As South Asian women in the diaspora, we are told to be “independent,” but “nurturing.” We are told to be “all-rounders” who can dominate a boardroom by day and manage a perfect household by night. But let’s be real: the expectations, the mountain of obligations, and…
This post explores preserving culture in the diaspora without the weight of obligation or guilt. For the least few years, I’ve found myself sitting with a quiet, heavy sadness. It’s a feeling many of us navigating South Asian identity in the diaspora may know but rarely…
We’ve been conditioned to treat “dharma” like your civic duty or a spiritual reward. But it’s much more. Dharma is your everlasting truth, minus the noise. The noise is the “standard script”: the degrees, the titles, and the desperate need to look successful to people you…
The Trap of Mastery Last week, I talked about becoming the architect of your own life. Building the systems and “external brain” that turns your perceived weaknesses into strengths. But there is a trap that comes with mastering your own systems: The ego-driven belief that your…
For most of my life, I believed that life was just inherently harder for me than it was for everyone else. I grew up feeling subpar. I struggled with things that seemed to come naturally to others. My memory was poor; I couldn’t remember directions, I…
We’ve talked a lot about the big career pivot – quitting the soul-sucking job, chasing the dream, and aligning your career with your calling. But let’s get real for a second: What do you do when you aren’t ready to jump yet? Maybe you have a…
We are often taught that a career is a ladder. You pick a lane, you climb, and you pray you don’t realize halfway up that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. In the South Asian script, that ladder is usually pre-selected: Medicine, Engineering, or…
We’ve been sold a lie about the nature of a break. In the script of the modern grind, and especially within the high-achieving South Asian community, we treat rest as a reward. We tell ourselves we’ll take a break once the project is done, once the…
We are often told that the path to success is paved with “self-improvement.” In the desi community, that usually translates to a relentless focus on our gaps. We obsess over the “careless mistakes.” We agonize over the skills we lack. We look at our performance reviews…
As I’ve explored the past few weeks, building your extraordinary life means questioning patterns that have been normalized on auto-pilot and designing habits that actually serve YOU. As I explored in my piece on Intentional Finance a few months back, for many of us in the…
