Category: perspective

The Secret To Getting Respect From Others

The author writes about his experiences and realizations about self-respect and getting respect from others.

I have a friend who is very transparent and pure hearted.

He has a lot of self-respect.

So he shares me reels on Instagram about self-respect.

And his point of view is that if a girl doesn’t respect you, you shouldn’t chase her.

Other than love advice, I also learnt many other things from his reels.

But self-respect is a key idea that changed my life.

Before I was admitted to NIMHANS(National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore) in 2025, I used to call everyone “Sir”,”Maam”,”Dada”(elder brother),”Didi”(elder sister).

I didn’t realize that I was unnecessarily putting others on a pedestal.

I was giving people more respect than they deserved.

And I was also making myself uncomfortable and feeling disrespected by them.

So I stopped using those titles like sir, madam, dada, didi, unnecessarily.

I use them only when the person is an elderly person who is somehow related to my circle of friends and family.

Moreover, I have learnt to respect myself more. I am kinder to myself.

And I noticed that people started taking me more seriously, and I got more respect from people.

I also used to unconsciously smile a lot to get people’s approval. But recently I decided to become more comfortable in my own skin and to love myself more and to smile less. 

So I don’t smile unnecessarily with everyone.

But I think I have grown a lot. I don’t think that shallow tricks like not smiling or not saying titles make any difference.

The real difference is the medicines and the psychotherapy from NIMHANS.

My doctors have worked very hard to help me. And I am grateful to them.

So yeah I think if you want to get respect from others, you need to respect yourself first.

Thank you for reading this line. It means a lot!

Read This If You Feel Hopeless About Life

The author writes about his experiences with spirituality to persuade readers to have hope about life.

When I was 16 I started meditating daily. 

I read books on spirituality and religion.

I even watched YouTube videos of spiritual gurus who talked about God, the nature of reality, truth, etc.

But I didn’t understand most of it.

But what little I understood was that there is something beyond what we see in life.

All the money, fame, success, pride, etc. is only temporary.

What’s more permanent can be found through spirituality.

So I started meditating. 


Although I messed up big time trying to meditate without guidance, I think what it taught me was more than any course or book could teach me.

That teaching is that normal life is not as bad as we think.

I learnt from meditating wrongly that meditation isn’t necessary to attain nirvana or moksh.

What’s necessary is self-honesty and good behavior towards others.

If you can be honest about your intentions and behave well to others in a way that is just, I think that’s a good start.

So as you might know I had to go through a few episodes of psychosis as I wrote about it in my other mental health blog posts, that’s a topic for another blog post.

What I want to tell you through this blog post is that there is hope. 

Mundane life isn’t all that there is. There is a truth beyond life that can set you free.

It can make you realize the divinity that lies within you and all other beings.

I like to ask myself this question,” What is God?”

We might think we know what God is- a supreme godhead, or an impersonal power or absolute infinity or nothingness.

But I just like to think that I don’t know what God is.

This lets me think beyond the preconceived ideas of other people about God.

So yeah there is hope. 

I’m not asking you to believe in God. But I’m asking you to ask yourself what’s beyond all this.

Thanks for reading this line! It means a lot.

I finally accepted I am not a failure

The author writes about how his preconception that he was a failure because he failed in school was wrong. It wasn’t his failure to begin with, it was society’s failure.

When I was in class 11 I had failed one year and I was detained in the same class.

And I had been carrying the burden on my shoulders that I was a failure.

I had never introspected if it was indeed true that I had failed.

Last night I was journaling and I realized that it was not my failure.

But it was someone else’s failure.

It was society’s failure.

I was trying my best to survive but it was society who had failed me.

I was trying out a socratic method of introspection with the guidance of Claude AI.

And it turned out that I was studying physics, chemistry, computer science and maths because my parents told me to.

Not because I wanted to.

I felt as if I was learning something I found strange. 

I felt stupid and as if it was a waste of my time.

I felt sad and stressed. I felt tired of all the traveling to school, coaching classes, and tutors. 

And yet I didn’t understand those subjects.

I felt, “If the world is so difficult, I don’t want to live in a difficult world.”

I couldn’t sit down to study.

I played videogames 16 hours a day from morning till midnight. 

I slept less, ate irregularly and didn’t study.

I avoided everything.

And I was also reading so many self-help books to help me figure out what was wrong with me.

My psychologists said that nothing was wrong with me. But I believed something was wrong with me.

I wasn’t having fun while avoiding life, I was trying my best to cope with the sadness and pain and the stress.

And then when I failed I finally felt free. 

But this feeling of freedom and relief was short-lived.

I was again back to repeating the year in another school where I took admission.

And somehow I passed high school with the same subjects.

And for a few months I studied engineering at a private university but I dropped out. 

And again I got the feeling of relief and freedom.

This time I took a Bachelor of Arts (honours) in philosophy course in college.

But due to some technical problems I had to change my subject to English and I had to drop out.

Then I took a bachelor of business administration course from my last online college. 

And I studied it and graduated and took MBA and graduated that too.

But all this while I kept thinking that “I am a failure”.

And boy I couldn’t be so wrong.

I thought that since class 11 was something I experienced and I failed it, I am the failure.

But the truth is it was my parents’ and society’s expectations that made me take physics, chemistry, computer science, maths as subjects. 

And if I “failed” that and felt relief, it wasn’t my failure really, it was their failure.

I was never a failure.

I gave my best and I did my best to cope with the stress and sadness.

I read self-help books to find the solution.

But I couldn’t find any.

So it was never my failure.

I was living in someone else’s design of a life.

It wasn’t mine to begin with.

And I also realized that even right now I am living in someone else’s design of my life.

I am living in fear of not getting a job, fear of never making it, fear of not having a comparable income to others.

I am trying to get a data analytics job but all I want to do is write and read and experience the world and share it with you.

I guess I need to work on this aspect now before it’s too late.

But yeah I was never a failure, it wasn’t my failure.

I am not a failure.

Thanks for reading this line! It means a lot.

Say “Yes” to Life

The author writes why saying “Yes” is as important as saying “No” to life.

Daily writing prompt
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
View all responses

I don’t usually say “No” but I wish I had said it more.

I think I’m not clear about what I want.

Sure I want to buy a house, buy a car, a bike, and have a certain net worth. But I don’t think I’m clear on my purpose in life.

I mean I don’t value money or any kind of scarce resource more than time. 

I value relationships, time, people, etc. more than money.

In fact I say “Yes” more than I say “No”.

I want to meet more people, have more interactions, go out more, read more books, learn more courses, etc. 

I don’t want to work more to earn money. I want to do what’s best for me.

And earning money isn’t the only thing in the world.

It is important but it’s not everything.

I think being a good human being is what’s most important. And to be a good person, we need to interact more, talk to more people, understand ourselves, write more journals, etc.

So yeah I don’t say “No” much but I do say “Yes” to things that might interfere with my goals.

I mean what is life more than a journey towards your goals. 

And if you say “No” to the things that would enrich your life in the journey, there’s no point in living such a life.

So I say “Yes”.

Thanks for reading this line! It means a lot.