6 months into my Sabbatical

Intro

It’s been six months since I left my job. I’m proficient in neither writing nor recollecting, but I’ll give it my best shot.

Jan 2023-Feb 2025 at Solana, insane run. I can’t believe it’s been two years since college. Sounds like a long time, but as the cliches say, it feels like a snap of a finger.

I’m now 6 months into my sabbatical. I’ve spent my time figuring out my dharma, what I’m uniquely good at, and rebuilding intrinsic discipline. Here’s a look back before my next chapter

Q1 Sabbatical

There was a lot going on in my mind when I first left. I had money saved, so leaving work wasn’t as much of an issue as having complete unfettered control of my time without an immediate sense of purpose. But perhaps it was destiny, 2 days after leaving work, I had a travel arc in store.

Brazil: The boys and I hit up Carnival in the most hedonistic way possible. Michelin dinners every night, beautiful women, and somehow I was still juggling consulting for a friend’s startup in between.
Chicago: St. Patty’s day edition. We had a gang for the weekend in Chitwon, but tbh, I’m not doing that again. Felt like college dages with everyone day drinking in the streets. Fun time with friends, but not that lifestyle
Punta Cana: A spring break tradition with a couple of friends. Haven’t done a resort staycation in years, for valid reasons, but it was a good break
Fort Lauderdale: Brief stop back home, crazy I get to have FTL as home base, where everyone else goes to vacation
Norway: Solo travel to Oslo, which was a relaxing city. I made my first ever travel vlog here with all the strangers I met.
Undredal: Stayed in a cabin in the Fjords and turned off my phone for a couple of days to read the Bhagavad Gita. I live for mental challenges, and this was fundamental to my thinking over the next couple of months about my dharma and dealing with my emotions.
Geneva: Went to a watch conference with a friend. I used to think watches were stuck-up rich people’s toys, but started developing a liking to the taste and passion, and uniqueness that watchmakers and brands have created over the years.
Milan: Dropped 17k on the most consumerist items ever. Matching watches, Moncler jackets, and Goyard for the parents. Can’t believe this was my life. It was fascinating watching the world through the lens of the Gita. Can’t lie, let maya and my ego unapologetically take over.

The contrast of emotions

All of these experiences contrasted with the lessons they taught me.

Romance. Went through a breakup during this period, it was rudely in my face, I was alone, since most of my friends were in relationships. Once you’re exposed to angelic women in Norway and Brazilian women with insane bodies, the physical part of women stops mattering as much as the aspect of companionship. Wanting that ONE person in the world matters a lot more than the face card. I evolved in my perception of relationships. I’ve learned to more strongly define boundaries and gain comfort in solitude. Which is ironic, since my other friendships have arguably strengthened.

Consumerism. Once you achieve a level of success, I’ve noticed my relationship to money change. It’s as if i went from walking a puppy, to a German shepard jerking me off the sidewalk as he chases a butterfly. Points on a screen after all. But yet, how hypocritical is it for me to say I didn’t want money even as I spent more of it? I was on one hand, I was reading the Gita and aiming to renounce these material possesions, while seeking more. But in the lens of my wanting to acquire experiences to observe my reactions, it should be possible to hold both values in my mind. Even though I want this ultimate goal of detachment, in my life, I still want to experience everything, including what it feels like to walk down the streets of Milan with bags of designer. I feel the experience of spending was justified, since I never had a lot growing up. I used to fold a futon to work out in my room and move it to the side to work at my desk. what remains to be seen is if it continues or if it is a phase.

Career. Younger Harsha placed a tremendous value on career success. Younger Harsha wanted respect, and he saw respect when he destroyed everyone else on a test. He did that, but then he wanted respect for the next best internship. Next best job. Eventually, like any goal, once you achieve it, you realize the goal was merely a coping mechanism for insecurity. What then becomes the driving force, if not for insecurity? Well, reading the Gita, reflecting on my Dharma, and personal evolution over my mind mattered a lot more than financial success. I wasn’t a better person if I had $$$, or could program better than others. I was a better person if I helped the people around me. If I held my emotional ground. But still, most of the world around me remains on this material grind. It’s easy for me to say I don’t want it when I am surrounded by influencers, but I’ve seen the end already. It would be such a folly if I kept chasing others’ wants and not my own.

Friendship. Growing up, I was never that social. The weird kid in school likely developed an insecurity of wanting people around me, masked as hyper independence. After college, as if it were a violent coping mechanism, I became good at having people around me. Turns out, if you show curiosity towards others, they start wanting to have you in their lives. Not that I was faking it ever, but it has been interesting getting to a point where I have limited time for people who I want to open myself up to. I’ve reached a stage where I have my close 2-3 friends who I deeply understand and who deeply understand me, and I’m not overly attached to anyone. This implies I view everyone with 0 judgement, yet pick and choose what exact values & energy I want in my life. I gravitate towards openness and curiosity, detest secrets and limiting negative mindsets. Perhaps this is rather machiavellian, but I let people be exactly who they are, accept both their good and bad, and my friendships have never been healthier, more diverse, and filled with a zest for life. With all the ego in the world, I can be dropped into any city in the world, and I have confidence I can build an established group of friends for any activity and lifestyle, a very freeing

Never had time to truly process what I was able to experience, and it was over quicker than it happened, but more impactful than I imagined. Even the small things, like growing a beard for the first time, I was all of a sudden playing with my invisible appearance. It mirrored a lot of my own internal turmoil of growth, yet I was attempting to understand myself deeper than before.

The travel arc ended as soon as it started.

Q2 Sabbatical

I’m now back in Florida, and it’s time to apply what I learned. I stayed consistent with content, but still kept up a healthy amount of exploration.

The content consistency started as pure shit posts: me practicing guitar, talking about random encounters with women, and sharing the cooking app I was building. At first, it felt like I was wasting time (still does), but the fun part of getting zero views is that you stop caring what people think as long as you keep posting. But even this seemingly meaningless exposure netting me 36k profile views on instagram in a month. For a merely above-average looking guy, this is stunning. People actually telling me they watched my stuff, and even liked it (perhaps it was polite, but why does it matter to me?). It did add pressure to me to “stick” to what I was doing, but eventually, I tried experimenting with content series, specifically a cooking series of me committing to trying to cook new dishes. I honestly did not keep up with the consistency I promised myself. Way too overproduced with too little cadence, and my fall off was evident. BUT, at least I committed to an experiment, and even tried new dishes. Most importantly, I gained more insight into how tremendously hard it is to juggle multiple tasks at once, between coding, filming, cooking, and eating, it’s a difficult challenge to know what is the most important task at hand, even when they are all important.

Through all this, my conception of self deepened. First, through reconnecting with old friends, I was reminded of the characteristics 10-year-old Harsha had that made him unique. I used to spend a lot of time with this one friend, Alan, in 3rd grade, making origamis together. He was one of my first creative inspirations, and seeing how similar a path we were on, was fascinating. I thought about how I used to spend my leisure time, in economic cycle games like Poptropica and punch club. I naturally gravitated to repeatable strategy games, perhaps that resembled one of my deeper, incorruptible truths. I wanted to bring that energy back. I even changed my phone lock screen to a picture of my seven-year-old self to remind me of that kid.

In the same vein, I’m very proud of the fact that I was able to build up my boundaries for my own conception of the world. If friends did something I didn’t like, I made my feelings obvious. I am becoming more and more comfortable with just doing what I want. Talking to strangers, I’ve always been pretty good at that, but now it’s second nature, and expected that I will meet a new stranger every time I walk outside. Sure, I feel foolish posting parts of my life online, but I do what I want in order to overcome all possible fears I might have.

Exploration and side-quests didn’t stop either.

Conference on Dharma (duty), where people discussed what an individual’s duty is to uphold the society around them. It has become a fundamental lens in how I see the world now
Cultural convention in Tampa with a bunch of my Telugu friends was fun experiencing my Telugu side. Driving top down in Florida weather, what else can you really ask for? Made my most viewed video there too, which gave me a chance to reflect on group dynamics & celebrity culture
Cultural cruise to the Caribbean. A lot of these people were going to college, and so they were just seeing their young energy, not knowing about where the world was going, but still living it up and having fun, not having all the pressures of the world. Still in touch with a lot of these people. Fascinating how much culture can add to one’s life, and how much it adds to my life.
Coldplay and the Weeknd concerts back to back. I much prefer raves.
Back into dating, talked to my first ever white girl, nothing racist, but a huge new step in my experiences.

Time is running faster and faster. At the start of summer, I made this big list of everything I was going to do, and I’ve already blown way past it. Months of my life in a few short paragraphs. Weird. Feels like I have very little to show for it, but too much to ever even talk about. That saying about the days being long but the decades being short is unfortunately more true than I ever realized.

I wasn’t even close to hitting all the goals I wanted. I even let go of good habits I had, like working out, and lost a bunch of weight for sure. Perhaps my mental state wasn’t the best, my list of non-negotiables is too low, but I need to figure out what systems I can build to actually make my goals a reality. I thought I learned this lesson years ago, but apparently I needed the reminder.

H2 Sabattical

This was a reflection essay on how far I’ve come in these 6 months to reclaiming my humanity and whimsicality.

On the surface, I can’t say I’m concretely better at any skill. Not a better programmer, not more ripped, not more mentally stable.

But yet, I understand myself, my strengths, and weaknesses better. My relationships have deepened in width and breadth. I’m slowly ridding myself of societal desires and identifying my own. It’s interesting. I have not “succeeded” in any economic sense, but I am succeeding in a spiritual development sense.

It feels like the past 6 months were pure enjoyment from the outside, but only I know, only this current version of Harsha knows, the mental anguish he’s gone through. The hard work of living with an imperfect self, even though it seems like it should be perfect. Woe be me and all of course, but I would rather go through this now than later. I’m proud of the development I’ve gone through, and that’s all I can ask for. Even the times I’ve just rotted away all of my time doing nothing, even that, even other bad habits, all of that was just another good omen wrapped up, showing where I need to improve. Every mistake I’ve done is just another avenue for my improvements. I think I’m just in a very positive state right now, and I’m able to accept that everything that’s been happening is just purely for me to look good. And with that, I am proud of where I have come so far.