The Pathways & Padlocks Conversation
00:40:47 · Sachin
[00:40:47] S0: So I really wish I could give a unique answer to this, but as I've kind of gotten a little bit older, I realized that most of the wisdom in life is contained in cliches. And the cliche that I'm going to use here is that try as many things as possible, right? You hear that time and time again. But just in life in general, your experience is going to be dictated by how many things you put your hand up to and how many things that you try. And so I'll break that down a bit further. I think that everyone comes to university with a very unique set of interests. Try all of them, right? I came in with an interest in finance. I did finance internships, in startups, I did startup internships. I even had kind of an interest in marketing. So I did some marketing internships, right? Any kind of interest that I've had, I've tried to follow. And a lot of my best friends that have had that same kind of experience have come to the end of their degree and really benefited from it. The second thing is we read widely, right? We have an abundance of information on the internet. And you don't necessarily need to do an internship to kind of get exposure in a certain career path. You can literally go on LinkedIn, message someone for a coffee, right? If I'm interested in management consulting, I don't have to go and do an internship. I'm sure there's a consultant that would be happy to talk to you and tell you what a day in their life is like, what kind of projects they work on. And so you can get that information really quickly, right? I think this has been the theme of our conversation that most things you can't think your way out of. You can't think your way into your purpose and you can't think your way into having a good experience, a unique experience, right? Have to put your hand up for as many things as possible. And sometimes that involves sacrificing things like marks and stuff. But I think in the long run, that's going to be a beneficial sacrifice.
00:42:30 · Sid Dissanayake, Sachin
[00:42:30] S1: Yeah, 100%. And I think, I mean, going back to what you said earlier, which I think is another important idea for university students is this idea of like people postulating and people putting on, you know, facades that they have it figured out and they have, you know, their life goals figured out or whatever the case may be. And I think an important part of these conversations is debunking that misconception because, you know, 99% of the time people are just making shit up, right? They're just figuring it out as they go along, which is something that you've touched on a few times. And it's cool to see that you're also self reflective and you admit to yourself that, hey, five, ten years down the line, your vision, your purpose might change. And I think having that flexibility is important for university students as well. [00:43:18] S0: I think the thing is that saying things, there's market incentives to say things confidently, right? When you're a lawyer or consultant and stuff, you're getting paid to say things with a self insured manner and saying things confidently. So I think that's the crux of the issue. [00:43:34] S1: Would you say there's like a limited space for vulnerability in that sense? You can't Right? Really be
00:43:34 · Sid Dissanayake, Sachin
[00:43:34] S1: Would you say there's like a limited space for vulnerability in that sense? You can't Right? Really be [00:43:41] S0: Like I think that whole 80s, 90s bank card that's really tough doesn't talk about your business changing a lot, right? I've noticed that the next of the last five to six years vulnerability has been on the rise a lot, especially in my friendship groups. Think a lot of that is mental health driven. Everyone's kind of understood more so that being vulnerable isn't being weak and that's also imperative to our mental health and how we feel. So I think if you listen to a lot of podcasts now, you will see CEOs of massive companies talking about their own uncertainty, which I think is awesome that we live in an era where that's happening. [00:44:18] S1: Yeah. And I guess it's a case of like, who are we fooling by not sharing a full and accurate depiction of a particular pathway? And that was definitely one of the motives to this particular project as well. So Sachin, another sort of principle that you live by was espoused or can be found in the book The Power of Now. We touched on it off air and I wanted to bring it up now. So I'll read the quote that you brought up related to that book, which was that we are constantly living in the past and the future, but our life is a series of nows. Essentially what you're saying is that all that exists is the present moment. So just off the bat, I
00:44:59 · Sachin
[00:44:59] S0: just wanted to give you an opportunity to explain what that means to you personally in your own experience, and then why that's particularly resonated for you. Yeah, so I think the period in my life where this really hit home was when I was on exchange. And there was a period of time where I was constantly listening to podcasts, reading books and stuff. Every moment I had by myself, was always trying to improve, right? And I realized, I think it was once when I was riding my bike because in The Netherlands, everyone rides bikes everywhere. And my thoughts were constantly like in the future about this happening, how does this play out? How does this investment play out, etcetera, etcetera. And that's really not how I'm gonna live my life, right? I missed all the beauty that was around me in that particular bike ride. Was... My thoughts were too clouded to connect with other people. And something I've been really passionate about, and I think this is from an early interest in spirituality, is that, like, why are we here on the Earth, first of all, and everyone has a different reason for that. But for me, a fundamental thing that we all have in common is some of our best moments in life are the ones where we're present, right? If you ask people what they enjoy, a lot of the time they'll say things like playing sport, maybe it's skydiving, maybe it's art or surfing or something like that, right? And those are all moments where you're present and you can and you're not your brain isn't in the past or future, right? Our brains like aren't biologically wired to be constantly thinking about these things, right? And if you ask anyone when the happiest moments are, it's always when they're present. So that's something I've been very passionate about because to me, there's no point in me achieving anything in my life if I'm not present and there for the people around me and actually, you know, having that space in between my thoughts. I think there's a quote from the Buddha which is, Enlightenment is the space between our thoughts, which is something I really believe in.
00:46:50 · Sid Dissanayake
[00:46:50] S1: Yeah, and I think what you're getting at as well is that can get so caught up in the past and the future as well. And you know, personally for me, like I'm 100% victim to that and something that I can improve on for sure. And I think, you know, I was reading a blog about the book because I wanted to raise it, raise the idea and what they were saying is that, I'll read the quote, they said that the past is nothing more than a collection of present moments gone by and the future is nothing more than present moments waiting to arrive. And I think that pretty much reflects what you just said about how, you know, the emphasis and focus should be on the now and the present moment. Is that something that you sort of resonate with and reflect? 100%.
00:47:35 · Sachin
[00:47:35] S0: And the thing I'll say here is it's difficult, right? When I first got exposed to this idea, I thought that we had to be present all the time. And honestly, that's not functional, right? We can't do well at work or uni or whatever if we're present all the time because we need to be planning, studying or like, etcetera, planning things with friends. But we have very little moments in our life when we're present, right? And it's things you can integrate into your everyday life. Like when you're brushing your teeth, you'll notice that your thoughts are everywhere, everywhere. So now when I'm brushing my teeth, I just try and really bring it back to what's happening right now. And I think when you do that, you discover a lot of beauty in the world. Like when I meditate in my back garden every day, I look around and I see things that I never saw before I meditated. I see little movements in the trees, I see little insects that I never would have noticed because my head's so clouded with thoughts. And those things to me are like what's beautiful about life and often we're missing them all the time.