing sphere (if such a place exists…)
Losing Balance
During the last two months of school, I’ve lost balance and a sense of self with the overwhelming and exciting experiences. I used the word exciting because I’ve soaked myself entirely into my school’s cricket team. If you read the previous couple of newsletters, you know what I’m talking about. It was worth everything, we made it to the playoffs after 7 years. I lived the following weeks with overwhelming joy and pride as the captain of the team. Cricket season beat up and bruised any sense of balance I had in my life.
I stuck with the newfound lifestyle. Following the season, I’ve embarked on a journey to experience different places (within and outside NYC). It was thrilling. The Staten Island Ferry, Hoboken, and Chinatown breakfast come to mind. Those two weeks or so were infused with exhilarating moments.
Eventually, a sense of responsibility and reality struck. It wasn’t like I was touring places unintentionally, but the phase had come to an end. During that phase, I remember barely spending any time at home (which I craved). The home time was the balance I needed. It was the space to plant responsibility and a new variant of growth. I did.
I don’t remember exactly when the careless, irresponsible, and fun days ended, and the balance started reappearing. It was maybe about a month ago.
Making Changes (this is what I’m up to)
Instead of going from start to finish. Looking through the bird-eye, these last few weeks witnessed a new self-improvement chapter in my life. The first stage was about my hair. Indulging in the excitement and hype for senior prom, I invested time and money in looking great for prom. I planned out my outfit and put the different pieces together. My hairstyle is a pivotal part of my appearance and my confidence. For the first time, I decided to take charge of my hairstyle. Until then, I just rolled with my natural hair without much styling. I learned a lot about hair types, hairstyles, hair products, etc. A few days before prom, I made the big decision by going to a new barber and getting my own hairstyle. Until then, I’ve always gone to the middle-aged Bengali barber designated by my dad and gotten a “regular short” haircut. That haircut was as bad as my dad’s dictatorship. The two-week waiting period before my hair grew out used to be mentally agonizing. The new hairstyle and barber that I chose were a great success. Besides soaring my confidence, they opened the door to a new world of self-improvement. The hairstyle required getting a hair dryer (which was a massive game changer) and other hair styling products. Since then, I’ve continued to learn more about styling and proper hair care.
Skin Care and Fashion
Following the haircare, I’ve started consuming media about other self-care topics. The next self-improvement buckets were men’s skincare and then fashion. I spent time learning about both of those topics and implemented them into my life. Although skincare isn’t a short-term process, starting felt like a step in the right direction. Learning about basic men’s Fashion increased my sense of style. With better style, I looked better and felt more confident. I plan to write about each of these three topics more in detail in separate posts as they were impactful and valuable in my life.
Setting aside these flashy new topics, I’ve generally changed other parts of my life “to get my life together”. For example, having a healthy sleep schedule, reading, limiting screen time, and beginning to be more intentional.
Habits ft. Going back to the gym.
I now emphasize maintaining a set of new habits I decided to create. I also learned about habits and properly tracking habits before I began. Oral care is one of the marbles in the habits Jar. I’ve also started learning about personal finance and business (so cool). Generally, I’ve been practicing being more independent too. It gives me immense fulfillment. I am surprised as I noticed that I haven’t mentioned an elephant in the room. Now you’re wondering what else there is.
YES, I have returned to the gym about two weeks back. It took me several weeks of procrastination and laziness before I finally picked up the weights. Proper preparation and a healthy approach helped me ease back into my gym routine. I may also talk about this in a later post as going back to the gym was (mentally) like climbing a mountain.
As I take the classical music off my ears and notice the time, I realize an hour passed and rain ruled the clouds. I feel accomplished after nearly finishing the draft of a new newsletter. My mind brings in new thoughts of different kinds. What does it matter now? I am done with the draft, which was the hard part. The easier part is editing and publishing this post. Thank you so much for reading! Stay healthy, remain fulfilled, work on yourself, and see you next time. I am so happy to write this post and feel fulfilled in my life.
Media of the year: Mindset by Carol Dweck (please please please read this book, it’s transformative)
(P.S.: I graduated from high school. My path to becoming the POTUS (or not) has begun…)
Amazing to hear about the different steps to growth + change! Excited to see the new chapter