Facing Your Fears

What is the biggest fear of a balding person. But of course, losing those hair. If you know my family then you can be assured that I will lose all my hair (mostly) at some point in future. It is easy to predict as I have hereditary hair loss from both sides of my family :).

The hair fall woes started when I was 17 or 18, I think. I remember seeing dermatologists since then and started taking medicines to prevent hairfall. The biggest worry since age 17 has been to not lose all my hair at such an early age.

Now I am hitting 30+ and the fear is still there, probably more enhanced. Or I should say the fear WAS still there — till the last week; when I did the unthinkable. I woke on Saturday morning and saw a bunch of hair on my pillow, who had taken their last breath that night. It actually sort of hurt to wake up every morning to this. That’s when I decided I don’t want to wake up to this everyday, this is now how I want my mornings to begin. I went to the salon and got a head shave.

Here’s a before and after..

Not too bad right?

Here are a few comments I heard about the new look –

Dad — you are looking like Satya Nadella.

Mom — Looking cool Swami Riteshwaranand

Friend (Jaini) — Oh bhainzzz.. poori safaai

Friend (Rajpal)- I will say looking good..

Friend (Roorkee) — What can I say.. reminds me of Neo..

Friend (Chawla) — Teri tind tere chehre se jyaada gori hai 🙂

Overall, I think not bad at all.. After the whole thing, I was asking myself. Is this what I was fearing so much? Spending so much time, energy and money on?

Like all things, I would like to take away a bigger lesson here from what now seems like a small thing. Go out, face your fears, the outcome may not be as bad as you think..

And for now, the look is here to stay.. Adios

How to beat Bangalore traffic?

Bangalore traffic can be killing.. You never know if it’s going to take you 15 mins or 1.5 hours. And it’s such a huge waste of productive time. Moreover, I got sick of all the Real Estate ads on the radio. 

But recently driving has sort of become the 2nd best part of my day. Playing with Gungun being the best, of course. All thanks to the audiobooks. I used to listen to podcasts earlier, and recently started listening to audiobooks. Podcasts were also fun especially Stanford ETL, Freaknonimics, Tim Ferriss Show and others.

Now I have switched to Audiobooks. I had an Audible membership earlier and had downloaded couple of books including Lean Startup, Innovator’s Solution, Alchemist and more. Currently I have Delivering Happiness – by Tony Hsieh play and am almost close to finishing it. Thanks to Audiobooks I have finished more books in last 3 months than I have ever read in my life. 

Audiobooks
Image courtesy – Jeff Daly – https://www.flickr.com/photos/dalydose/

I also found out that Books 24×7, which is probably one of the most under-utilized company resources has tons of Audiobooks available. I had access to Books 24×7 for 7 years at IBM but never ever used it once. But now I am using it regularly. I finished Seth Godin’s Tribes and Purple Cow already and now onto Ziglar on Selling. 

If you dread traffic as well, try using Audiobooks or Podcasts. I am you would wait to begin your commute everyday..