Jay Kaushal

You have all the time in the world until one day.. you don't.

And I don't mean that in a gloomy or tragic way. I mean it as a literal fact. Apply it how you like to any thing, situation or circumstance or relationship in your life.

One day, you find yourself at the exact moment you had waited for, prepared for braced for all of your life. This could be right at the cusp of starting a new company, going on that Euro tour you always dreamed about, starting your dream job, getting married..

One day it's the last day of your previous life up until that point when suddenly it changes forever and you.. almost unexpectedly.. are asked to change WITH it.

No one prepares for this.

See your mentality often lags behind your actual growth.

Nothing 'wrong' or 'broken' about that. Nothing to 'fix' about this really..

But a great deal of adjustment, acclimatization and optimization that you need to make with it.

The ways you think you'll fall short are often not how you fall short. The ways you always imagined you had 'enough time to fix' are where suddenly life pushes the fast forward button on and brings you face to face with.

Health, age, debt, responsibility.. you name it.

Situations have a funny way of sneaking up on you when you're busy elsewhere.

You're busy keeping your business afloat and when you're finally on top of things, your kids are suddenly all grown up and don't really need you that much anymore. They have their own lives by then.

You're busy focusing on your career and by the time you're finally on top, suddenly starting a family is a challenge you need to wade through. IVF, doctor visits and what not.

You're busy focusing on settling abroad and settling into a new life 4000 miles away from home and suddenly your parents are old and now you feel guilty you can't spend enough time with them.

Almost everybody will be humbled by how fast life moves compared to how fast they thought it would.

There's no 'universal fix' for this.

The only thing that provides some semblance of help.. is the recognition that your time is limited and there's nothing you can do about it.

"Memento Mori" said the Stoics.

"Remember You Must Die". That's the translation for it.

And I must REITERATE I don't mean to remind you of this in a shocking, sad, tragic or reflective even philosophical way.

I merely wish for you to realize that if life is REALLY as limited and FINITE as we all shall ultimately realize in some part of our life in some shape or form.. sooner or later..

Then WHERE IS the TIME to waste on regret, toxicity, fake relationships, mediocre experiences and forlorn duties?

There should be NO room in your life for ANYTHING that robs you of vital energy you need to live at your HIGHEST potential.. to embody your highest EXPRESSION.

NONE. ZILCH. NADA. NYET.

Get me?

And you know why?

Because DOING what YOU want to do..

LIVING as WHO YOU want to live..

is in itself a rare endeavor that only a minuscule lucky minority will ever be able to pull off in a vast sea of mediocre sameness.

That is a full time job requiring constant full time attention.

You can either live FULLY or you can live how everybody else EXPECTS you to live.

I'd bet my money on living fully any day of the week. Not 'fully' as in 'irresponsibly' or 'nonchalantly'.

No. 'Fully' as in fully in ALIGNMENT with one's purpose. As one feels it. Deeply. Unmovably. Unchangeably. Unshakably.

Live like that.

You will still die.

Haha.

But with a lot less regrets.

A lot better memories and lot more fulfillment about this physical experience that we call... life.

In the end, that's the only thing that matters.

Hari Om!

--Jay

"It's not about the destination. It's about the journey."

You must have heard this quote many times from many different people. The depth of meaning encapsulated within can only be discovered however by undertaking a journey yourself.

Undertaking a journey that:

forces you to adapt to the terrain,
compels you to get up when you fall,
forgive yourself when err in judgement

but congratulate yourself only when you have reached the destination.

Many of us have undertaken such journeys in life. If we haven't, we definitely will.

Maybe not towards a grand vision or goal but a journey maybe literally so still the same.

You cannot 'opt out' of struggle in the 'mrityu loka'. That is what defines this loka, this dimensions of existence.

To be here is to be finite. Is to be temporary. Is to be ever evolving, every changing, ever deteriorating, every regenerating.

To be here is to be mortal.

To be mortal is to desire.

To desire is to experience longing.

To experience longing is to experience pain in the pursuit of that.

THAT which sets your heart on fire and your illuminates your essence from within outwards... extending far into the space-time as a series of actions ever propagating.. ever generating ripples long after you're gone.

Any way of living that is short of that, is cheating yourself of everything you can be.

Any excuse or 'responsibility' that stops you, stifles you, prevents you from exercising the right to live how TRULY, is 'maaya'.

The illusion of choice is an illusion say the scriptures. The illusion of a lack of it is an illusion the same.

"Who are you O Partha in an illusionary world if not another illusion?"

"What is the pain of losing illusionary relationships?"

"What is the pleasure of gaining illusionary riches and accolades?"

-Bhagavad Gita

So 'pain' therefore is an illusion just the same.

If the 'pain' of illusionary regret and the 'pain' of illusionary improvement are the same.. why not should you choose..

the pain of improvement?

The pain of being who YOU were meant to be?

The pain of walking YOUR path with grace?

The pain of BECOMING the full version of who you are meant to be?

"All trappings of the world are illusionary O Janaka, and if you see yourself as separate from them, you are. If you see yourself enmeshed you are too."

-Ashtavakra Gita

The only thing that truly matters and defines your existence here my friend, is your devotion to your Dharma and your ability to perform your Karma without distraction or expectation.

What do you feel CALLED to do? DO THAT.

What do you feel CALLED to SERVE? DO THAT.

All trappings are illusionary. Drop your BS. Drop your lame excuses and sob stories and go LIVE in the full grandeur, beauty and pleasure that your soul manifested here to experience.

Death comes faster than we anticipate my friend.

"Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."

-Marcus Aurelius

Hari Om!

--Jay

If this resonated with something deep within you, perhaps your journey has already begun.

You can explore more of my work here:

🔹 Private Counsel:
https://coachkaushal.com/book-a-session-2/

🔹 Webinars & Teachings:
https://coachkaushal.com/rahu-ketu-understanding-the-axis-of-karma/

I don’t know what I was smiling about in this photo. Whatever it was it must have been real though. I know that.

I know that because I’ve looked at a lot of smiles and a lot of photos and I can spot ‘made-up’ and pretentious smiles from a mile and a half.

See life has a strange way of being completely perfect the less you yearn to share all of it out in the open all at once.

Even if ALL of it is grrreatt.. resist that temptation.

I wasn’t always like that. I didn’t always have that wisdom. Thanks to a deccade and a half of toiling for a PhD in problem solving, that’s default state now.

What is?

The state of being happy without having to prove my happiness to the world outside.

It’s not about ‘bad eyes’ or ‘bad luck’ trust me. It’s.. something.. else.. entirely..

I hadn’t anticipated on finding it the way I ended up finding it let me tell you that. It just happened.

One day you wake up and the angle of the sunlight hitting the table through the window as you stir your coffee, one eye on the newspaper.. is enough. Mid sip as you’ve raised your cup to your lips you realize… that was flawless.. wow!

. That was the quietest most perfect consistent 5 mins of my morning.. yet again.. damn! Does it mean what I think it means?

Is ‘this’ what they were writing about and talking about and singing about and painting about? ***This??***

But, how can the ‘missing piece’ be hidden in something as careless and mundane as the angle of sunlight hitting the table and illuminating the entire room for 5 minutes every morning as I just sit.. reading the paper with my coffee?

Then it hits you.

Whatever the hell is your secret formula for happiness doesn’t need to be shared or revealed to anyone else.

All you need to do is learn to keep that flame within you… lit.

No one needs to know what sacred coincidence triggers it every now and then. In fact.. saying it.. out LOUD.. may just lose it..

Like dew drops when they touch your fingers. Floating bubbles when they touch a leaf.

Smiley faces drawn on steamy windows..
‘Just the right amount’ of sugar in your hot chocolate..
A 7 day streak scoring the same parking spot..

No one needs to know what’s the secret to your smile today. Your smile needs to be the consistent appearance that rearranges the world around it.

You don’t need social validation for true smiles. You need just yourself.. by your side.. for it to really count.

As long as you can show up happy with it, it could be the smallest, most unreasonable thing in someone else’s frame of reference… but that doesn’t matter.

That’s because when you start protecting that little piece of joy.. it doesn’t matter where it’s coming from.. it just multiplies.

People who begin learning to find happiness in the smallest of things.. no matter what the circumstance or phase or season of life..

You can bet the universe is going to start sending them much bigger and better things to smile about.. a lot more consistently.

That’s the secret no one tells you.

Happiness doesn’t need a ‘big thing’ to happen.

Happiness IS the BIG thing that happens BEFORE anything else can!

Love,
—Jay