Guess what? Sonali dropped 🗣️🗣️🗣️

For those who are new here, hi 👋! And for those who aren't, welcome backkk!

For some much-needed context, I started a newsletter this past semester where I reflected on the books I was reading/my thoughts, shared some productivity tips, community events, my favorite things, and anything else that came to mind. It's probably the most lowkey newsletter you'll find because it's literally just unfiltered me speaking in rough draft. That said, y'all are my accountability buddies making sure I journal and get a sneak peek into my life. If you're interested, feel free to stick around ;)

If you're looking for some of the most recent newsletters, they all are compiled here!

More Thoughts:

• I have a new, fancier email now 🤭.
• If you stick around until May, you'll get to start joining me on my travel journey!
• My favorite thing from last semester was hearing y'all's musings. It ended up turning into "community musings" at a certain point.
• I missed this! I do these honestly to keep myself less frazzled 🥴.

👀 My Musings

This week, I'm going to take it easy and talk about uncertainty (leaving The Top Five Regrets of the Dying & Die with Zero for another day, ha!).

For the first time in my life, I feel some (*lots*) of uncertainty in my life path. Thus far, my path has been: high school --> starting a nonprofit (#YAS) --> going to college --> joining nonprofit boards --> pursuing other "pet projects" --> ❓. Sure, this might not be the path most students have taken up to this point (and I'm not planning on dropping any of the amazing things I'm committed to), but to me, this road just made sense. It was easy to see the next step per se. Long story short, I don't know what do to with my life because there are just so. many. options. And in all honestly, it used to make me nervous to think about it.

Over winter break, I did lots of journaling, thinking, and reading to better understand why I feel unease with the unknown, and I concluded that it was because 1) what if I chose the wrong door and it didn't have as high of an ROI as an alternative; 2) what if every other door shuts while I'm going through one; 3) What if I am not as energized by what's behind the door as I thought I'd be. After sitting with these three challenges, I realized that all these statements come with a scarcity mindset. I keep hearing about my peers being unable to find jobs where they're not under-employed, how the funding pie is only "so big," and how there's not enough opportunity to go around. I agree that the scarcity mindset does have some truth to it, but I realized that I have enough conviction in myself and the work I do where these factors aren't a real issue. If something doesn't work out... pivot! That's what test runs, experiments, and pilot programs are for.

From all my thinking, here's what helped me become less unease with uncertainty:

• Reframe Uncertainty: Uncertainty is a blessing. I bet there will be a time in the future when I wish I had more uncertainty in my life. People often want what they don't have. The reason why I have this kind of uncertainty is BECAUSE I have so many opportunities. Isn't that kind of awesome? When you say the negative, reframe it with positive affirmations.
• Experiment: We let fear stop us from even getting started. There are a lot of doors you walk in that you could just as easily walk right out of or mold the opportunity to treat it as an experiment. You want to start a business, but are too iffy about quitting your job for it? Try it out alongside your day job or school. You want to be a "creator" but don't know through what format? Give yourself two months to try each creator path to see what energizes you most (long-form YouTube, blogging, short-form, etc.)
• Pay Down Ignorance Debt: This has been my saving grace. To have faith in yourself, come up with innovative ideas, and formulate new perspectives comes with lots of learning. I've read my fair share of books on uncertainty, its implications, and the things that can help me understand the unknown.

I wouldn't say I'm any closer to understanding what my five-year path looks like (and for the Friends fans in the room, y'all know Pheobe says it best), but reframing uncertainty has been one of the best things I could have done. Most of us have a place where we need to reframe uncertainty into a positive. If relevant, give youjs the time to do that in your life!

P.S. A good book for people going down unconventional career paths is The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd. There are lots of people in my life who are doing just that and may enjoy it!

🪄 Casual Magic

For those who don't know what casual magic is, find my past post on it, here.

Current casual magic is that today is a slower day than most. Usually, if I'm not leaving Chapel Hill for an event, there's a midterm or hours of meetings. I'm just sitting here with my gingerbread candle (casual magic within my casual magic because it's my comfort scent) in a fuzzy blanket, getting some deep work in. The rest of March is chill (by Sonali standards) before running around like a madman in April.

🧠 Productivity Tip

Put Your Money on Your Goals: So, I don't usually love the concept of putting "negative" incentives on goals, but sometimes you need it to get started (feel-good-productivity and discipline don't always work 🤷🏽‍♀️). That said, get yourself an accountability buddy, and every time you don't hit that intrinsic goal, set an amount to pay them!

For example, if I'm not in the gym for a certain amount of hours a week, I have to pay my bestie $150 (and that's per every week I don't hit that goal). No matter the discipline, it's tough when it's midterm season. But potentially losing $150 weekly reprioritizes the gym for me 💀 ! I would only leave something like this as a last resort, but it works!

🥳 Community Event Spotlight

​Raleigh-Durham Startup Week is a regional movement – powered by a team of founders, entrepreneurs, and support organizations dedicated to showcasing the vibrant entrepreneurial community in the Triangle area. They strive to create meaningful moments to enrich entrepreneurial culture and our local startup community. They have 50+ sessions between their Idea, Build, and Scale Tracks.

Dates: 1-4 PM on April 9-12th
Cost: Free!

❤️ My Favorite Things this Week

1. 📕 Book - The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware is one of those where if you've talked to me in the past month, this has probably come up in some conversation. It's about a lady sharing her experiences working in palliative care. She finds the trends and shares stories about her patients.
2. 🎙️ Podcast - Most folks in my generation within the South Asian community followed the big-name YouTuber, Lilly Singh, back in the day. Lilly moved on from YouTube and in this episode, talks about her "failed" late-night gig, her beliefs around hustle culture, and her challenges with tying her identity to her work.
3. 📱 Productivity App - Grain is one of my new favorite AI tools. You can upload your meeting/audio recordings and get transcriptions, speaker information, summaries, action items, and other things that'd be beneficial for you to have.
4. 🎁 Product - I have become a candle girlie this school year and didn't know there was such a thing as candle-warming lamps? It's flameless, and you can keep any candle under it. I LOVE mine! ​
5. 🚀 Nonprofit - Art for All - NC is one of my favorite newer nonprofits cultivating community through art. They do the work to ensure communities of all backgrounds have access to arts education.​

✍️Quote of the Week

“I think that when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind - this attitude of uncertainty - is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire.” ~ Richard Feynman