One Inch At A Time.

There Are No Life-Changing Moments.

Last year, I read over 40 self-help books. That’s over a four hundred self-help, neuroscience, psychology or self-improvement books in my entire life. Each book that I’ve read has filled me up with hope, only to leave me more disappointed later.

The promise? Most self-help books start with the promise of “changing your life”. Pay twenty-five bucks, buy my book, read it, follow the principals, and I am going to change your life. I’ve tasted the self-help Kool-Aid and have come to one singular conclusion - most authors who take on the I-will-change-your-life tone are either just doing that to sell their books, or are echo chambers of other self-help gurus who are simply pulling a scam.

After spending hours, days and years of my life searching for an answer; that moment that will change my life, I seem to be getting to this one singular conclusion: This may sound slightly pessimistic, but there are no life-changing moments in the real world.

Life As A Game Of Inches

Life is a game of inches. Every change that happens in our personality, character and even habit is evolutionary. It’s slow, it’s gradual and almost always, it’s never as fast as we want it to happen. But there is a silver lining to this. The changes may not happen fast as we want them to happen, but they are also not as slow as we think they will be. There was a colleague in one of the places who always used to say:

Nothing in life happen as fast or as slow as you want it or expect it to happen. (OR) Nothing in life is as good as bad as it seems.

The hustle culture that we live in has given rise to this idea of aiming for results and goals and when we make goals we put timelines next to these goals, without realizing that life is quite literally a game of inches and the only thing you can do to solve a problem in life is to move ahead, one inch at a time.

Because in the end, no self-help book will come to your rescue to change your life. In the end, it’s always the tiny inches that you’ve collected in life that will start to add up.

The guy who tops that exam, is not the guy who was given 6 hours of uninterrupted time on a platter. He has been inching ahead, by pulling tiny pomodoro sessions, listening to audio lectures, or reading on his mobile device, when he was at waiting for his turn at the dental clinic, or when he was stuck in traffic.

The guy, who is the most productive at work, was inching ahead in those 15 minutes that he had free between two meetings. The guy who learns to play the piano or drive or juggle or dance at age 40, didn’t do that by quitting his job or taking a long vacation so that he can give time to these hobbies. He was inching ahead at his hobbies every single day by giving them 20 to 30 minutes of time, every single day.

That couple who lived happily ever after don’t do that by being pre-programmed for each other. They don’t do it by quitting their jobs and going on long vacations together. They do it by spending little moments with each other, creating little shared experiences, tiny little meaningful conversations with each other. Put another way, they inch ahead in their relationship. One tiny little inch at a time, while others fight with each other on how “you don’t give me time!” or “we never go out on long vacations together!”

All of these people are masters of managing these inches. They all know that in the end, you can only inch forward. They all intuitively know that in the end, the inches add up. This blog is my little project at inching ahead; in my work life, in my personal life, in my hobbies and above all, in my relationships.

In the days to come, I’ll take up tiny little inching ahead experiments, where I make one tiny little tweak or decide to spend just 20 minutes a day on a little experiment trying out something new.

I don’t want you to read this blog because I promise you answers. I am just as lost as you are, maybe even more. All I am telling you, is that I plan on embarking on a little journey, and you should read this blog if you plan on coming along with me. This blog, is not going to change your life.