Opinions

  • The One Habit to Keep Every Day for the Rest of Your Life

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    If there is one habit you should perform every single day for the rest of your life, which one should it be?

    Exercise.

    Exercise isn’t just about fitness, as millions still believe. It’s what many would call an “anchor habit”.

    Here are the core reasons why exercise is that one habit:

    The obvious reasons:

    • Prevents chronic diseases
    • Increases healthspan and lifespan: Consistent exercise ensures that, at 70 or 80, you still have the functional independence to move freely and avoid falls.
    • Better sleep: Helps you fall asleep faster and reach deeper, restorative sleep stages. This, in turn, dictates your energy levels for the next day.
    • Cognitive sharpness: Movement increases blood flow to the brain, which improves focus, memory, and even creativity. It’s often the best “problem-solving” tool we have.

    The less-obvious reasons:

    • Naturally regulates your mood, keeps you “happier”: Exercise triggers the release of hormones – endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin – they fight against daily stress, anxiety, and the “burnout” of modern life.
    • More energy throughout the day: It seems counterintuitive, but spending energy on exercise actually trains your body to be more efficient at producing energy, so you feel less “drained” by your daily tasks.

    The least-obvious reasons:

    • You eat better: Yes, even if you are addicted to junk food.
    • The best of them all – You get better at doing harder things: It builds self-efficacy—the belief that you can commit to something difficult and see it through.

  • One, Two, or More? – How Many Bank Accounts Do You Really Need?

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    From my personal experience and based on insights from others, you need bank accounts for the following:

    1. Salary or income: Your primary account for your salary or business income. From this, your money should flow into the following accounts automatically:
      • Fixed costs: Rent, utilities, and insurance. I would also include your gym & yoga subscription here.
      • Investments: This is not necessary, but I would personally like a separate “statement” for all my mutual fund and stock transactions. When you have a separate account for mutual funds and stock transactions, your bank statement becomes a clean, dedicated ledger of your wealth-building journey. It separates your “spending” self from your “investing” self.
      • Emergency funds: This is the most important account for your peace of mind. The Golden Rule: Do not link this account to UPI or any debit cards. One, for security reasons, and two, for this reason, it should never be touched unless, as the name suggests, there’s an absolute emergency, like a medical crisis or sudden loss of income. By removing digital access (UPI), you create “positive friction.” It makes it physically harder to “accidentally” spend your safety net on a weekend getaway.
      • Play: An account for fun, leisure, experiences, hobbies, and joy. The freedom to enjoy life without checking your primary account balance. This is your guilt-free spending money. Use it on whatever you like, be it traveling to Sri Lanka for a few days, trying new restaurants, or, in my case, coffee. When the balance hits zero, the fun stops until next month. You could also look at this account as an investment in new experiences and people.
    2. Credit card payments, loan repayments, EMIs: Dedicate one account for your credit card payments and EMIs. Transferring the total monthly debt here on payday ensures you never “overspend” money that is already technically gone.
    3. Change & cashbacks: This is a small but powerful habit. By funneling “saved change” and credit card cashbacks & rewards into a separate zero-balance account (read: The Best Zero-Balance Bank Accounts in India), you turn “found money” into a tool for aggressive, high-growth investments. It’s money you didn’t “expect” to have, so you can afford to take bolder risks with it. You actually could have just one account for this, but I personally want to track how much credit cards have actually saved me money (so I have two):
      • Saved change
      • Credit card cashbacks & rewards

    The last 4 accounts should definitely be zero-balance accounts. They are low-maintenance and keep your main accounts from getting cluttered with small, messy transactions. Money flows into them and then quickly flows out toward its specific purpose. Prevents “lazy capital” from sitting idle.

  • My Growing List of Store-Bought ‘Healthy’ Junk Food (Updating Monthly)

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    Right now, the only entry on my list is Flavoured Greek Yogurt. Many “fruit” yogurts are just sugar-laden desserts in disguise. A high-quality Greek yogurt, with live active cultures, offers the creamy, indulgent texture of a pudding (or even ice cream) while being high in protein. It’s the go-to “junk food” I would recommend to anybody who wants something sweet with very little junk.

    My criteria for these “healthy” junk foods are simple: they must have fewer ingredients (you should be able to count them on one hand), they are low in sugar, provide genuine satiety through protein or fiber (fats, in my case), and, most importantly, they need to provide the basic pleasure that comes with indulging in a treat.

  • Rules for People: When Dealing with Other People

    Connect More With

    People who are confident, successful, yet humble.

    People who are consistent with the virtues you want to be consistent with. For example, being with people who exercise every day, come hell or high water.

    Stay Away From

    People who are too sure of themselves, all the time. They hardly admit they don’t know things about things. They preach every moment they get.

    More Points to Consider

    You should be careful about whom you ask for help. You never know who would hold it over your head years later.

  • What Is Your Vice? Learning to Live with Our Little Imperfections

    Mine is tea and coffee. That is all. I do not smoke, drink, or play video games for hours and hours at a stretch. I am not here to show you how virtuous I am. I don’t care about that. Nor am I here to judge you if you do any of the above. I care even less about that.

    I am here to share that this world is far from perfect. This digital age that we are in, with fewer friends and more illnesses. So this vice, then, gives you a sort of comfort.

    Now, let me clarify: when I say my vice is tea, I am not addicted to it; I don’t drink 8 cups of coffee or anything like that. I call it a vice because I hate to rely on a substance that is addictive. I don’t want to rely on it as a stress-buster, or because I have nothing else to turn to when I feel lonely. But life can be tough sometimes, and when you don’t have friends, at least you have tea (and coffee in the morning). So, what is YOUR vice?

  • What Is True Success in Life?

    How would you define true success in life? It is when you have arrived at a stage in life where you do not need to convince or desperately persuade anyone, except maybe your immediate family (and even then, only to some extent). When I say ‘convince,’ I mean you don’t need to impress anyone by wearing clothing you aren’t really comfortable in or by owning a car you can’t really afford. That is when you have truly arrived.

  • What’s the Biggest Obstacle Standing Between You and Success?

    The most challenging thing in success is having multiple brilliant ideas. Initially, it just slows you down. In the beginning, you need to be more efficient. You need to fail fast. But when you are desperate, either in terms of money, or time, or both, etc., you do multiple things. And that is when you slow down, you overload yourself mentally.

  • Experiencing My Heart Like Never Before

    Updated on

    Have you ever felt the entire external surface of your heart as it beats? I am not talking about the heart pounding against your chest when you are stressed or excited, which I guess is technically called palpitations (which I feel particularly when I drink a lot of coffee while fasting).

    I am talking about you being able to feel a 3D model of your heart. I am not even sure anyone could feel that way, because I might have been half asleep when I felt it. But it was wonderful and shocking at the same time. Wonderful because I have never felt it before, shocking because it reminded me of the fragility of life. Life. That was it. That was the generator powering my entire body. And there is no backup.

    Imagine, after a power cut, you can see a machine running your entire house, far, far away from town. And there’s an important event, like a wedding or a birthday party, going on. Don’t you constantly make sure there’s enough fuel supply for that machine, that everything’s working alright? Well, we don’t behave the same way with our body’s machine, our heart. Until you can see it (or feel it, in this case) like you could a generator.

    That feeling was a reminder that life is fragile. And your body is running on a single generator, with no backup at all.

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