I just published my first newsletter on Substack, and it's called The Curious Coder. You can find it by clicking on [this link](https://open.substack.com/pub/panchamk/p/the-curious-coder-1-charging-by-the?r=1thcb4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true).

While I have been toying around with the idea of connecting with more people and sharing my thoughts for a while, something in me triggered today and pushed me to hit that Publish button.

I am feeling the butterflies in my stomach, and I like it. This makes me realise that I care about what I say and how I get perceived. I am sure I will stay true to my goal, and remain the source of signal in random strangers' inboxes.

Here's to many more!

Starting The Curious Coder

There are a few moments which are exactly like the way monks describe as they sit in their monasteries sitting in a Lotus position. Smelling the coffee this way is similar to one such moment for me.

If you ever need a break from everything else, if you are looking for a moment of utmost bliss, if you reach a breaking point, if you feel like the world is a shitty place, watch this video on your 4K HDR display in fullscreen and make a cup of French Press coffee. Really focus on grinding the coffee. Do not grind it too much, you don't want an espresso. You are looking for that French Press texture. You are looking for that imperfectly perfect grounds. Smell the coffee. Just smell it, will you? Boil a cup of water and letting it cool down for a minute. Pour the water into the French Press and see the steam gushing out of the pot. Just observe the steam. Sit on your desk chair. Watch the pot as the coffee grounds start to dance in the pot. They look happy, don't they? They want to play in the water. They want to swim. Let them. Wait for 5 minutes before you press the piston downwards and extract the freshly brewed cup of coffee. Pour the brown bliss into your cup. Observe the waterfall. Just look at the beauty that is the coffee that you just made. Be patient. Take a sip. Isn't this wonderful? Didn't you just feel the utmost sense of calm? This, my dear friend, is life. This moment right here is life.

The video:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DvzboEBcHpk?si=QPeY1nXYn-QwzeQz" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Smell the coffee, please

A short note on what to do when iCloud is stuck on uploading...

When iCloud Photos is stuck on uploading, and does not progress, restart Mac in Safe Mode and then back in normal mode. The upload should start working fine.

Note: When iCloud Photos is stuck on upload

My shoes recently got stolen from my apartment. In this journal, I write about how trusting the world to do good can result in unexpected surprises, and how one's trust should be earned, than be given.

I have been the kind of person who always sees the good in the world. I have been the kind who wants to do good, and expects to receive good in return. I believe in maintaining the harmony of Nature.

But recently, my confidence has been challenged quite extremely. A delivery boy from Zomato came in to deliver food to my neighbour, but on his way out, stole a pair of one of my favourite shoes. They were kept in the shoe-rack outside my home, but, that thief thought that they were kept there for him to steal away.

After scrubbing through hours of CCTV footage, I finally caught the exact moment this act took place. I even got the details about the thief from the security guard's entry log. His name is Hemendra Meena. I got his contact details, and told him to return what did not belong to him. He denied having done anything at all. This made me angry. I went to the police station to file a complaint, but even the police didn't cooperate much. "Cooperate for a pair of shoes?" you might ask. A fair question. But it's not just about the shoes. Today, he found the courage to steal someone's shoes. Tomorrow, he may find the courage to commit a more serious, a more dangerous crime. Will that act be justified then?

After heading back home, disappointed, and sad, knowing that despite having all the evidence I need, I couldn't teach the guy a lesson. I no longer cared about the shoes, I cared more about the justice.

Later, I saw a few of the society committee members discussing the matter in detail, and how the safety of the society was under threat. One gentleman, pulled a few strings, and the police are now actively looking for the thief.

I have also reported a fraud to Zomato, and have asked for strict actions to be taken against the man, and I to be compensated for the loss of my time and resources.

At the end of the day, as I am writing this blog post, I am thinking to myself, "Did I do something extreme just to find the shoes? Was the effort to catch the shoe-thief even worth it? Am I actually thinking about justice or revenge?" I don't know. I feel like it was my duty to do something about fixing what I thought was broken. It may result in justice, or disappointment. But one thing that I know I learnt from it is that in life you must remember that the world is out there to satiate its own needs. If you feel like feeding the world, remember to not over-extend yourself along the way. You may not have anything more to give to the world, but the world will strip away anything that you may have left. I am not referring to money, fame, respect. I am talking about everything!

Anyway, after being completely spent, my roommate and I went out to have a good dinner. I had a cappuccino, spicy garlic noodles, and a veggie pizza. Not something that I eat regularly, but I had these items to remember this day. To remember that I am my own saviour, and that my trust should not be given, rather should be earned.

Would love to know your thoughts about it.

Pancham

Trust is not always given

So I recently used Google Takeout to export my files from Google Photos to iCloud. This is my rant on the whole thing. Hope this helps you!

So I recently tried to export all of my photos from Google Photos using [Google Takeout](https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout). While it is great to have the power to export all of my data out of Photos, I found the whole process taking me much longer than I would have liked.

1. The actual export time did not take long: Google took about 1-2 hours to export the whole data and send the download link to me via email
2. Because I had a lot of photos on Google Photos (about 50GB), the download took about 1-2 hours to complete. I also have photos on iCloud (about 60GB).
3. My MacBook Air 2015 with Intel i5 was trying its best to decompress the large five 10 gig zip files, but that process took about an hour (yes! I know!)
4. Now comes the problem!

### The problem

Now that I had 5 different folders named "Takeout", "Takeout 1", "Takeout 2", etc. all I needed to do was to upload these photos to my other cloud provider (iCloud in this case). But it was not as simple as one might think. Every photo / video has an associated JSON file that contains the metadata about the file itself. "That's fine," you may think. Yes, it would have been fine because to store all of the geo-location data, with the camera info and other stuff would have made the original file larger.

What I didn't quite like was the fact that almost all files had the camera info (shutter speed, aperture, model, etc) baked right into the EXIF data of the file, but none of the files had the "Creation date", and "Last modified date" in the EXIF info. WHY!

### The solution

After fiddling through Google to automatically add the creation date and updated date in the file's EXIF, I came across [this tool](https://github.com/TheLastGimbus/GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper). It was basically a script that would read through all the files and add that metadata. But, there was a catch. Remember how there were 5 Takeout folders created? Each Takeout folder contained multiple folders, each signifying an album in Google Photos. And because I use a Mac for everything, a simple copy-paste of one folder into another didn't work because there isn't a concept of "Merging" data. I thought, "Hey, let me do it manually."

So I spent about 30 minutes to an hour manually copy-pasting all files into the common Takeout folder, and ran the script. "Woohoo!" I thought. But not quite.

### The frustration

You see, when I ran the script, it failed. Why? Because I was using an Ex-FAT system to store those files (my Mac had run out of storage). After looking at the GitHub issues of the script, I came across [this issue](https://github.com/TheLastGimbus/GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper/issues/203). It mentioned using `dot_clean` before running the script. Voilà! Did I find the fix? Not yet ☹️

When the script failed, I deleted the output directory because I wanted to start afresh. But there lied the problem! The script does not clone the files and store a copy of that in the output directory. It moves the files!! That meant that I had literally deleted the production database. I needed to start all over.

### The hope

So I redownloaded the whole Google Photos export in the same way mentioned before, and this time, I did not want to make the same mistakes. After 3 hours of waiting for it to download and extract, I wanted to automate my manual effort. That's where I decided to use `rsync`. It's great! I basically typed

```bash
rsync -av /source/. /destination/
```

And just like that, all of the files in all the nested folders started getting copied to the root Takeout folder. After about 2 hours of this, I finally had the folder where all of my Google Photos were safe with their EXIF data separated. I still needed to do my job.

While the files were being copied, I fiddled online to find a better tool (a story of every software engineer), and I came across [google-photos-exif](https://github.com/mattwilson1024/google-photos-exif). It basically did the same thing, but it was built on Node. So I liked it. After letting it do its thing, I finally had all of my photos / videos / GIFs in one output folder. YAY? Not quite. I know, I know, I was frustrated too. That's why I am writing this rant.

While the script worked fine, it only modified the "Modified date" of all files. If you recall uploading files to iCloud, you would know that it likes to store in order of "Creation date". I needed to modify all of my 25,000+ files with their creation date matching the modified date. I came across this shell command:

```shell
for f in *.[iI][mM][gG]; do m="$(stat -f'%Sm' -t "%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S" "$f")"; SetFile -m "$m" -d "$m" "$f"; done
```

The brackets `[iI][mM][gG]` told the terminal which extensions it should be looking for. I updated the command to also look for PNGs and JPGs. After running that command 2-3 times (for MOV, JPEG, GIF) I finally had all of my files with the correct EXIF data.

Why couldn't Google just store those two things within the file?!

My rant on Google Takeout for Photos

I share how I use Siri Shortcuts to sync my tasks with my calendar and track my progress

I’m a productivity nerd. I love finding new ways to automate and optimize my workflow. That’s why I use Apple Reminders: a free, simple, and powerful tool that lets me manage my tasks with ease.

But there was one thing that bothered me: I wanted to see my to-dos in my calendar. When I had an Android phone, I used Google Tasks, which had a cool feature that automatically synced my tasks with Google Calendar. But I didn’t want to use Google products because of privacy concerns.

So I decided to use Siri Shortcuts to solve this problem. Shortcuts is an amazing app that lets you create custom actions and automations for your iPhone or iPad. I created two automations that ran every day: one at the start of the day and one at the end of the day.

The first automation ran at 00:01 and fetched all my to-dos for the day from Reminders. Then it added them to a separate calendar called “Tasks”. This way, I could see all the tasks I had planned for the day in my calendar app. The GIF below shows how it looks when I toggle the “Tasks” calendar on and off.

![A GIF of me toggling the Tasks calendar to reveal the events added by Shortcuts](https://pancham-khaitan.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/portfolio/images/show-hide-tasks-calendar.gif)

Pretty neat, right? But what about the tasks that popped up during the day? Well, for that, I created another automation that ran at 23:59 and scanned all the Reminders that I completed that day. If they were not already in the calendar, it added them to the “Tasks” calendar. This way, I could see all the tasks I accomplished that day in my calendar app. This helped me review my progress and plan better for the next day.

And as a bonus, I also added my calendar events to Reminders, so they would show up in my “Tasks” list as well. Because meetings are also part of the work I do.

![A screenshot of the automation page of Shortcuts showcasing various automations I have created](https://pancham-khaitan.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/portfolio/images/shortcuts-screenshot.jpg)

So that’s how I hacked Siri Shortcuts to boost my productivity and track my to-dos. If you want to try it yourself, you can send me a "Hi" at [hello@panchamkhaitan.com](mailto:hello@panchamkhaitan.com), and I will send you those Shortcuts for free!

How I use Siri Shortcuts to boost my productivity

I recently watched a CODE interview with Jony Ive, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Tim Cook on Steve Jobs. This blog post shares my thoughts from it...

I was watching the interview of Jony Ive, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Tim Cook with Kara Swisher celebrating the legacy, and the person that was Steve Jobs. They talked about how Steve used to be one of the most eccentric people out there. One of the instances the guests shared was that he always cared about making the best product possible. Not the most, the best. It made me feel something. It made me feel how I sometimes tend to be sloppy, and careless about the things that I do.

> “Our species deserves better, deserves thought.” -- Jony Ive

When asked about the level of care that the design team at Apple takes when designing the packaging for an Apple product, Jony Ive said, “Our species deserves better, deserves thought.” One thing that Jony Ive touched upon was being intentional. He shared how Steve made every decision after a considerable amount of thought and intention. Nothing was done just because. Hearing this statement made me think about all the times that I have made decisions unintentionally, and how they have over time accumulated a certain amount of debt with them.

I read or maybe watched it somewhere that the entities in this Universe almost always tend to decay. If you leave an apple in your fridge for a week, it will naturally decay. A body without exercise and a healthy diet will naturally become unhealthy. Anything left to stay the way it is will eventually become worse. It becomes our responsibility to regularly re-evaluate the decisions that we make on a day-to-day basis, and take necessary actions to mitigate the problems that may have arisen due to our lack of care.

As a software engineer, it is my responsibility to not just focus on the latest and greatest tools and technologies out there, but to take a retrospective look at the things that I have built. It is to consider the possibility of paying back the debt that I or my team have accumulated since the decision was made. It is also crucial for me to re-evaluate my skills as an engineer, and to rebuild or repair my knowledge of engineering.

Another excerpt from the interview which I admired was the story of how Steve Jobs surrounded himself with poetry, music, and art, to churn out ideas. It makes me think about diversifying the kind of information that I feed myself.

Another story of Steve Jobs that I revere is that he loved picking other people’s brains. He used to call people every day to ask them about the things that they were thinking about, the kind of music that they were listening to, the places they were visiting, and more. This gave him the perspective that he is not the only one with interesting ideas. He is surrounded by the very people who built the world that we live in. I, too, shall aspire to accommodate this aspect of curiosity into my life. I am not particularly sure how to, but hopefully, if you have any ideas, you can share them with me.

Here’s the interview that I am referring to:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/sdvzYtgmIjs" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Last but not the least, I found this picture of Steve Jobs just being himself, sitting in a park. He is not looking at an iPhone in his palms, he is just enjoying the little things in life.

![Steve Jobs sitting in a park](https://pancham-khaitan.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/portfolio/images/steve-jobs.png)

Living an intentional life

YouTube is a great tool for learning and entertainment, but I am not particularly the biggest fan of YouTube Shorts. This article explains why...

I absolutely love YouTube. I think it is one of the most influential platforms of our generation. It has probably the world’s largest base of knowledge ranging from adding two numbers to a detailed tutorial on how to assemble an AK-47 in under a minute. I love it for the simple reason: It provides value to me. It adds value in my life by presenting the creativity of the best of the best artists called YouTubers.

But, as you can guess from the title, I am done with it, or at least, one part of it: Shorts. Launched as a competitor to TikTok’s endless scrolling bonanza, Shorts is an absolute time-kill. I find myself opening Shorts out of the blue, almost subconsciously, and I do not like that. Today, I spent almost two hours scrolling through the one-minute long videos on Shorts. That means, I watched at least 120 videos. And what did I learn from it? Nothing, really. It added absolutely zero value to my life, except for the fact that people will ask you to wait till the end of the video for the big reveal. Why? Why do we need to ask people to wait until the end for the video which itself is merely a minute long? What is it about our brains that is changing because of the consumption of the short-form content?

I don’t have a scientifically proven answer to this, but I know that I do not like doing something mindlessly for long. It makes me feel hollow, and weak. It makes me feel like there’s nothing left to do in life. Hence, here’s a GIF of me deleting the YouTube app from my phone…

!["A GIF of me deleting the YouTube app"](https://pancham-khaitan.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/portfolio/images/remove-yt.gif)

You may be thinking, “Hey, he still has Instagram! Why is he being so preachy about deleting YouTube?” Look, I know that Instagram is exactly like, if not worse than, YouTube. I have turned off all notifications on Instagram, including DMs. I only open it once a day to check if I have any messages from my friends and family. If not, I simply close it and continue on with my day. I want to uninstall it, but unlike YouTube, it has social features which force me to keep the app on my phone. I tried using the web app, but the UX of it is borderline terrible. Hence, the app. Don’t worry though, there will come a time when every one of my friends would have jumped ship from Instagram, and I would have deleted my account from it. Until then, I guess I am keeping one more annoying thing on my phone.

Thanks for reading! Have a great one.

[UPDATE] So, I did delete my Instagram account and I am free of all vices in the world! Just kidding. Got a long way to go, but off to a good start.

I am done with YouTube

This is my first post as part of my newsletter, and an end to my first ever full-time job.

Hi there!

Let me start by thanking you to consider subscribing to my email list to read about my thoughts and to know about what’s going on in my life. Thank you! My goal with this email is to share my thoughts and bring some form of value to your life. Since this is my first ever email to you, I am not really sure about the schedule and the consistency of my emails, but I will definitely try to send at least one email a month. Don’t worry, I won’t spam you.

Let me first start by introducing myself. My name is Pancham Khaitan, and I am a software engineer. I find peace in building something, in the sound of music and I enjoy singing a little bit here and there. Today’s a very special day for me because it’s not just my first email to you, but also my last working day at my current employer. I have been working at this firm for the last 3 years and 2 months, and working with a brand like Google (as a vendor, not an employee), I couldn’t have been happier to have joined this firm.

I would like to share 7 things that I have learnt during my tenure here. Hopefully, you will find some of them interesting…

**1. Curiosity will take you places:** Most people resort to other people for help rather than putting in the effort to understand the root of a problem, and finding a solution for it. If you are someone who is willing to put in the hard work of understanding a concept from its core, you will become the go-to person for everybody. This will lead to your peers and your superiors giving you more opportunities to grow. Always be curious, and be willing to put in the work for the thing that other people are too lazy to look at.

**2. Dressing up is game-changing:** I used to be in the “I am a developer so I wear jeans and a t-shirt” camp. I hated having to wear ironed shirts and formal pants. But, shortly after joining the corporate culture, I realised that dressing up didn’t just make me look good and presentable, but it boosted my confidence to the next level. I felt important and powerful when I dressed up. It completely altered my state of mind and pushed me to function better.

**3. Always document your findings:** When we are exposed to a plethora of brand new information, our brain thinks that we would memorise all of the stuff and recall it whenever we want. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. When you document your findings while researching for a bug, or jotting down possible feature sets for the next version of your app, you are essentially laying the groundwork for the next person. You are not only helping yourself gather your thoughts, but helping everybody after you to see why things function the way they do. And because everything you did is documented, you can ask your boss for promotion since whatever information a person at your level needs is already documented. Always document everything: not just work-related stuff, but your personal thoughts as well.

**4. Don’t be afraid to look stupid (if you don’t know something):** We have heard that a student shall never stop learning, but we often forget that in the process of learning, there are a lot of ups and downs. You could possibly look like an idiot when you first start with something new, but gradually, you will learn from your mistakes and become much better from when you started. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you don’t know something. We are all trying to figure out something.

**5. Opportunities never come to you:** I walked up to my boss and asked him to promote me to the role of a senior software engineer. At that time, I had been working in the industry for a year after college. Instead of laughing at my face, they very calmly explained to me that no one had ever actively sought promotion at that level of experience before. They also mentioned that most people in the team would never ask for a promotion because they hoped for the promotion to come to them. This lead to them being promoted 4-5 years after working in the same role. But, because I had asked for a promotion that early in my career, I got to know about the qualities that I needed in order to get promoted. I incorporated those qualities and a little more than a year later, I got promoted. Never wait for opportunities to come to you. You may never get it.

**6. Always try to look for the good in others:** Even if you feel like somebody is being unnecessarily rude to you, or being unreasonable while interacting with you, try to think about why they are being the way they are. It could be because they are swamped with work and are finding themselves under a lot of stress. It could be because you were unintentionally rude to them and haven’t apologised yet. As humans, we are quick to find mistakes in others but slow to figure out ours. Try to find good in others, and prioritise your relationship with them over being right. You never know how and when that individual would help you.

**7. Don’t be afraid to be different from others:** If you are the sort of person who likes to come to work at sharp 9:30 and leave work at 6:30, don’t be afraid to do so. Just because others are staying at the office till 10:30 PM doesn’t mean that they are working more than you. They are most likely doing the same amount of work as you for almost twice the amount of time that you need. You may be ridiculed and made fun of because of this excellent time management skill of yours. Don’t be afraid to be you. Chances are that others will be inspired by you and will too try to finish their work early. Be yourself with no regrets.

---

### An interesting read

#### [How to Live With Dying](https://theamericanscholar.org/how-to-live-with-dying/)

I have always hated running, but as my waistline increased during the lockdown, I am finding myself working out more than I am used to, and have kind of fallen in love with running. I ran four 5Ks in the span of a week! This article is an amazing read about running, almost dying because of running, and about life in general. I find myself reading this from time to time.

---

That’s it for my first email to you. I hope you liked it and found something interesting. Please feel free to share anything that you find interesting by replying to this email. I would love to know more about you.

---

If you want to share it with a friend, feel free to share this URL. I will eventually build a share menu. 😅

If you didn’t like this email and want to unsubscribe, you can send an email to me with the subject ”UNSUBSCRIBE” and I will remove you from the list. I haven’t coded the unsubscribe module yet, so for now, this is the only way to do so.

You can find me on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/pancham.khaitan/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/PanchamKhaitan), [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/panchamkhaitan/) and of course [my website](https://panchamkhaitan.com).

The first of (hopefully) many

Are humans threatening Nature or are we simply digging a grave?

![Sad snowman](https://pancham-khaitan.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/portfolio/images/ea6e07d0-4cee-4c51-8563-4e6a5c4552f1.jpg "Melting glaciers are dangerous for us")

*Originally written on September 11, 2019,*

I was watching the Apple keynote last night where they launched a bunch of products to help humanity move forward and empower millions of people. They repeatedly said the same thing: We want to enable people to solve their problems by providing excellent tools like the iPhone. As I watched the keynote I wondered about the kind of problems we are trying to solve. How were these problems generated in the first place?

I started reading about the prehistoric era when the homo sapiens were just another species alongside a thousand others. We lived in caves, hunted animals for food, and reproduced, just like all the other animals. We shared our hunts with others in the tribe. We were friends with the other species. We were all part of one thing called Nature. No one was above Nature. But, as our species evolved, we started creating iron weapons to hunt better than before. That was still acceptable. After all, this was the time of survival of the fittest. Animals and humans were still very much the same thing. Our basic necessities were Roti and Makaan (food and shelter).

We even started wearing animals on the skin for warmth. That was weird. Imagine killing your Golden Retriever and wearing its fur on your skin. Our basic needs added a new member: Clothing. We used trees at our disposal and created some amazing things like paper and furniture. But, our smart brains forgot one thing. We forgot to replant. Gradually, the species of humans which was originally a part of Nature began to disassociate from Nature. Humans and Nature became two separate entities.

Be it making belts out of alligator skin or disposing of chemical waste in oceans, humans have always abused their power of being the first. We have never for a second stopped and thought of the implications of our actions. We only gave excuses when asked about such things. “What can one person do when a thousand others pollute?” “I don’t have time to educate people.” “Here, let me post about it on Facebook. More likes equal more awareness, right?"

We are so advanced that we didn’t only litter on our planet and killed other species, we have started littering in space as well. With the creation of more and more satellites to dispose of in the space, we are essentially making a mess up there. Maybe, there will come a day when some satellites would collide because of congestion.

If you made it till here, then you may think that I am ranting about the evolution of humans, which, I kind of am. But, it’s not about complaining about the stupidity of humans, it’s about ego. Humans think they need to save the Earth else the Earth would perish. We don’t understand that the Earth has seen worse than mere glaciers melting. Our Earth is a veteran when it comes to handling the heat. It is we who need to survive. So, when someone says they are working hard to save the Earth, think: Does the Earth needs to be saved or us?


Time Is Melting Away

Unlock yourself through the power of your subconscious mind. Let it know that you are grateful for what you have.

*Guest writer: [Komal Rangoonwala](https://komalrangoonwala.com)*

Unlock yourself through the power of your subconscious mind. Let it know that you are grateful for what you have. Be grateful for the fact that you are alive. Be grateful for you can read this. Be grateful for everything that you have and are going to have, for what you are and are going to become.

Power of gratitude

In this article review, I take a look at David Perell's brilliant writing to consider the world around me...

*Originally written on January 12, 2021,*

- [Link to Article](https://perell.com/note/the-paradox-of-abundance/)

### Introduction

Information abundance has led to a rise in dumb people and smart people alike. It is bad for an average person and great for a smart person. People who consume a lot of content be it news, political articles, videos, audios, etc tend to develop an echo chamber of thoughts and find it extremely difficult to get out of it. Whereas people who use the same media judiciously tend to develop a more balanced and open-minded view about what read online.

This is applicable to everything in life. While the fast-food chains have increased multiple folds in the last couple of decades, people have started consuming more and more processed food making them obese, while people who consume healthy options and maintain good health have increased too. This is called the paradox of abundance: On one hand, the median population is falling in the lower half of the optimal nutritional value range, small groups of people have managed to be in the top 10%.

### Gresham's Law

It is a law commonly used in financial markets where it is said that bad money drives out good money until there is only bad money left. This very thing applies to information, food, work, and many more areas.

Let's consider an example of news. News outlets today have what it seems like a clickbait-y title competition where the only objective is to generate clicks on their articles. This means that the quality of content that is available on these media outlets is deteriorating day-by-day. Due to this, more and more people consume bad content and this cycle continues indefinitely.

The reason for this, what I personally think, is that it is easy to consume unhealthy information/food/content because it requires no effort and it adheres to the idea of comfort. More and more people want comfort in their lives and it makes them choose McDonald's over farmers' market.

### How to succeed in the world of abundance?

Be mindful of the things that you consume. Rebel against the algorithms, look for legible news sources, read the hard stuff instead of BuzzFeed. For a conscious consumer, there hasn't been a better time to be alive. As Komal would say, "Choose wisely. Live well."

Paradox of abundance

Controlling the bigger parts of life is possible only when we focus our attention on the little things, to the atomic granularities...

Article: [The Secret to Better Habits in 2021](https://ryanholiday.net/habits-2021/)

### Think Small
- "Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death. Indeed, against misfortunes as well." -- Seneca
- Incremental, persistent, consistent efforts pay huge dividends. Start with things that make up the whole system.
- Just start doing it. The rest will fall into place eventually. Just the act of doing something small and building up from it gives enough motivation to keep the streak going.

### Think Long-Term
- Reference to Atomic Habits' topic of "The Plateau of Latent Potential"
- The bamboo waits 5 years before it shoots up 90 feet in the span of 6 weeks. The ice cube does not melt until it is 32ºF.
- Just because the thing that we want to happen is not happening, does not mean that our efforts are wasted. Continue putting efforts that you know will get you to the goal that you want to achieve.
- Greatness is achieved by small things, but greatness is not a small thing.

### Develop the muscle
- In order to get rid of a bad habit, start by giving up a relatively easier bad habit. In this process of letting go of the bad habit, you will develop a muscle to resist temptation. This will help you reinforce your decision to quit the habit and form a new, better one.
- If you want to be able to write a book, start by writing a journal for 15 minutes every day when you wake up. If you want to create a product that inspires millions of people, start by making a simple, yet powerful to-do app.

### Use good habits to drive out bad habits
- Epictetus said, “Since habit is such a powerful influence, and we’re used to pursuing our impulses to gain and avoid outside our own choice, we should set a contrary habit against that, and where appearances are really slippery, use the counterforce of our training.”
- When a bad habit reveals itself, counteract with a good habit instead of falling into the trap of repeating the bad habit and never getting rid of it.
- If you find yourself running a kilometre less, or coding less than before, or studying less than before, tell yourself, "Okay. I am going to go even further or do even better than this."

### Build a routine
- The greatest people that we admire are prisoners of their rigid schedule.
- A good schedule gives you clarity and limits your decisions to a minimum, giving you the time and the energy to focus on the task at hand that was pre-planned.
- Be deliberate about the things that you do every day. Wake up. Journal. Exercise. Clean up. Stick to a diet. Create order.

### Use incentives
- Promise yourself a treat or a punishment in return for the deed that you want to do. For example, you could donate Rs 100/- every time you break the habit. You can reward yourself with a treat or a pair of clothes or anything that you like if you stick to the habit that you set your goal towards.

### Put up reminders
- Keep reminding yourself why you're doing something and where you are going by doing what you are doing.
- Put up reminders everywhere you go. Your phone, computer, room, everywhere. That will help you fall back on the ideology that you have set for yourself without having to question everything that you see.
- You should not waste any time re-contemplating the reason for the work that you are doing because you have already put in your time and energy in deciding the reason for the same. Write down the reasons that you have thought of. Make a note of them. Make them accessible. Go through them regularly.

### Choose your surroundings wisely
- A man is the product of the people that he spends his time with. We are what we spend our time with.
- Make sure that the people that you talk to, the places that you go to, the events that you attend align with your goal to make yourself better than yesterday.
- A kid who spends time with other kids who do not want to achieve anything in life will probably never achieve anything in life too. Remember this. Spend time with people who want to become better and achieve greater heights.

### Hand yourself over to a script
- Tell yourself that you are going to do a specific set of tasks each day and do them in that order. This reduces chaos and decision making power. This helps you to know that every day is already planned to be a different day, and my duties for that day have already been decided prior.
- Plan your meets, events, dates, everything in a calendar at least a week prior. This gives you room to breathe and live life the way it should be lived.
- 21 days. 3 weeks. That's it. This is enough to cultivate a new habit. How hard is it going to be? Just keep showing up, Pancham. You can do this.

### Keep going back to it
- There will be times when you fail to achieve your goals and miss the tasks that you have set for yourself. But that is okay. It is okay to fail unless you continue to fail and create a failing streak instead of a streak of wins.

Habits for moving into 2021

Looking at our lives from the perspective of the world changes everything...

*Originally written on January 12, 2021,*

It is pretty surreal to realise that you have got one life. Take a look around you. People are everywhere. They are busy living their lives; busy in their endeavours, their ambitions, their careers, their families, their friends. Now step back and look at the world through your lens. Look at the things carefully, look at yourself from their eyes. Realise that this is your life. This is you, you've got one life. Out of 7-8 billion people, BILLION, you've got yours, that's it. This one is for you to live. Nobody else can come to live it for you. No one can influence your life. It is just you here. You and your thoughts, your idea of the world, your understanding of it all that can make a dent in your living.

Let your ambitions drive you. Let the respect that you possess in your mind control you and mould you into who ought to be. You are a product of the time that you spend on things on and the people that you surround yourself with. Waste time and you are someone who disrespects the value of time and loses the bigger picture of life. Surround yourself with yes-men and you've got an echo chamber. You want to be uncomfortable. You should strive to be uncomfortable; uncomfortable with your surroundings, your ideas, your perceptions, everything. This does not mean that you live a life of rags, but it means that you understand and adjust according to the need of the hour. Got an un-ergonomic arrangement to work from home? Don't complain. Try to adjust accordingly, develop new ways you could improve this situation. Got some people to put you on the pedestal even when you fail? Remove them from your life because they want to see you fail. This will help you think about things that are beyond obvious and cultivate your rationale towards getting your opinions challenged.

