This appeared on LinkedIn first.
Yesterday, I mentioned in a post that my health parameters are excellent, my fitness levels are enviable for my age, and that I continue to sail through life with an alarming lack of bodily complaints. Naturally, this led to a flood of admiration and, I assume, a few quiet curses muttered under the breath of less fortunate souls. Since it would be positively criminal to hoard all this wisdom, I thought it was time to finally share the secret to my seemingly effortless good health.
Spoiler: There is no secret. It is mostly privilege, an absurd amount of luck, and a lifetime of making entirely self-indulgent choices due to sheer laziness.
Very important note: I have often railed against privilege. Not against having it, for that is in no one's control. But against not recognising it and claiming that somehow whatever one has "achieved" is by dint of the sweat of one's brow. This is not just not factual but also insulting to those who were unlucky to be born without the proverbial silver tableware up their backsides. So, take everything I say here with a pinch of salt. This is just me. And my life. Not to be confused with a generalisation. And most certainly not to be extrapolated to anyone else's. We all have our own lived experiences. Each unique, each powerful, each very personal. I am a role model to no one. Nor do I wish to be.
1. Do Only What You Love (Yes, I Know How This Sounds).
I have never worked a “real” job. Never had a boss. Never spent a single day doing something that did not excite me. If something felt tedious, I simply did not do it. If it caused me stress, I walked away without a second thought.
How? Privilege.
Let us not pretend otherwise. I was born with every imaginable advantage. High-caste, cisgender, heterosexual, male, urban, English-speaking. Raised by liberal, educated parents who valued books, ideas, travel, and deep conversations. I never had to struggle for access. I never had to fight for my voice to be heard.
And I used this privilege well (or so I like to tell myself). I started businesses, shut them down, ran some spectacularly into the ground, reinvented myself multiple times, and lived life entirely on my own terms.
Stress? What stress?
2. Trust Freely, Forget Instantly.
I trust people by default. It has led to some impressive disasters. Implosions. Betrayals. Financial loss. The occasional (?) “I told you so” from wiser people. But it has also given me lifelong friendships, brilliant employees, and partnerships worth their weight in gold.
The real trick, though, is forgetting things at an alarming rate.
I do not mean names and faces, though I am terrible at those too (tell me your name while you introduce yourself to me, and I will forget it that very instant, much to the consternation of whoever is with me at the meeting or party). I mean grudges, slights, betrayals, and insults. I simply do not remember them long enough for them to weigh me down. This is not some grand Zen mastery. It is just my brain being objectively terrible at storing petty grievances.
And, over time, I have learnt to weaponise this glitch in my memory.
Because how can you hold grudges when you barely remember why you were angry in the first place? It is incredibly liberating. And I highly recommend it.
3. Never Kiss and Tell. Or Backstab and Yelp.
My father, an Air Force officer, drilled a set of “officer-like qualities” (OLQs) into me and my brother. One of the most important lessons?
Always be a gentleman.
(Yes, those were the days when casual patriarchy was everywhere; and my father was a man of his times, so we can forgive him).
That meant: Doing the right thing even when no one’s watching. Including never gossiping about exes, never trashing former business partners and colleagues, and never whining about betrayals. Not even about those clients who ghosted me mid-project, did not pay on time (or ever), or stole my work.
Nothing makes a man look weaker than constantly dissecting old wounds. Complaining about the past is the intellectual equivalent of sucking in your gut at the beach. No one is impressed.
Plus, silence makes you look mysterious. And that is always a bonus, I guess.
4. Consume Art, Data, and More Art.
I inhale information. Books, films, music, news, Wikipedia deep dives, trivia, riddles, case studies, and obscure documentaries that nobody else watches. I consume everything.
I used to be good at maths and physics, but those skills have faded over time, much like my once-defined abs. But the habit of learning? That never left me.
I call myself a diarist of the times (no, I mean it; read my bio on my socials) because someday, a historian might stumble upon my writing and realise that a man like me once existed, thought these thoughts, lived this way, and chronicled it all for future generations.
Digital immortality.
5. Parenting: My Shot at Immortality.
Speaking of immortality, becoming a father at 42 was perhaps the single best thing to ever happen to me.
As a child, when others dreamt of being astronauts, pilots, or doctors, I dreamt of being a dad. This caused a lot of mirth (and concern) in the good old 1970s and 80s, as you can well imagine. As I said, those were different days. We know better now.
Anyway, about little Kymaia, my 10-year-old (going on 11 this year), they say you do not raise a child. A child raises you.
Want to realise how little you actually know? Try explaining photosynthesis or communism to a five-year-old without sounding like an idiot.
Want to sharpen your debating skills? Try answering a relentless stream of “But why?” questions.
Fatherhood has kept me sharper than any quiz ever could. And I was the captain of my school and college quiz teams. But you knew that already.
More than that, though, it is my shot at true immortality.
I write, so that long after I am gone, someone will know I existed. I raise my daughter so that long after I am gone, someone will carry forward a part of me.
6. In an Emergency, Do Not Forget to Fly the Plane.
This was another lesson from Baba, who, as a pilot, would always say:
In an emergency, do not forget to fly the plane.
Sounds obvious, right? But it is easy to forget.
When disaster strikes, when a crisis erupts, when chaos takes over, we focus so hard on the problem that we forget to keep everything else functioning.
If a pilot has an engine fire, they cannot spend all their time trying to put it out. They also need to ensure the aircraft stays straight and level. Otherwise, they will solve the fire problem only to crash into the ground.
Life works the same way. Business, relationships, everything.
Whatever the crisis, I have learnt to compartmentalise it. To deal with it, sure, but not at the expense of everything else. The plane still needs to be flown. The patient still needs to survive the surgery.
It does not always work (and I am a living, breathing example of how badly I have screwed things up at times when I tried to do too many things at the same time). But it has worked often enough to be worth remembering.
7. Use Things. Love People.
Another timeless lesson from my father.
Use things. Love people. Not the other way around.
I am entirely unattached to objects, no matter how expensive or sentimental. Things exist to be used, not worshipped.
People, on the other hand, are to be cherished.
If something breaks, I shrug. If a friendship breaks, I sulk for a while. Then I forget. Because, as we have established, I am very good at forgetting.
8. The Good Old Days Are Happening Right Now.
Baba’s greatest wisdom.
The good old days of 20 years from now are happening to you right now.
One day, you will look back at today with nostalgia. So why wait 20 years to appreciate it?
Enjoy it now.
Final Thoughts (And the Looming Reddit Fear).
So, there you have it. The secret to my ruddy good health?
A life of indulgence. Fuelled by privilege.
Doing only what I love. Forgetting problems before they take root. Consuming art and knowledge like an addict. Staying fit without obsession. Raising a child who keeps me on my toes. Never stressing over material nonsense.
Is it practical? No.
Is it replicable? Probably not.
Is it working? Time will tell (apart from what it already has ‘told’, which reflects in my test results).
Now, if this post somehow finds its way to LinkedIn Lunatics on Reddit, I have only myself to blame. As I said in the last post, that remains my mortal fear.
But at least I resisted the urge to end with “What my fitness routine taught me about D2C sales.”
Small victories.
