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There is no such thing as being self-made. I refuse to believe that human beings and anyone for that matter, have any natural capacity to be self-made. Michael Sandel’s “The Tyranny of Merit — What’s Become of the Common Good, ”- is a hard read but had quite an impact on my deeply rooted opinions on, life, basically. The thought of wanting to solve all these misconceptions plagues me to a point where I don’t even put an effort to think. At the risk of sounding like I’ve figured it all out after one book, I put together 2 things I’d like to believe I learned. 1. The irony about self-made people: The concept of ‘self-made’ or self-sufficiency had the heaviest impact on me. What a life-changing experience it was to learn that the more one considers oneself self-made, the harder it is to instill gratitude and humility. And this matters because it is rare to care about the common good without these sentiments. Most of us enjoy the pride we take in the independence we set for ourselves. The

Just a picture taken two months ago A few years ago, I wrote this article about how confused and how many questions I had before going to college. I was going to start a completely new adventure in my life, travelling more than five hundred kilometers from home, in a sub-tropical climate only to challenge my body that has endured extreme cold but not heat. I was then eighteen, curious and firing with excitement, ready to bring myself out to the world with the teenage motivation. I’d have imagined my college in ten thousand ways and often hoping it not to be less than stairs that opened with passwords and cozy common rooms for study, or a library with deep secrets. I must’ve idealized my college too much but I couldn’t blame because even after reaching the college and seeing what it exactly looked like, or worked, I would secretly hope for something fascinating to happen, at some point. It’s been four years now, and this is my fifth year. And if you ask me, I’m still trying

We’re in the midst of an angry whirlwind the pandemic has produced but I’d like to think that we’re nearing the end of it. Or the beginning. Of something else. I wouldn’t possibly know. I probably sat on this article for too long, desperately trying to write and miserably failing at every attempt. But what crazy two years it has been for all of us. 2022 didn’t start off quite well for me and while we’re already into the second half of the year now, I guess I’m still trying to find my way out of things I wish I hadn’t started. Robert Frost, a long long time ago said that the only way out is through, and perhaps it’s true. So sometimes it feels like my whole life’s purpose is hanging by a random figurative thread strung by a poet, who quite possibly, despised how the world functioned. But I have to say, the year has been transformative and it has brought out some good stories that can only be told over a drink someday, — Cautiously though, because not all stories I tell over a drink hav