Onepod Podcasts

Subu

A few days ago, I was watching this, this old movie from 1993 called cliffhanger starring Sylvester Stallone. Do you remember that movie?

Vikram

I did? Actually, I remember that. It's one of those movies that actually went to the theater to see. And I was, I guess at the time, like almost 10 years old or something. And it's very clearly I can remember that. It is a movie I went to see in a theater actually.

Subu

Brilliant. Oh my god, man, this is just incredible. I didn't. So the reason why I even watched the movie was for exactly that reason. So it showed up on Netflix. And I'm like, Oh my God, this was the first movie that I saw in the theater.

Vikram

For you to to?

Subu

Yeah. And he was seven or eight years old. And and for some reason this movie was very popular. I remember mom was never really you know, big on going to the theaters. It always gave her a headache, all the loud sounds. So anytime we wanted to go to the movies, it would be just dad, my older brother and I and cliffhanger was the very first movie that the three of us sat on our Bajaj scooter and went riding to there's this theater called Ludo in in Bangalore, which is an old it's I don't think that that theaters there anymore. And a lot of the old style theaters have gone away. Actually, I remember when we were in college, right? There's there's this theater on on MG road called Plaza. Your mom actually got us tickets, because she knew the owner of Plaza and it was one of the last showings before they tore down that building. And we got free tickets to Passion of the Christ are extremely gory movie.

Vikram

It's a free movie at the time you take what you get.

Subu

That's correct. That's true. You can't you can't ask for too much as a as a poor student.

Vikram

Wait, has anything changed? If say anybody would let you go watch a free movie now I think would still take the offer.

Subu

Actually, yeah, you're right.

Vikram

Free is always good. That is one of the fundamental facts of life.

Subu

Sometimes in 2015, right. I started this podcast called us Hello internet, which came out. And I used to love this podcast, actually. And I don't know, for some reason, they just stopped doing it. It was one of the top five podcasts, I think I don't know why they stopped it. But so in Hello, internet. I came up with one of their episodes, they spoke about this concept of the Ford Lightbulbs. Okay, so let me just explain what this concept is. So what they say is that if you compartmentalize your life into four buckets, and let's say the buckets are family, friends, your carrier and your hobbies. So this the four light bulbs, this concept gives you like a framework of how you can split your time and how you should look at your energy. And what it says that, hey, you're given only 100 watts of power, that's your budget. And you can choose to glow your four light bulbs. Equally, so each would be like 25 watts. And then so if you do that, then you have good work life balance, but you're not particularly doing really good at work or really good at life, right? I mean, sort of your, your you're splitting your energies equally amongst all of the all of these buckets. But the point is that if you choose to run your work, or your carrier light bulb really hot, then you're going to you're going to do it at the cost of you know, family and friends and your hobbies and things like that.

Vikram

So if you have 50, let's say you have 50 watts for your work light bulb. Now you have only 50 Watts left for all the other light bulbs. So you have to burn or, you know, you have to set them to be dimmer, than the brightest bulb, because the total amount of energy you can spend is 100 Watts, right?

Subu

Right. Correct. So now, you know this idea of four light bulbs has really stuck with me since then. And I kind of I think that it's a pretty good framework to to look at your life and to look at how you're spending your energies. So what what do you think about about it in general?

Vikram

Yeah, I did listen to hello internet for light bulbs because I think it was episode number three. So it was nice because I did go back to it recently and listened to it some more. And I also tried googling this concept. I'm not sure really where it comes from because I don't I didn't find too much about the four light bulbs idea anywhere It's but it's a good, interesting idea. Yeah,

Subu

I don't think it is necessary original, I think this idea of, you know, splitting your life into buckets. I think this has existed in different forms for a long time. But it's just that the way these, the the host of these podcasts, right Brady and Grey, just the way they presented it, something about it just stuck in my mind.

Vikram

It's nice. This analogy is good to me, because you are given a certain power budget. And that's kind of how we operate as well, right? We don't have infinite resources in time, or energy or money or anything like that. There's always a constraint. And so this four buckets idea, or four light bulbs idea, sets a constraint on what you can do, ultimately, that's the nice thing about it.

Subu

It's also been helping helping me plan out life and set expectations within my family in a way, like for example, you know, you don't have to equally shine each of the bulbs, right? I mean, you can, you can tell yourself, or you can tell your spouse or your significant other that, hey, look, I want to switch jobs. So for the next six months, I'm going to intentionally, you know, shine my work light bulb a lot more so that I can succeed in this job change and get, you know, get get this job that I really want. And then in six months, if you are continuing to shine that bulb a lot more and then neglecting friends and family and everything else, then your spouse can sort of, you know, tap you on your shoulder and say, hey, I mean, we discussed this. So it's time to like, you know, focus on the other stuff, and not just get carried away by books. So I think it's a, it's a good way to also set expectations, I think.

Vikram

What are your four light bulbs? Let's start there.

Subu

Yeah, so my four light bulbs, it is work, hobbies, health, and I have friends and family as a single light bulb. These four have been my bulbs forever, right? I mean, that's never been a problem. But my problem has always been that I've struggled to balance them balance these bulbs, especially when in my younger days, right, in early 20s. When I was starting off my career, my problem was that I wanted to shine every light bulb to the max. And the fact that I could not do it used to cause me a ton of stress and anxiety. Right? To give you an example, I was a starting off at work, I was a very ambitious engineer, you know, I wanted to, I want to knock it out of the park, right, I wanted to be the undisputed champion at work, I wanted to be this know it all I wanted to impress my manager, and my colleagues and so on. I'm burning the candle from both ends when it comes to work and nights and weekends and everything else. So while I'm doing that, while I want to be the undisputed champion at work, I also had a ton of hobbies, I had this group that I ran with ran marathons, and so on with. And I had my tech bros with whom I went for these weekend long hackathons or coding challenges. And all of this, I used to enjoy all of this a ton, right. And I also had this my band, which was actively doing shows. So on a given weekend, if I had a commitment with my band, my tech bros would go and still do that hackathons. And the fact that I was missing out on the other part of my life, because I had this band commitment, used to cause me a lot of anxiety. So instead of being in the moment, and playing this music and enjoying being with the band, I'm neither here not that I'm not enjoying playing the band, and I am regretting Oh, man, my, a few of these friends are traveling and you know, probably going hiking somewhere and I'm not there with them. And I was never in a never in a happy state of mind in a way and does very stressful and anxiety driven. So what are your four light bulbs,

Vikram

I thought about it for some time. And then I couldn't really put it into the framework of, you know, friends, or family and work and things like that. Because take this, for example, for me work is something I enjoy doing. And I also do all these other technical things on the side, some completely unrelated to my job that I also consider fun. So I kind of find it hard to separate work and hobbies sometimes and they overlap and spill into each other sometimes. So here's how I divide my four light bulbs. Right. So the first light bulb I would say I have is the purposeful work light bulb.

Subu

Purposeful work, okay.

Vikram

Yeah, this is anything that you do is a directed activity. Purposeful work could be doing your office work. Even playing an instrument while you're practicing, you know, you could be doing chores is purposeful work. And that, I think will always be the brightest bulb right? So I'm not going to try to burn that dimly. Most of the time, this is the bulb that's going to burn brightest for me. And that's, I realize that now there are a few other light bulbs that should also burn brightly for me, at least occasionally. And at times, they can be dimly lit. So I'll tell you what those light bulbs are. So my second light bulb would be relaxation. So this is something that is not purposeful. It could be watching TV. And I don't think there's anything wrong in that we can't be 100% productive. You know, it's become a fad these days with all these productivity gurus online and getting your work done, and how to manage your time and do everything and cram everything in a day. And like you say, anxiety builds, happiness goes away somehow.

Subu

It's called productivity porn for YouTube was doing this. Yeah,

Vikram

I know, the whole hustle culture, you got to do something with your time you have to do this, you have to do that, how I balance this and that it's exhausting sometimes even listening to this stuff. So for me, relaxation is a big deal. It has to be something like watching TV, you can listen to music, even get on social media, it doesn't matter. I mean, you want to go and like, read on Reddit for some time, or you want to scroll through Instagram and read some Facebook go do it is fine. But you know, don't. This is where it becomes a key thing. Make sure that certain aspects are in control. If this relaxation thing via social media starts to burn to brightly, you should know that is a problem. So not all light bulbs should always burn too bright. So it's okay, right. But the other thing is that relaxation need not always be purposeless. And what I mean by that is, you can read a book, you're doing that with a goal of trying to finish the book, but it's relaxing at the same time. So it's two birds in one stone, nothing wrong with that, right. Or you're playing an instrument towards a goal. And it so happens to be relaxing for you. Good for you. Right? So it's like, it can serve two things like nothing is isolated. Anyway, everything overlaps with everything, right. So that's my second light bulb. But the third light bulb is a little bit generic. Also, and I call that interaction. Interaction is whether you spend time with your kids, family, your friends, you know, all these things. And it's something that we have to make sure we keep alive, because like we spoke in an earlier episode, right? We have all these people, our family living in different parts of the world with stories of their own. And if we don't keep our ties to them, our life is not as meaningful as it could have been, we have to talk to our friends, because they are having their own family, their own life. And if you want to catch up with them and have a deep meaningful conversation, that can be really valuable in a lifetime, the feeling that you know what is going on in each other's lives, it's very important, as I come more and more, because you can work all the time, the purposeful work can be on all the time, you can start so many hobbies, you can become a really top person in your company, you know, like, rise up the career ladder. But in so many occasions, it becomes like a lonely rise to the top. Right. And you got your success, but you don't have interaction with people anymore, and you've lost a lot of life because of interaction. Yeah, and the fourth light bulb is something that I do not burn brightly at all. And I am working on this. And that is introspection

Subu

Oooo man.

Vikram

Because I never, until recently stop to think about anything. I really don't. I go to work, I come back, I work on my hobbies. I try to play guitar as well as I can. And I wrap it all up and see what I can do the next day. I always look I'm always looking forward. So this is a problem to me. Because so many times, you know, like when you tell me stories of stuff we did in the past, I have no recollection of doing it. And you know why that is? Because even once I never stopped to think and reflect on those stories and see like, oh, man, that was like a good time we had huh growing up, you know? Yeah, that was that was a so I never do that. So this is this is something I really have to do more just walk around like the other day I was walking on the treadmill. I'm like, I don't want to keep consuming podcasts consuming audio books consuming TV. I mean, what, what's wrong when I'm on the treadmill, I just want to think so part of this whole light bulb thinking I I was doing on the treadmill is like this, this is when all this came to me is like, and even if sometimes it's just, you know, daydream, it's fine. You know, just imagine how you're on this planet and whizzing through space at the moment. And you know, like a small part of the greater universe. It's just fascinating to think about it at times. And I learned a lot of this from you, because I see like, you write down a lot of your ideas in a notebook or in your iPad, you have so many like writings that you do have your own. It is fascinating to me, like even now, when I try to write down something that I'm thinking it doesn't come out, right. It's just weird. I'm like, I really don't know what I'm thinking. That's the way to put it. Yeah, so those are my four light bulbs, purposeful work, relaxation, interaction, and introspection. Those are my four.

Subu

This is great. This is so good. I mean, you know, when I was when I was thinking of what my four light bulbs are, I mean, you've actually presented a very, a very different way to look at compartmental compartmentalizing your life. This is actually you've laid it out so well, I really like it actually, after listening to your four light bulbs, I think I have to go back and think reflect on mine, I'm sure that

Vikram

You can have yours

Subu

I'm going to have to change some of these

Vikram

you don't have to change it

Subu

I meant to say like, the ideas that from the ideas that you're present it, I feel I find it very appealing. No matter what your four light bulbs are, you need to spend some time calibrating them correctly. Or if you have deviated in one direction, too far, then you need to sort of bring it back. What I mean is, if you take your relaxation bulbs, for example, right, I mean, you said that it's there's nothing wrong with, you know, scrolling on Instagram, and using that as your source of relaxation. But if you had this idea of light bulbs, and the fact that, hey, you have limited power to distribute, then if you get consumed with social media, which is typically what happens with most most people, right, they get very obsessed, they get, you know, it ends up upsetting you, you see something there and it upsets you. And then it sits in your mind for weeks and weeks. And then only until you read the next news article on Facebook, which again, sends you down the spiral once again, if you catch yourself then saying, wait a minute, okay, this Instagram and Facebook are supposed to be my relaxation bulb, and I've let it go way too far, and it's consuming my life. So and if you can use that, use this framework to recalibrate. I think, before you go too far down the spiral, I think you will come back to reality.

Vikram

Yeah, in a way you can classify what you're doing in a day into one of these categories. It could be different for everybody. But you just think and say like, where did I spend my time today? And which of these spots did I spend my time today? And did I spend my time in all the sections that I consider important in my life? Yeah, that is what it comes down to. Right.

Subu

So what you're saying is basically, your your purposeful work is from 9am to 5pm. And then from 5pm, to the 7pm, or something like that. It's it's your relationships, like it's a family, time with your kids. And then maybe after dinner, that's when lights are out, and you have time for yourself, then it's time for introspection and relaxation.

Vikram

Sure, yeah, that's one way to do it. It's an interesting point to bring up like so at what scale? Should we apply these rules or frameworks? Should we apply them on a daily basis, you have to do introspect every day? Or do you have to relax every day? I think some things you have to do every day, like most of the time, you have to do purposeful work that's given. I think for myself, I would view my example as on a week basis, I just want to make sure that I have if I've had a busy week, spent the weekend and relaxing, turned down that purposeful, light, purposeful work light bulb, and turn up the relaxation little bit, turn up the interaction a little bit on the weekends. I can't interact with everybody every day, but there are days you can you can apply it on a monthly basis to but then on a yearly basis, it's kind of hard to keep track of you can't remember so many events in your life all year. Too much. Right. So for me, I think weekly basis is reasonable, I think, weekly or monthly.

Subu

Yeah. You know, in my case, what happens is I you are I mean I I've always been I enjoy introspection. I'd spent a lot of time living in the past and maybe I don't know why I do this. My mind goes to happy memories from the past a lot, right? While planning for the future, I like doing it in in three months or quarters, I sort of look at my year as quarters. So Jan, just like a company would kind of thing I sort of like that framework. So it was the end of December, I like to think of, hey, you know, Jan, Feb and March, is there any purposeful work that I want to focus on? Just like a hand like one or two. So if I just get them done, then I kind of feel like I'm on track. And I sort of write this stuff down, right? So at the end of the quarter, I can look at my notes and see, Hey, okay, did I check off all of these things? And if I haven't, then either, I don't let it stress me out. But then it sort of carries on to the next thing, and I see how I want to fix things.

Vikram

You know what, I did this too, in the beginning of 2020. Write down what I would like to do. It's not so much as a New Year's resolution as it is things that I would like to do this year. That would make me happy. And I'm looking at it right now. One, make an eight track album totaling about 35 minutes of music. How many minutes I have created zero, okay. I mean, I created music, maybe about five, but it really wouldn't call it I really wouldn't call it holds completed song. Okay. Number two, was contribute to open source projects, which I really did this year. So not bad. Yeah, not bad. Yeah. Then I had written down, write one blog post per month. On my technical blog. Nope. I did like six blog posts in the first three months of the year, and it stopped.

Subu

But you did good. So you had momentum. You started off the year, with the right footing? Yeah, it's just so happened that, you know, other things got in the way later in the year.

Vikram

yeah, I set myself a goal to read 15 books this year. And audio books count as books, in my opinion, that's my rule with the anybody agrees with it or not? I think I've gotten through like six or seven only? Yeah, I'm not going to do 15 books this year. But you know, you know, that's what that's the point. Right? That's what you were saying? Like, you just write down something that at any frequency like you do three months, I just did it in a year. And it had don't happen sometimes. But at least you know, it didn't happen. I'm not worried about it. I'm just amused by it now. I'll probably right, another one.

Subu

So yeah, I mean, so going back to the the four light bulbs, right, like I was saying that, the nice thing about this concept is that it gives you a chance to recalibrate every so often, and make sure you come back on track. And I think that, so as I was saying earlier on in my in my 20s and early 30s, I was struggling, I was struggling with basically setting my light bulbs, right, and I was trying to just burn all of them too hot, and I was just a, my base level of stress and anxiety was way too high. It's not not a fun place to be in. But in the last few years, things have been a lot better. And I think that one of the silver linings of of COVID is that it has sort of forced all of us to slow down. And you know, like, you can't travel so that it just takes some a lot of the options are sort of forcibly taken away from you. Right. So it forced me to sort of look at my look at how I'm spending time and reprioritize the things that I should be concentrating on. So the last few years definitely have been much better for me. And I think that the mainly due to three reasons. Okay, so the first reason is that a few years ago, we had our kid, and you know, we started a family. And even though I have been very career focused and very ambitious, in at work. And even though I am sort of at a high point in my career, I was in a way forced to get my foot off the gas. It was a very hard thing for me to do. I struggled with when when my son was born, it was I did struggle with this for a while because you know that feeling that I had this feeling that I'm winning at work, having to forcibly get your foot off the gas and slow down. It's actually quite challenging. I mean, it is I battled it in my mind. It did cause a little bit of stress. But the point is that you eventually realize that, Hey, kids, especially in their early years, they grow so fast, they change so fast. That right now he is he is going to soon be three he is very soon going to be out of the toddler phase.

Vikram

It's so important if you miss this phase now, if you don't calibrate now, and put your priorities right immediately, this phase is going to go it's gone forever. Your child will never be a three year old. He hadn't after this moment has passed. And that is something that people like I consider myself regretting later, I will regret it if I don't have it, because to me that is very important.

Subu

Exactly, exactly. So even though I struggled with getting my foot off the gas, I can at least tell myself that look for the for a few years, it is important for me to focus on family, because it affects, you know, observing him will make me more happy. And like you said, I don't want to regret later. And also, the more time I can spend on him, it will directly affect his development as well. And it's sort of it helps him with helps him with his development, in a way. So yeah, so basically, the last few years sort of turned down my work and hobbies with hobbies, I've just been focusing on a couple of things because of COVID, you know, the band had to essentially go on a hiatus, we had to, you know, they were, they were no more places to do live show. So that was sort of, in a way, forcibly taken away from me, I didn't like it initially, but I sort of, you know, I embrace it now. And so I, I essentially, in the last couple of years, I have turned down my work light bulb, and my hobbies, you know, essentially turned up my health and family and friends, bugs. So that's been good. And, you know, I, what I've been telling myself is that I don't, I don't need this FOMO for like, I don't need this fear of missing out, because this need not be a permanent change in my calibration, my lightbulbs, I mean, I can do this for like, eventually, once the kid is like, six, seven years old, you know, things will come to a stable place. And at that time, if I really want to focus again on on carrier or hobbies, then I can reevaluate at that time.

Vikram

you will have to see how it goes. Right? My older one is six. And yeah, he is a lot more independent. And now what happens is that you have like a little friend, more than a child and you know, these basic needs, you have a friend in your now who is a really fun friend. And now you want to do so many more things that you you will have to recalibrate at that time. Right? Yeah.

Subu

So so that's my first reason. So the first thing that has helped me recalibrate is you know, when when I started a family, the second thing is that now that we are in midlife, right? This, this phrase that time is the most precious resource. It is a very cliched statement. And we've always heard it from everybody tells you this, your your elders tell you this, that, you know, time is the most important resource, use it wisely. But it became a cliche, essentially. But now that we are in midlife, I feel it in my bones that time is my time is a precious resource. So some of I've been hearing it all my life, but all of a sudden, in the last couple of years I really, really feel it.

Vikram

You know what I think in your 30s, you're hit by this wave of like, mortality. In your 20s you feel immortal in your 30s? Like, what I mean, like, Oh, my God, look at all that. But I'm not saying we have like, particularly health problems, per se, but I'm just saying like, the possibility of it happening becomes very real.

Subu

Yeah, because you're going, you're growing old, your parents are growing old. So are your friends. I mean, everybody just has much lesser time for each other. I mean, like, think about it, right? Our friend, for example, our good friend and bandmate Baski. We used to hang out all the time, right? And you guys were roommates in graduate school. But now, if you think about it, he's he lives in Bangalore, we may meet each other, maybe eight to 10 times for the rest of our lives. I mean, think about that for a second you We hung out all the time, like we are essentially like brothers. And now we're sitting here saying that man I made I might just see Bhaskar five to 10 times, until we all kicked the bucket. That is pretty dire in some ways.

Vikram

I came across this book, and I've been meaning to go and read the whole thing. But I heard it in a podcast. And it's called 4000 weeks, which is basically the amount of time we have on average as people.

Subu

Man, I this this totally, like the existential crisis I've been having is not enough, this totally plays into it even more.

Vikram

Yes, you have 4000 weeks. And the book is called 4000 weeks time management for mortals. And it's by a guy called Oliver Berkman, it will be in the show notes. But since human lifespan is so limited, and the number of things you can do are infinite, right in, you know, so this whole thing about writing a checklist, having a zero inbox policy, going through this path, being highly productive, and this is a it's like a losing game. You're going to run out of time at some point. Sometimes do things for the sake of doing it okay. So if he decides In this podcast that if you build model trains, do it because you want to build a model train, don't do it because you want to start an Instagram channel on model trains go, don't put, you know, I think he calls it don't instrumentalize everything. Don't do that just do something because you like doing it, don't make a checklist and try to check things off of that. Just do it because it makes you happy that there is a lot of value in that, right.

Subu

So basically, when you have mortality staring right at your face, it definitely helps you straight not the priorities

Vikram

It's been staring at your face since the day you were born.

Subu

You just realize it, you just realize it 40 years later.

Vikram

So I have to quote time by Pink Floyd, right. The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older.

Subu

Exactly. Wow. Racing around to come up behind you again. Yep. So having a kid number one has helped me recalibrate, mortality, has helped me recalibrate. And the third thing is sort of place in from mortality really, but it is a renewed focus on health is what I want to call it. Okay. So when you're like you, like you just said, when you're in your teens and 20s, you feel invincible, right? You feel like you're going to live a million years. I used to do crazy stuff, like I mean, because I had because I was trying to run all my bulbs really hot, like work and hobbies and everything. What ended up happening because of that say on Fridays, I would you know, party with a bunch of my friends until like two or three in the morning, you know, drinking, playing poker, playing board games, all of that until three in the morning. And then I would wake up at six. Basically with after three hours of sleep, I would wake up at six and then go running for like eight miles with my friends in a completely hungover state. And when you're 21 or 22 you can pull that off without problem. I mean, three hours of sleep hungover, pfft, not a big deal. And I used to be perfectly fine. I had like all my muscles and bones. I had worked fine. I had no knee issues, none of that. But today, if I don't sleep a full eight hours, even if eight hours becomes seven hours. I feel like a train wreck the next day.

Vikram

Yeah, totally agree with you there. I remember in College Station we used to go drink at these bars till two o'clock and then go to this like, go to this pizza by the slice place and then eat that. And after that right across the street. There was this place they used to do Sake bombs, which are basically like Sake dipped in Red Bull. And then they used to do reverse Sake bombs, which were like Red Bull dipped in Sake.

Subu

Grad life creativity for you at its finest.

Vikram

Oh my god. And then sometimes we used to walk down to like McDonald's and get chicken fingers dipped in ranch and go to this friend's place. And we used to watch like horror movies at like three in the morning while eating chicken fingers

Subu

and hungover.

Vikram

And it used to be like hilarious because everybody's like, had to wait too many beers and Sakes or whatever. And that's when I saw the movie The Ring. I even now it is supposed to be really scary. But every time I see that movie, I start laughing because I remember what we did like, you know everybody's passing comments on the movie. Watching.

Subu

That is so funny. A lot of all the connoisseurs of horror movies horror films called ring one of the most scariest movie and you just turn it into a comedy.

Vikram

oh my god, it is because it's ruined for me. Like that's a good movie, but I don't think it's ruined. I think it's, it's amazing because I think of like really fun times. And I think of the ring. Actually, when I turned 30 I decided I'm going to have myself a good meal. Because don't know why like maybe my days of immortality are over. I don't know. Yeah. So I had like 1.2 pound prime grade steak, like two sausages, which probably total to a pound of sausage, two skewers of shrimp, a bottle of wine, two bottles of beer, and cake. This was my lunch.

Subu

You know, my mom has been listening to this podcast. And I think at this point, with all the meat that you said she's going to hit pause and go take a shower and cleanse off. And come back and listen, I think.

Vikram

Yeah, it's terrible. I can't do this. Yeah, I can't do that anymore.

Subu

Yeah, so there's this. I mean, so I think, you know, to sum up the health part, right? I mean, there was this I'm not really sure where I came across this but I came across this phrase, but it's it's stuck with me for a very long time. And what the phrase says, a healthy person has many wishes, but a sick person has just one.

Vikram

Nice

Subu

If you're healthy, then you know you want to you want to travel here you want to do this. You want to do that. But the minute you come down even with a small, tiny little cold, all that is in your mind is oh my god, man, I just can't wait to the only wish you have is that I just want to get back to myself. My healthy self. You know what I want to wrap up? I want to wrap up this whole thing with one last thought. Yeah, okay. I recently came across the story from the Mahabharata. Okay, so Mahabharata is one of the Indian epics. And there is there's this story where Yudhishthira, who is the oldest of the Pandavas, he is asked by the god of death, Yama, he is asked to answer a few questions in order to save the lives of his brother. And he has to answer them satisfactorily. And one of the questions he is asked is, What is the most desired form of happiness? And he replies, Contentment, right. I mean, I think this is very profound. First of all, I think the question itself is such a good question. He's not asking, you know, what does happiness mean, that's

Vikram

Did he answer correctly?

Subu

Happiness can be can mean ... I think it is. I mean, I don't know if he answered correctly. But it is, I think it's. So, in my book, he did like in the sense that, I think it's a great answer. It kept me thinking for a while because, see, first of all, I think the question is great, okay. It's not asking what is happiness? Because happiness can be many, many things. But the question is, what is the most desired form of happiness. And I think that Contentment is a great answer because even when it comes to contentment, I feel like I need to train my brain to experience contentment. Just overlaying this over the concept of the four lightbulbs. I've been trying to practice contentment in each of my when it comes to each of my quadrants, each of my four light bulbs when it comes to work, not just asking for more and more and more, but sort of introspecting looking back and experiencing contentment with my hobbies with relationships and friends, and just you know, contentment, being thankful. I think it's sort of that whole thing, and I think, if you don't stop by and think about it and feel content with with your life every so often, then it's just going to go away and you're going to perpetually keep seeking happiness, which will never come. Yeah, I think contentment is, is actually a great, great way of thinking of happiness as.