2022 Reflection Pt.2: W Year

What’s good everyone, thank you so much for all the support this year. I started to take this website seriously in March of 2022. I first created this website in March of 2021 and it took me an entire year to start posting consistently. It is all because of your support and positive feedback as well as criticism that motivated me to keep posting every single Wednesday. Throughout this journey I have learned a lot and it has been great being able to reflect and distill insight and lessons from my life experiences. I never thought I would have people read my articles and ask me where my post is if I haven’t posted it. I would like to thank Calvin, Tri, Eshaan, Sriram, Yash, and my Parents who have always given me feedback and shared their own opinions regarding my posts. These people have been the motivators for my consistency fsho. Its crazy that this will be my 39th post of this year, which means that I have posted for 39 weeks, which is freaking crazy. Next year my goal is to post every single week and hit the full 52. I also hope to upgrade the website and create more content.

I think one of the biggest lessons I have learned this year is that I have a need to be creative every single day. I noticed the days that I do not do something creative I tend to lack energy and don’t feel as happy compared to days where I have created something. I think this year I have let myself create freely but I now I have realized I need to focus down in order to utilize my energy efficiently to make more meaningful progress. I have created TikTok vlogs every single day between the months of March and October. I ended up stopping them because they stopped giving me that fulfillment and I think TikTok is horrible for your brain. I have also started to post Youtube Videos and will continue to do so next year as well. I want to create more and more and get to a point where I am creating more than I am consuming, which is difficult. But I realized that I have a fundamental need to create and my heart and soul have always pushed me in that direction. I think this discovery has been the most enlightening and I will continue to create more and better things. I have received feedback that my writing has improved a lot which is a positive as I really enjoy writing. I think having this website has been the best thing that has happened to me this year. I now have a medium in which I can discuss topics that I could not talk about to people in person. However since creating this website I have been having more conversations about the topics that I write about and have been able to connect with my friends in a brand new way.

Lesson: I have a fundamental need to create

I have also had another realization that in order to create art we need to be human. We need to take time to live life and reflect and distill our life experiences into life lessons that we can apply in the future to better our lives. I have also been journaling since March of 2021, shout out Roam Research. Since I journal almost every single day I can read all my thoughts and feelings from any point of this year. Its super interesting to read my thoughts and feelings in April compared to September compared to now. I have learned a lot and grown a lot and I am proud of myself. I feel like this year is the first year in which Dharm fully exists. I believe that I am finally creating an identity for myself which took two years to do. Dharm is now a person and I know what Dharm likes and I feel that I and people around me have a better idea of what Dharm is like, which is good. I think since moving back I have been focusing on myself and I feel like the more energy I put into myself the more happier and fulfilled I become. I no longer seek the validation from others as I used to, as I know that I will be fine on my own and already have a great support system.

Lesson: To create, you must live life and reflect.

This year more than ever I have been open about my interest and to my surprise I have only received acceptance. I have been truly hiding myself, the real me, from everyone around me and this is the first year I have been taking steps to show myself, my interests, and my opinions regardless if others agree with it or not. I have realized by doing this life has just gotten better. People around me know me better and thus I have more conversations about my interests as well. I also realized this is how you defeat loneliness and emptiness by unapologetically being yourself and wearing your heart on your sleeve. People resonate with my tastes, interest, and perspective and it is my duty to be more open, expressive, and passionate to be able to create a world in which I can shine in and share my light with others. As I have slowly came out my shell and am now growing my wings, I hope to soar next year and further solidify who Dharm is and make him known.

Lesson: Stop hiding yourself, other deserve to feel your light.

Hobbies are so important! I would like to thank Vedant for introducing me to most of the hobbies that I currently do. I think having hobbies is the reason why we live our lives. I don’t live life to work I live life to enjoy it. Playing MTG, going climbing, hitting the range with Eshaan, playing valorant, reading books, and exploring nature have been the highlights of my daily life ever since moving back. I realized that I need to be constantly stimulated and always improving in everything I do. I realized that if I am going to do something why not learn how to be the best at it. Everything gets more fun the better you are at it. Obviously I am not try harding everything I am doing, but if I am going to do something I am going to try to get better at it every single time I do it and learn how to improve every single time. I think having all these hobbies and all these interests have given me this fire for life that I previously did not have. I think in the past I was too time conscious in which all my time has to be productive, but I think I am slowly changing. Obviously I am still super time conscious but am working on not taking all my time seriously. We only have a finite amount of time in our life and we will not be able to do everything we want to do, this is is fact. Additionally life is spectrum and it is a blessing to be able to experience all aspects of life the good and bad because we learn from everything. A lesson my mom has been: if you are enjoying what you are doing then you are not wasting time. This has helped me a lot in just enjoying my daily life and being ok with slow and boring moments, because we cannot enjoy the highs without the lows.

Lessons: Everybody needs hobbies, they feed our souls

I think the biggest change I have experienced this year is reading more books and learning about Indian culture. I think Indian culture has the answers to everything and reading the Gita has made me more aware of this. However I am not going to blindly accept everything written and will evaluate it in the context of my own life and see how I can use my cultures knowledge to tackle my modern issues. I don’t agree with the religious ceremonies as I feel most people do them for superstitious reasons and out of fear. I believe the true value is based in the spiritual values these books distill and I am trying to learn that and apply what I understand now. I believe as I get older I will understand more and more but I can only apply what I understand based on the experience I have currently had. But I think the first step I took this year was just being open to it and trying to understand it and see where I can apply it to better my life. I think the west and the left is promoting hedonism in which they are saying that we can have pleasure without consequences. However everything has consequences even pleasure, the more pleasure you have the more pain you will have immediately after. Everything in life is a seesaw. I have learned that I need to introduce more friction into my life and when I do life gets better and more fulfilling. I want to thank my dad for being patient with me in this regard and allowing me to explore this topic in my own pace. I hope to learn more about the spiritual knowledge my culture has to offer and I can now say that I am proud of be an Indian and will no longer speak badly about my culture and will try to educate others in the future. It has been great to be able to talk to my friends, specifically Yash, Sriram, and Calvin about these topics and I hope to have more discussions about it in the future.

Lesson: See what your culture has to offer and what value you can distill from it

This year I also went to Miami twice, Arizona, Mexico, Coachella, Anime Expo, Yosemite, went to a Post Malone concert, and have seen more of LA, Long Beach, as well as OC. I hope to do more traveling and exploring next year. The first trip will be Vietnam which I am super excited for, and will definitely vlog it as well write about it. Overall my goal for next year is just to keep learning and keep going Ham in all my interest and make sure my passions are known. I also hope to expand this website. I will probably write another post with goals once I have reflected and decided upon that.

Thank you for reading, let’s grow together 🙂