Category: #30trust

#30trust, #trust30, Writing

Fear: A Blog Post

Sanjay Sabarwal
Cover of "Fear of Writing"
Cover of Fear of Writing

Fear by Lachlan Cotter
These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is fear holding you back from living your fullest life and being truly self expressed? Put yourself in the shoes of the you who’s already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following:

Is the insecurity you’re defending worth the dream you’ll never realize? or the love you’ll never venture? or the joy you’ll never feel?

Will the blunder matter in 10 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes?

Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are?

Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.

I knew it would be difficult to take on the 30 challenge more so than anything  else because it would require me to face my fear of writing regularly and perhaps on some sort of schedule.  The stories sit inside me cobwebbed, yet I feel great anxiety when I start to dust off the past to write about it mainly because I have not dealt with the emotional consequence as well as having a turbulent present.  So where do I begin? That’s the question I am stuck or similarly whenever people ask what I want to write about, I say Ziba but to be quite honest, I do not if that’s the first story I want to tell.

As I witnessed a good friends wedding from UCLA, and being around other UCLA friends, I realized how much I miss that perfect time when all that mattered was scholarship and friendship.  It was a perfect time when writing came to be easy and words just appeared when I sat in front of the campus desktop computer.  Yet more than anything else, I was not alone.  I remember spending nights on my friend’s couch when I had no money for dorm housing, and benefiting greatly from the generosity of true friends who I see now 15 years later, and it is as if nothing has changed.  We all have spouses now, and we are older but just for that one night, we felt like we were 21 again, laughing and giggling about the dumb things we did at UCLA.

Yes the insecurity returns when the 39-year-old me sits here and wonder what to write about and it hits me that more than anything else, I am fighting about my own story.  I do not who I am anymore.  Years ago, I had a defined personality and name away from Ziba Beauty but now I am just a co-owner and while the opportunities are endless, there is a sense of betrayal to my sense of what I should be doing: which is writing.  So more than anything else, as I sit in this hotel room in New York, I am determined now to keep writing regularly and hopefully have something published next year.

Divine Idea by Fabian Kruse
Imitation is Suicide. Insist on yourself; never imitate. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down in which areas of your life you have to overcome these suicidal tendencies of imitation, and how you can transform them into a newborn you – one that doesn’t hide its uniqueness, but thrives on it. There is a “divine idea which each of us represents” – which is yours?

Currently, I have a tendency of copying and pasting my own old writings and not really creating anything new so I need to stop “killing” myself and just sit down and write.

 

 

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Afraid to Do/Personal Message

Sanjay Sabarwal

In the midst of a humid and hot as hell New York, I stayed away from the laptop just taking in the alone time with her and some old family.  So far, it has to led to mixed results as we have become rusty at truly being alone together.  The constant calls and texts from others do not help sometimes only because we have become new at being with each other. Sad truth is, we are struggling more so because there are some old habits we have that are hard to break, and are creating constant friction.  Anyways, that is my long winded way of saying sorry, I didn’t get to the prompts for these reasons/

Trust30-Day 9-Afraid to Do

Afraid to Do by Mary Jaksch

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson says: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” What is ‘too scary’ to write about? Try doing it now.

Writing for me has always been personal but recent comments by others in my family and others close to me have now made me scared to put down anything “real” or “off the cuff” for fear of offending them as well as coming off as harsh.  I feel as if I can no longer vent bout the issues that are affect my due to friends and family.   Unfortunately, I am in a position that I cannot blog about it but I did manage to find another outlet which is to write a blank document, rant and rave and then deleting so I don’t have the stress that I will offend someone. 

Your Personal Message by Eric Handler
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is burning deep inside of you? If you could spread your personal message RIGHT NOW to 1 million people, what would you say?

My message would be a copy and paste of Pema Chodron.  To let things be, let emotion flow around you and don’t waste time on things that do not matter, spend time on the ones that make you matter. 

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Dare to be Bold About Ziba: A Blog Post

Sanjay Sabarwal
tabiat ziba
Image via Wikipedia

Today, let’s take a step away from rational thought and dare to be bold. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to accomplish but have been afraid to pursue? Write it down. Also write the obstacles in your way of reaching your goal. Finally, write down a tangible plan to overcome each obstacle.

The only thing left is to, you know, actually go make it happen. What are you waiting for?

(Author: Matt Cheuvront)

The one thing I have always to accomplished to write a full length book, and the main obstacle really has been my fear and laziness in actually get my crap together, committing to a schedule and actually writing.  It’s a bit more complicated than that.  I am still unsure if I have a story in my life.  I know I want to write but about what, not sure exactly.  Well. that’s not true exactly.  I definitely want to write a memoir about Ziba and then perhaps about myself but I hesitate because I find the subject to be too large.  That’s not true either. I am just not committed to a schedule.  I feel that being General Counsel, I should focus more on that aspect for the day-to-day when my real talent and passion are in writing.  So I need to work on an outline, put down all the ideas, put them together in a coherent way and then get to writing.  The more I think about it, the memoir on Ziba would be fascinating as we went from a business that started on $2000 to over several million dollars as well expanding to become the industry leaders in the Eyebrow threading category.  Where I get stuck is more emotional in that what was my role in it, did I really do much more than ride its coattails, and only now can I confidently say that no I gave it my all.  My main obstacle is my lack of commitment to a schedule to just research, interview, and then write.  Until I treat it as a time sensitive project, it will not get done.

The other obstacle could be the topic itself, because as much as I want to write about Ziba, I am hesitant to since it’s family and perhaps a bit too personal  More than anything else, I want to be published and it is this uncertainty on what to write that I flounder yet as I write these words I know the story that has the greatest chance is the one about Ziba and it would also allow to write full time as this would be a “work” assignment so starting I commit to start this project September 1st (get the wedding and honeymoon done in style July, August, as well perhaps start on an outline) and commit to a complete rough draft by the end of 2011 (that would also solve one of my major goals before I turn 40).

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Come Alive

Sanjay Sabarwal

Come Alive by Jonathan Mead
Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? In what areas of your life are you preparing to live? Take them off your To Do list and add them to a To Stop list. Resolve to only do what makes you come alive.

Bonus: How can your goals improve the present and not keep you in a perpetual “always something better” spiral?

(Author: Jonathan Mead)

I am in the rare position in life where I can say that I would still be doing what I am doing now if I had a week to live with the exception of a few things I wish I was doing more (traveling more, reading more, trying out new activities such as camping), and I realize that I love where I work, I have the partner I love but, (isn’t there always one but?) I am missing some part of my old self, and that’s who I was when I ran Ziba Music with my father and the fact that I was always open to new experiences.  I see now that I want to reconnect with old friends more, old activities even more and limit some of the new people I hang around with only to do things I truly love with my partner.  I would say that I am at 75% in terms of not changing my week but would like at least 2 days to be spent with old friends, doing an event and perhaps traveling. My current goals are getting me to that ideal 100% as just this weekend, I reconnected with some dear friends of mine, spent quality time with her and my family and finally got to do a BBQ at a place (for me, it was the ideal weekend).  Now just gotta make sure I have more weekends like this!

 

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Travel Prompt

Sanjay Sabarwal

Travel by Chris Guillebeau
If we live truly, we shall see truly. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?

(Author: Chris Guillebeau)
I hadn’t thought of this aspect for my life and I realized that I had very vague notions of traveling, preferring, instead ,to surprise myself by visiting places I have heard of but no know about it.  Now that could be the simplistic  travel the world but that seems like a cop-out and did not really answer the question, but then it hit me that I did try once to travel all over India so perhaps the short answer to visit India, I mean really visit, travel the country, but various methods of transportation, get to know the country in a more intimate way rather than half-remembered places and figure out what makes me tick coming from a country of billion.

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Trust 30 Prompts: Catching up online (A Blog Post)

Sanjay Sabarwal
Title page of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609)
Image via Wikipedia

So I got a bit lazy in terms of posting my prompts but somehow the defensiveness side of me wanted to make them public so whoever reads my blogs knows that I am not a quitter or one who does not follow through so here are my prompts that I have putting on random documents for the last few days.

Post-it Question by Jenny Blake

That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Identify one of your biggest challenges at the moment (ie I don’t feel passionate about my work) and turn it into a question (ie How can I do work I’m passionate about?) Write it on a post-it and put it up on your bathroom mirror or the back of your front door. After 48-hours, journal what answers came up for you and be sure to evaluate them.

Bonus: tweet or blog a photo of your post-it.
My post it note that’s planted on my laptop was:  HOW DO I GET PASSIONATE ABOUT WRITING REGULARLY?  Today is 48 hours later, and I keep remembering the time when I took the class Revisiting the Muse, and it was during those days as well as her Cancer treatment that I was really, truly into the experience of writing because it was my only way of truly expressing myself.  Whenever I veer away from the path of using writing as my ultimate expression tool, I resort to pettiness, day-to-day nostalgia and somehow feeling full of this emotional gunk that makes me not even like myself really.  So what was it about those times? A writing schedule, and a morning one at that.  I don’t know when I turned into a morning person but the last few years, what I have in common with my dad is truly scary.  Nowadays, he is up at 530 and in bed b 9pm.  Ok, so I am not that bad, but I was waking up around 730 and in the quiet of the morning, when I had no distractions, I would pour out my soul.  But some silly comments that I was always in the other room, I took to mean that I shouldn’t be writing when the complaint was not about the other room but about disappearing with no comment and not spending quality time. So I stopped the writing schedule, and although I did not immediately feel it, my writing has suffered and the past few classes, I have merely trudged through the assignments, cutting and pasting from older essays not realizing exactly why my creativity had dried up. Now I see it.  I need that morning outlet, I need to keep reading, I need to stay intellectually stimulated.

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