As I turn 30: A letter to my older self.

Dear 70 y/o Arunaabh,

I hope you managed to acquire a stylish pair of reading glasses to read this.
I hope your run today went well. On the day of writing this, you received a pair of Nike Infinity React shoes, which were meant to prevent injury. Did they work?

I’m sure the existential crisis that tormented you at the time of writing this has long passed. You’re at the stage where the dots are already connected, so if you did meet God, you can ask her out on coffee and discuss the merits and demerits of that “big plan” you were questioning as it unfolded. I hope your faith became stronger, more profound and you managed to keep shut about it. I really hope you didn’t raise an empire of evangelists, who marauded nations with the concept of faith.

PS: How did the attempts of being vegan finally turn out? Did they invent some new diet? Are Carbs good again?

More importantly, how about love? Was it as a meaningless as you thought it was at 30? Was it as Rick Sanchez put it “What people call “love” is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, Morty, then it slowly fades, leaving you stranded in a failing marriage.” The definition you were so tempted to believe because when the serotonin wore off from your relationships, you were left to ponder the validity of your choices?

Or was it as beautiful as the Office put it “ Love suffers long, and is kind. It is not proud. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails. And now these three remain. Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

As you can see (but hopefully not feel), you were pretty torn at this time. You fell out of love, sort-of lost faith in it and were trying to fall in love but doubting yourself in every single way. As a person, you just started your journey of being accountable for everything in your life. How far along are you? Are people calling you a Saint just yet? Are there statues of you in remote corners of the world?

At this point in life, you stopped blaming others for the cards you were dealt and actually started seeing that your life was a result of the choices you made. I hope you have forgiven yourself for the misgivings I caused to the world as a younger version of yourself. I hope you have made amends with people you hurt, expressed your gratitude to them and forgiven others too. I hope the grudges you held have been long forgotten and your heart is full of love and gratitude. Tl;dr, I hope you’re less of an asshole now.

I hope you have long forgotten the fear of rejection, that feeling you had of doom perpetuating throughout your life leaving you as a lonely old man, without a family. I hope you found love, you started a family and you didn’t turn out like Arthur Fleck.

Or did you just end up becoming a Monk? If you did and gave up all your worldly possessions, I just hope you printed this letter because this is a reminder that to be happy you didn’t require others; just a sense of purpose and your desire to make life better for others.

It was also the time when you began to realize that deep, dark, existential crisis causing stuff written by famous authors were self-drawn conclusions from your own life. I know it sounds incredibly narcissistic, but things that make great people great came naturally to you. I am sure you didn’t squander this discipline, learnt from your past and made the most out of every single opportunity be it positive or negative. Not studying for the Engineering entrance exams because you thought you were a bonafide genius didn’t work out too well, remember? You cribbed for like 6 years, were so negative and whiny all the time. But then life came back to the right track, so God’s “plan” for you meant you needed you to learn Control Engineering from the molester Professor. (PS: You stood up for the girls and got him fired. In case you were feeling down, I hope this helps you feel a little better.)

I hope you took each setback in life on its face value. Remember 2016 when you had a slight knee injury, couldn’t run for 2 months and you became depressed because nobody wanted to fund your adventure trip to Australia. That period when you thought that you deserved attention because you deemed what you were doing was “path breaking”. That feeling you had thinking people were treading on you and were making a big mistake, turning you down and would come crawling back to you when you were successful.

The fact was you weren’t completely wrong. Neither were the people who rejected you. While what you did must have already been forgotten (until you finally discovered a cure for laziness, in which case congratulations on the Nobel Prize), your struggle in that moment became a more permanent fixture on your life CV. People who rejected you were doing their job because it was their job to find areas where they could advertise and make money. You weren’t fit, you weren’t strong and you only became properly disciplined after 2018. Their doubts on you were justified and not a personal vendetta. And okay, you did turn out be pretty marketable and they missed a good opportunity, it wasn’t the 1st instance in human history where someone got something wrong. Basically, what I’m trying to say is I hope you didn’t remount that high horse I pulled you down from after years of work. I’m sure you had moments like these ones again in the years between 30–70 and this experience gave you a better approach towards those instances. And in case you had forgotten, here’s a sweet-ass picture of you running in Leh:

I hope you haven’t forgotten 2018. That moment when you had tried to end your own life and were told by the person you loved to “deal with your own shit”. Turned out to be pretty good advice in the end, didn’t it? If it wasn’t for her, you might not have even taken a risk and come to Switzerland to pursue your career. If it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t have realized how shallow your thought process was or how stifling your extreme sense of self was. I hope you’re less uptight and judgmental towards others now, but still a disciplined hard-ass towards yourself and hold yourself accountable to the highest standard. I hope you’re still in touch with all your friends at this age, the men and women who made your life better, never let you feel lonely and showed you how much better life can really be. I hope you inculcated in your life things you liked about them and that you always let them know how much they meant to you.

And finally, I really hope you were able to affect positive change in the lives of people and give them a reason to live. I hope you were able to make a difference to their lives and that everyone around is as happy as you are, if not happier. Until you’re a monk. In which case, I hope the weather on Mount Hiei is great.

Lots of love,
29 y/o Arunaabh