A Blog

I've come to realize that as I experience more and grow that gratitude is a subject that I find myself thinking more often. I did not have a good understanding of it, and it is something I want to explore and grasp better. In my attempt do better understand it, I'm laying out a few things I believe to be true about it. First, I believe that practicing gratitude is fundamental to our happiness. This is because Happiness, Reality, Expectations might share some relationship that resembles this: Happiness = Reality - Expectations. Lower our expectations and we'll be less disappointed. Higher it and we might find ourselves more disappointed. It also explains why it's so much easier to be joyous as a kid—things were newer and our expectations of certain things were much less. Often, we were figuring out what we even wanted. Of course, the relationship between these three factors are probably not this simple. But I found time and time again that this usually works, a...

Bradley These are a series of journal entries that I wrote about my encounters with Bradley. Jul 02, 2019 Around 9:30 am, I walked out of the house to go to work. The morning was relatively cold (~50 deg Faranheits). Instead of the elevator, I opted to take the stairs down to the doorstep. In front of it, I saw a man and a woman coddling against each other in a blanket. As they were blocking my way of exit, I had to wake them up and move them so that I wouldn't be late to work. My first instinct when I awoke them was fear. I was scared that the two would try to mug me. I soon found out that this attitude was misguided. The two just went back to sleep. I felt bad for waking them up so gave them a KIND bar. It was then I realized the truth about the streets and that I was wrong. I wrote the following in my diary It seems to be the case that the people on the streets are mostly good people and have good hearts. They follow you because they are genuinely broken and have no ...

I met a few individuals in South Africa whose encounters have stuck, leaving an ever lasting impression on me. Here I share some of them. Lisa I met Lisa in a co-working space called WorkInProgress. Lisa is the cleaner for the entire space. She also organizes all the furniture in the space, and does the dishes after lunch. The Woodstock Exchange, where WorkInProgress is located. We sat down on a coffee table, and she told me about her life's journey. She came from the Eastern part of South Africa, where the lifestyle is completely different. It was said to be less urban and more agrarian. Back there, the family was a closer unit. Around when she turned 17, she found out that she was pregnant. She was frightened at the prospect of having to take care of a child. In order to sustain her new daughter, she moved to Cape Town in order to find work. A new city, a new life. Despite all the excitement, her time in Cape Town did not go smoothly initially. She remained unempl...

Jun 24, 2019 Judging is a means for us to reduce the noise in a complicated world, extracting meaning amidst an overload of information. In this manner, to judge is to be human, and any attempt to completely forgo it is unnatural. While the inclination for the human mind is to judge, what also remains true is our ability to control their impact on our actions and belief—that we actively have the choice to believe or forgo what first appears to be true. Since judgement is personal, it is inevitable that our interactions with it vary by person, the diversity spanning with two extremes. The first is a person who is unrealistically optimistic abou the world and individuals in their surroundings. They fail to recognize the fallibility of human character, leaving them vulnerable to the manipulations of others or likely to end up binded in relationships not based on mutual respect. The other extreme are the cynics, who assume ill about others at the slightest of their mistakes. Yet the ...

Tiger's Milk had a special discount for the day. The seasonal 1+1 deal meant I got an entree with a takeout. At 80 rands (~$6) I got to cover lunch and dinner. Inside Tiger's Milk on Long Street I should have known that carrying food openly was never a good idea. A week before, I had been afraid to walk around with a backpack. This fear subsided as I learned how to navigate the streets. The ritual consisted of the following: Avoid looking at your phone and showing it. Take long strides and walk confidently. Stare straight while you're moving and know where you're going. Know which streets to avoid at night. If you're followed or want to check the phone, go inside a shop. The ritual was my bible, and so long as I abided by it, I would remain unharmed. After finishing lunch, I stepped outside the restaurant, carrying my box containing extra food. I passed the immediate corner. Little did I know I would attract several homeless people, who were wait...