Archives for December 2024

I recently came across this beautiful poem from David Whyte—Everything is Waiting for You—that feels like a love letter to life itself.

It’s underlying idea is about finding magic in the things we often overlook—the objects, people, and places that quietly wait for us to notice them.

Here’s the poem:

Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Most of us, most of the time, are in such a rush to live—always looking ahead or at some distant goal—that we forget the beauty right in front of us. David reminds us that the kettle, the door, and even your chair that provides you comfort while you’re reading your favourite book (and yes, your book, too!), aren’t just things, but companions. Even when we rarely notice, they’ve always been there, steady and reliable, giving more than we acknowledge.

Whyte also points out that life has a rhythm, like a dance or a conversation. We’re not meant to go through it alone. The “things” around us are waiting to connect with us. They remind us that even in solitude, we’re not truly alone.

Look at the door you close behind you when you leave the house. It isn’t just wood, but a threshold that helps you step into the world. And the shoes you wear? They aren’t just leather or the fabric they’re made up of, but the ones that carry you to places. These simple things are part of your life’s story, and they’re quietly supporting you.

Treat David’s poem as a call to wake up and see the sacred in the mundane. Everything around you—the doorknob, the floor under your feet, the sky above—is rooting for you. It’s waiting for you to be present, to notice, to embrace the simple wonder of being alive.

So, as David advises, “Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.” You owe it to everything that’s waiting for you.

I’ve come to realise over time that the company we keep quietly shapes us in ways we don’t always notice. It’s not just about who we’re surrounded by—people—but also what we let into our minds and lives—books, thoughts, even habits.

Till a few years back, I used to think having more people around meant being more connected. But as I look back, some of my most peaceful and contented moments have been spent with just my wife and kids, a good friend, my dog, or a book that felt like it was written just for me.

The best thing about the right company is that it doesn’t shout for attention but sits quietly beside you, reminding you of who you are and who you could be.

Of course, like I mentioned above, it’s not just about people, but also the thoughts we entertain, and the stories we tell ourselves. They’re company, too. And, to be honest, not all of them are good for us.

Some thoughts leave us feeling restless and uneasy, like we’re swimming upstream. Then there are some—the good ones—that ground us and remind us of what really matters.

Writing Boundless made me realise how much this idea has shaped my own life. I have been shaped by the friends who stuck around when things weren’t perfect, the books that changed the way I see the world, and even the quiet moments when I chose to sit with myself instead of distracting my mind with noise.

Seneca said it best: “People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”

Our time is limited, and the company we keep is how we spend it. And that not only fills our hours, but more importantly shapes who we are.

So, I think it’s worth pausing now and then to ask ourselves, “Is this company helping me guard my time wisely? Is it making me a better version of myself?”

If not, what’s the point?

There’s a certain charm in taking life slowly, a charm that too many of us overlook in our rush to get somewhere—or perhaps nowhere at all.

I’ve always believed that some of the best things in life happen when we stop hurrying and start noticing.

Like a walk at dawn, the scent of wet earth after rain, or the way a butterfly flies around a bush. None of these moments demand anything from us, except that we slow down and pause.

Now, slowing down doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means doing one thing at a time, with all your heart. When you drink your tea, feel its warmth, its taste, its comfort. When you sit by a window, listen to the wind, the birds, or even that drill machine used in repair work in another house nearby.

A good life isn’t waiting for you at the end of the road. It’s available to be lived now, and all along the way, in the little things you might miss if you’re in a hurry.

In Boundless, I’ve reflected on how slowing down isn’t about laziness or inefficiency, but about depth, and about letting life catch up with you instead of running ahead of it.

Maybe, it’s in these quiet pauses that we truly live.

After all, what’s the point of rushing through life, if you miss the beauty of living?

There’s something deeply powerful about a man (or a woman) who doesn’t need a crowd. A man secure in his own solitude.

He doesn’t shout for attention, doesn’t chase validation, doesn’t need to constantly surround himself with people just to feel whole. There’s no insecurity driving him. And that, in itself, is rare.

We live in a world that’s always nudging us toward more—more friends, more connections, more “followers.” We’ve also come to confuse noise with meaning. But the truth is that there’s a quiet strength in the man who can sit alone and not feel lonely.

In fact, solitude isn’t a weakness but a kind of freedom.

When you embrace solitude, you realise that much of what you’ve been chasing—things like approval, distractions, even relationships that don’t add value—starts to fall away. You learn to hear your own voice again. You learn to sit with the hard questions and not flinch. You discover what really matters, and more importantly, who you are without the world watching.

In writing Boundless, I thought about this a lot—how true security doesn’t come from how many people know you, but from how well you know yourself.

Solitude strips away the unnecessary and leaves you with something honest, something unshakable.

Yes, a man with few friends may look alone from the outside. But inside, he may be standing on the most solid ground of all.

Secure. Clear. Free.

When I started working on Boundless a few months ago, it didn’t begin as a book. It began as small notes scribbled across a few of my notebooks. They were lessons I wanted to remember, ones that felt too important to let slip away. Most importantly, they were ideas I wanted to share with my children. At the time, I didn’t know these scattered reflections would one day form a book.

That’s the thing about starting small. You don’t always know where it’s leading you, but you trust that it matters. Writing Boundless wasn’t about taking a bold leap, but simply about showing up, one page, one idea, one reflection at a time. Slowly, those small beginnings grew into something bigger, something I could share with you.

Isn’t that how most meaningful things in life start? Just with a small action, or a single step, or even a fleeting thought that sparks curiosity.

Now, starting small doesn’t guarantee you’ll reach a grand destination, but it does open the door to possibilities.

If you’re waiting for the “right time” to begin something important, let me offer this thought as a nudge: the right time is the moment you decide to take the first small step. Because every big or small endeavour, including something like writing a book, begins with just that—a beginning.

What are you beginning today?

Here’s a question I received from a reader yesterday: “Why did you write Boundless when there are already so many books about how to live a good life? Why even try adding to the long list of such books?”

I replied: This is such an important question, so thank you for asking.

Honestly, I have asked myself this question, too. When I look at my own bookshelf, it is overflowing with advice on living a good life. Some of that advice is timeless, some trendy, some repetitive. So, what’s the point of adding one more? Well, I didn’t write Boundless because I thought the world needed another book on life. I wrote it because I needed to. And not because I have life all figured out—I don’t—but because the process of writing, of wrestling with these ideas, has helped me make sense of my own journey. And maybe, just maybe, someone else will find something in these pages that speaks to them, too.

No one book—except perhaps the Gita, Bible, and other scriptures—can answer the question of how to live. But I believe we don’t read books like these to find “the answer.” We read them to find a spark, or just a small reminder that we’re not alone in the confusing yet beautiful experience of being human.

So, my attempt to write Boundless wasn’t to make it a perfect book. I didn’t even try to do that. All I have tried is to write an ‘honest’ book—about failure, about growth, about mindful living, and about trying to live with purpose in a world that doesn’t hand you a manual.

It’s my attempt to share what I’ve learned, and what I’m still figuring out, with anyone who might care to listen.

So, finally, why does Boundless even exist?

Because I believe every voice in this endless conversation about life is different. And this is mine.

Have you ever had one of those moments where life seems to hand you exactly what you were looking for, but not in the way you expected?

Say “yes” because that’s what happens with almost all of us. It’s almost as if the universe waits for you to stop trying so hard before stepping in with a quiet, “Here you go.”

Well, that’s how I found the name “Boundless” for my book. For weeks, I had been going around in circles to come up with a name that stuck. I first thought I would call it “Words to Live By,” and then “The Journal of Wisdom.”

But both sounded too clichéd, and especially “The Journal of Wisdom.” Readers would have thought I was too lazy to name my second book so, after the first being “The Sketchbook of Wisdom.”

I was stuck. And the more I tried to get to a title that really hit home, the less inspired I felt. I thought of coming back to it after a month or so.

Then, out of nowhere, it happened. I was about to take a seat in a restaurant for an anniversary meal with my wife, when I saw a magazine—turned upside down, and soiled with pasta sauce—on my designated table and called the staff to take it away. As I casually picked it up to keep it aside, my eyes landed on the word Boundless, written in very small font, on the front cover.

It hit me like a spark. “Boundless” was it! Somehow, I didn’t see it just as a title, but a feeling, an idea. It was exactly what I wanted my book to capture—freedom, growth, and the sense that life is boundless if we let it be.

I have had several encounters with serendipity in the past—in finding friends, stocks, books to read, among other things. And every time I look back at those moments, they remind me how many things or people we find in life come to us not when we are in the process of “finding”, but when we step away from it. They sneak in when we least expect them, when we’ve let our guards down just enough to notice.

Honestly, I think that’s the beauty of it. And a reminder that not everything in life can be planned or controlled. Sometimes, the best things happen when we step back and give life a chance to surprise us.

That word—Boundless—didn’t come from hours of brainstorming or a flash of brilliance. It came from an ordinary moment, a random magazine, and a little bit of luck.

And maybe that’s the lesson—sometimes, we must stop searching for life to find us.