Relfection on the year (pt.1)
The friction is definitely lower when writing here than on paper and pen.
This sparked out of a run I had in the morning, where I came to the conclusion. Maybe the last 4 Sundays of 2025 can be well spent reflecting on the year?
It's an exercise I think that would be helpful in thinking deeper on where I can improve, how I can improve and where I fucked up and where I didn't.
But yeah, categorically I'd split it into --
- Career
- Relationships
- Self
Each of them with branches below, but still it's a good place to start.
I write this with extreme gratitude over the sequence of events unfolding in my life. From managing to land an opportunity to write a piece for a magazine, to getting inbound messages to work at India's largest new-age insurance firms, my heart is filled with gratitude.
With a feeling of extreme love, devotion and gratitude to Maa.
Ever since my visit to Calcutta, life's been on an upturn. Everything has been going better (It will stay better too!). To look into her eyes that day in Calcutta and realise that everything will be alright? It definitely paid off.
I am truly, truly grateful to Maa for giving me these opportunities, providing me with opportunities to come across said opportunities and for placing me in an environment so conducive that I am not shunned for what I do/say/act.
As I reflect on this year, I can neither say it's been bad nor say it's been excellent. Rollercoaster would be the right word to define it. I learnt how to build a company in August, how not to in Superkalam and now working to build one myself while at Dognosis.
August has really taught me how to build an exceptional company and what standards I need to hold myself to. Yes, I do fear I might lose that edge, but it is dependent on whether I let it go or not. Anuruddh (the founder at august) is a visionary. For the 5 months I worked at august, and the seven months I knew him, his lessons really are sticking with me through life. How can I get better than him? What would he do here? Is the question I pose myself. I am truly grateful that he was there to teach me where I could be.
While I had the opportunity to have a Cus D' D'Amato for my Mike Tyson, my stupid self chose to throw it away pursuing a lost cause in UPSC. Reflecting on it, this was nothing but my stupid excuse to try and run away from something. To not realise the power of compounding that I could've gained at august. Yes, I do fret about it, but I can't cry over spilt milk, I know.
I spent three months like that to then follow my passions of a startup career and join Superkalam. Oh boy, what a poorly run company, with a lack of vision. There were three founders (yes, i know already insane), I don't blame one of the founders (the technically proficient one), but the rest were just stupid. Their hires? Even more.
Growth was a joke, the guys would be out for lunch for approx. 2 hours daily, go on regular smoke breaks and not ship anything of absolute value. Their data? Wrong. Man, I remember building multiple dashboards and then finding out that their paid users' data itself was incorrect. Who took the fall? Me. I was abruptly fired 1 month into my internship and left on the streets. Yes, I do admit I was a little bit poor in identifying metrics, but I'd also like to believe this was a consequence of poor mentorship, communications and expectation setting by the founders.
I was left without a job for nearly ~2 months. At first, I didn't tell my parents. This led me to sit and work at the food courts, out of the cafes and random-ass, sad movie-esque locations. Doing what? Just applying for more jobs. And at some point in time, I just started thinking. Huh, maybe becoming a Swiggy driver might just be a better career path. And my only highlight was going and having lunch with my girlfriend, who provided me with some moral support. My relationship with my family nosedived, mentally it got really hard, and I couldn't sleep. I felt humiliated just to talk to people around me. Over the course of the whole year, particularly during this time, I gained ~8 kgs. But to some extent, I think I blame myself for it. A lack of courage to talk to my parents, A lack of initiative to find something new and A lack of personal accountability/responsibility to excel at my job. Plainly, I don't think I took life seriously and just hid away from everything.
But now, oh lord. That's changed. Kalighat changed everything. Now things are looking up, and I'm grateful for the most part.