Suraj C.

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Would It Even Matter?

June 4, 2023

I wonder at times: “What would happen if I were to just disappear?“

What would happen if I were to not inform anyone besides my family that I am not going to be here anymore without the assurance of whether or not I would be back.

This thought has pondered in my mind for years now. I have also told a few people that one day I will someday just go out of contact. “I might become a monk”, I say.

Who knows, I really might become a monk someday.

I feel like too many of us are in a rat race. I would be lying if I didn’t count myself in that group as well. I certainly have as well been in the rat race for quite some time.

But the thing is that every now and then, there is this window of actuality that appears. And the actuality says that a person can survive even with a simple and minimal livelihood where they don’t have the highest pay-grade or a big house or a nice car.

I know, for some people even maintaining a day-to-day livelihood is also tough.

But I have confidence that even if I, and most of my readers, were to drop competing (aka trying to be more successful) right now, we could survive and be able to take care of a few people in some time. Basically, we know the basics of survival and market.

If we can do that, why compete?

Why not just love someone and take care of your family and live as a normal person? Maybe work as a teacher or something in some part of the country and buy a small house in 5-6 years? Why not just eat not-so-fancy food and wear normal budget clothes? Why not every evening play some music and prepare dinner with your wife? Or every morning go on a walk or run with your family? Why not see your partner feel wonderful when you bring them small yet thoughtful gifts or give them small surprises?

Yes, it does seem like a dream life but is it really as hard as so many of us assume it to be?

When I ask people, “If you could do anything, and if money and time was no restriction, what would you do?”, a lot of people come back to spending more time with family or simply traveling or being there for the ones they love. But is it really that hard to do that?

Do we really need to achieve everything that we are set out to achieve in order to do that? Yes, it would make things easier, but do we really NEED to?

I know it’s probably cliche, but “If you were to die in 24 hours, how would you spend these 24 hours?”

I am sure that except for 1 or 2 extraordinary people, most of us will either want to spend those remaining hours with our family or telling things to people that we could never tell (probably confessions or apologies).

And with that, why do we not do it today?

Life is not certain, is it? We could die tomorrow. Or maybe the other person could just disappear someday as I joke about doing. And we don’t know if we will see the other person again. We don’t know if we’ll get to say a “hi” to someone tomorrow. Either we would go or they could.

Hey, I don’t wish that for anyone, but life really is unpredictable. Anything can happen.

So, maybe, you should spend more time with your family right now. Maybe just call your parents and tell them that you were thinking of them and that you love them. Or maybe call those people you’ve been meaning to call and tell them the things you’ve been meaning to tell today.

Sometimes, a random text or call from someone can make people’s day.

Anyways, all I can do is share with you the lessons I learn. The rest really is up to you.

Until next time.

Take care <3

Why Do We Not?

June 1, 2023

It happens to me whenever I read something beautiful someone writes that I feel like writing but it feels like a lot of friction in between. Today I read a piece written by a friend. It was sort of a poem, a beautiful one. And I was able to get myself to write today. Glad!

Recently, one thing that has been on my mind almost on a regular basis is “Why do we not just move on?”

By moving on I mean why do we not let go of things and of people when holding on to them is as dangerous as staying in a burning house?

A really close friend recently went through a breakup. He has been having a hard time moving on. It was a relationship he’d had for several years, but then one day, it just broke. She left him, and he can’t get himself to accept the fact that she is gone.

To some people, it might seem that “all of this is just lame.” Honestly, I thought the same.

One major thing that I’ve learned recently is that relationships, whether it be romantic relationships, family, or friendship, don’t run with logic. And that is what I get wrong a lot.

Whenever someone close to me tells me something, I, being the logical guy that I am, begin to give advice on what s/he should and shouldn’t do, or how they could solve the problem.

But the problem is, when someone is telling you something or sharing something with you, they don’t really want you to give them a solution. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes they are looking for ways to solve the problem.

But more often than not, they just want you to be there and listen to them.

You know, you can improve any relationship that you have with this simple thing.

1. Ask them: “What’s on your mind?”

By asking them this question, you’re not limiting them to a certain thing which a question like “What is bothering you?” or “Don’t you think …?” would do. You are giving them the freedom to tell you whatever is on their mind. It can be something that is bothering them or something that they are glad about or simply anything, anything that they want.

2. Ask: “What else?”

Sometimes people will tell you something but not tell you the other things that they are thinking because they may think it is not important enough or that sharing the other thing too would only distract you from the first thing they told you. By asking these questions you give them the chance to share with you anything else that they may have in mind.

3. Be present and just listen.

Look, this may seem like the easiest part but this is what many of us get wrong. I know I get this wrong too many times. When someone is telling you something, you shouldn’t utilize your headspace on finding a solution for them or being unnecessarily logical about it. All you should do is simply listen to them.

More often than not, after the conversation, the other person will feel a lot better if you just listened to them than if you had begun to give them advice.

This may or may not make sense to everyone, but I’ve been trying this recently and it has helped me connect to the people I love on a deeper level.

Anyways, I’ll keep it to this for now. There’s a lot more that I have in mind, but some other time. This text is already pretty long.

You take care, my friend, and thank you for reading till the end.

Until next time!

This is a SuperpowerđŸ’Ș

April 17, 2023

Hello, my friend!

In this article, I would like to share a secret to a superpower with you. 

In this era when thousands of informational videos, books, podcasts, and research papers are available to people for free, having the power to learn and absorb as many as possible is the superpower. 

“But how do we do that?” you may ask. Well, simple.

We listen.

These days, most of the information we consume is via videos and podcasts which we can listen to. Or if you happen to be old-school, there are plenty of audiobooks and tools to convert any article or text into an audiobook using text-to-speech features.

I stress so much about listening because, on average, we read a lot slower than we can hear and understand. 

For example, I usually watch videos and listen to podcasts at 2x speed. Sometimes 3x. 

Now, why do I do that?

Imagine being able to complete an 8-hour-long audiobook in about 3 hours. Now that’s a superpower. 

This is how I am able to prepare for some of my exams in only a few hours (from YouTube mostly).

Most importantly: How can YOU learn this skill?

Here’s how:

Next time you watch something on YouTube, try increasing the playback speed to 1.25x. Once you are able to understand 1.25x properly, try 1.5x, and so on and so forth.


Pro tip: Press shift+> to increase the playback speed, and shift+< to decrease the playback speed. The ‘<‘ and ‘>’ keys are beside the question mark key.


Try this a few times, and you will have already saved several minutes and even hours of your time.

Good luck my friend!

Until another time,

Suraj C.

xoxo

How to Procrastinate to Win

April 15, 2023

cold email people
Image by Freepik

A few days back, I was listening to a podcast that had Cliff Weitzman (the founder of Speechify) as the guest.


If you don’t know, Speechify is an app that allows you to convert any page on the internet, or any PDF into an audiobook.

Cliff had Dyslexia, so he found a way to teach himself by using text-to-speech features and ended up building Speechify. It is now used by 20,000,000+ people. Crazy, I know.


Anyways, here’s one of the lessons I learned from him:

Cold Email Strangers and People You Admire

[Cold email is when you email someone without having contacted them before.]

To Strangers

Emailing people randomly is a wonderful way to not only make people’s day but to make yourself more likely to get opportunities.

When you cold email people, you can get mentorship from people, you can learn from people who are at the top of their game, and you might get a job or an internship. You might even find the love of your life.

I emailed 3 people I would like to learn from who I have never talked to. And hey, I booked a meeting with one of them. Nice!

To People You Admire

Another form of doing this is emailing or texting the people you admire or love. In simple terms, it is like sending thank-you notes.

It doesn’t have to be some state-of-the-art writing or confession. It can be as simple as:

“Hey Harry, just wanted to let you know that I was thinking of you. 

I wanted to thank you for being such a great friend all these years. Would love to meet and catch up with you again someday. 

Let me know whenever you would be available for a quick coffee. 

Thank you for everything!”

If you don’t feel like it, you don’t have to suggest a meeting. Just thank them. This will already improve your relationships a lot.

I am doing this when I am bored.

Instead of scrolling through social media, I have been scrolling through my contact list and emailing and texting people.

The outcome has been amazing so far, and I don’t think that is going to change anytime soon.

Give it a try once, might lead to making someone’s day.

Until another time,

Suraj Chaudhary

xoxo

NOW or LATER?

September 11, 2022

Hello, my friend! It’s been a while since we last chatted. How have you been? I hope you’ve been well.

Even though I have grown online, got over 2,000 subscribers on my channel, and started making money from my other website, I haven’t really been very active recently. This duration, this break that I took, proved to be a good time for self-reflection. I’ve been pondering the question of what it really means to feel and be alive—and to be honest, I don’t know what is the right thing to do. Maybe you can help.

For a really long time, I’ve been a believer in “Hustle now and rip the results later.” I’ve worked hard to learn skills, do things, and achieve things for several years. Not that I always liked working hard, but because I thought and I knew that if I didn’t work hard, I would live a very ordinary life, a life with limitations. My family’s economics definitely was a reason for why I was so desperate to grow, but more importantly, I wanted to grow myself, I wanted to make myself capable to support my family and myself.

But all of this “hustle”, as we call it, is it really the right thing to do?

We should live in the moment, no? What if there’s no tomorrow? What if the world ends tomorrow? If tomorrow was my last day, would I really be doing the things I am doing right now? Would I be hustling? Would you be sacrificing so much for the hope of a “better future”? I think not. Perhaps I should not be working so hard, perhaps you should not be sacrificing so much, perhaps you should really be living in the moment.

But what if there is a tomorrow? What if the world doesn’t end tomorrow? What if tomorrow is not your last day? Should I or should you waste this time that we have, this energy that we have right now? Should we just waste it and not use it to build something for ourselves, for our family, and for our future? Perhaps not, again.

I have no concrete solution or a to-go option for solving this. The only workaround I’ve found so far is to find a balance, a balance between living in the present and building a future. How do we find the balance? I might have a way.

I think doing what you love is how we should live. Multiple times I’ve met people who do things only because they have to do it, they do it as a profession. Yes, there are instances and circumstances that don’t allow for the freedom of choice, mostly economics. But that may not really be as huge a hindrance as you may have thought.

In this era of tech and the internet, everything is available online. I, myself, am built on the internet due to the internet. I am able to code, edit videos, send you these newsletters, build websites, and make some side income, all because of the internet. You can learn anything and everything here, and the best part? For free. Yes, it may take time to find the right resources to teach yourself, to find the right PDFs or the right videos, but it is here. You just have to look for it and use it. That is not very hard. It just takes dedication.

Back to the point, to find a balance, you should learn a skill you like and monetize it, maybe on Instagram, maybe on YouTube, or maybe offline. When you do what you love, you don’t really feel like you’re working or you’re sacrificing things only because you have to. You will feel like you’re doing the work you’re doing because you like doing it. Nobody would be forcing you, there would be no external force compelling you to not live in the moment.

When you do what you love, you like it, you be happy, and you live in the moment. This might help, maybe.

What do you think is the right thing to do? Should we live in the moment and enjoy and live life? Or should we hustle and build a future, a life for ourselves and our family? Let me know, maybe via the comment section.

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About the Author

Suraj Chaudhary is a student figuring things out. He’s also a web designer and a writer. Read more➝

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bySuraj Chaudhary

In this episode, I talk about why I've been cycling over 10 KM every day. Of course, there are health benefits, but there also are other reasons.

If you like this episode, do drop a review on your favorite podcast app, it really helps me out.

Connect with me: suraj@surajc.com

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