“Silence is golden, and my heart is gold.”

It is Thursday today.

The rain has been following the road all day, as though nature itself has decided to travel with me. I am not in a hurry. I am a traveller, perhaps not always of roads, but of life. I have learned to accept its lessons as they arrive—without asking too many questions, without demanding that tomorrow reveal itself today.

So far, everything is going good.

I had some food for the soul this morning. Enough to activate my senses, enough to tell nature, I am here. I am on a trail.

There is still one book I would like to finish.

It is not sitting on a shelf.

It is the book of my life.

Every page carries a little of me—some mistakes, some laughter, some people, some departures, some unexpected kindness. I have watched relationships arrive tenderly and grow with time. Some became happy chapters. Some became quiet ones. Some went low, as all living things sometimes do.

But I have realised something: relationships matter more than we admit. For success, for happiness, for becoming a better human being, they matter immensely.

Because the kindness of time never really grows old.

You never know what time will bring next. So be polite. Be gentle. Be kind.

Perhaps that is one of the simplest keys to inner growth.

People are sharp. People are clever. But people are also kind. And kindness has a strange power. It does not bow easily before power or the mighty sword. Sometimes a soft word can accomplish what strength cannot.

People sometimes ask me, “How do you still look so young?”

I smile.

Perhaps growing old begins somewhere in the mind before it ever reaches the face. Perhaps youth is partly about how we use our thoughts, our energy, our vibes.

We take multiple jobs. We carry multiple roles. We become teachers, managers, parents, earners, problem-solvers, providers. And somewhere between the deadlines and responsibilities, we become trapped in the great modern troll of always being busy.

But what looks plain from outside is often filled with pain inside.

That pain is not always our enemy.

Sometimes pain is the patience of life.

No pain, no gain—we have heard it a thousand times. But perhaps the deeper lesson is this: pressure moulds effort, and effort pushes you inward. When you dive into yourself, you slowly discover the person you are meant to become.

And this is where the irony begins.

People think they are losing time when they stop to know themselves.

They say, “I have no time for self-care. I have a business to grow. A family to manage. Money to make.”

Haha, my friend.

This is where the whole of life is hiding.

We are often weak at taking care of ourselves but strangely proud of carrying the affairs of the entire world upon our shoulders.

And then one day we ask, “Where did all the time go?”

We don’t know.

Money remains behind. Today, even the face of money has become digital. You cannot touch it. You can only watch the numbers grow—or disappear.

Yet we allow a few pieces of paper, or their digital shadows, to turn us into donkeys ridden by work.

Affection, too, is sometimes blamed.

People say attachment makes a person weak.

But who knows this better than Lord Ganesha, who was surrounded by love, affection and family?

Perhaps affection does not make us weak. Perhaps losing ourselves completely inside attachment does.

The real danger is the ninanve-ka-pheer—the endless chase of ninety-nine, where one achievement immediately demands another, one rupee asks for another, one success wants a bigger success.

You keep running.

You keep counting.

And suddenly you discover that you have forgotten the person who was doing all the running.

You.

That is why self-awareness is not wasted time. It may be the most productive time a human being can spend.

Even psychology now gives language to something ancient travellers, saints and quiet people have known for centuries. Mindfulness encourages us to notice our thoughts, feelings and surroundings without immediately judging or reacting to them. Research reviewed by the American Psychological Association also points to benefits for stress management and emotional well-being.

Perhaps that is why rain feels different when you are not fighting it.

You hear it.

You breathe with it.

You allow the road to become the road.

And suddenly, you are no longer travelling through weather.

You are travelling through yourself.

I have written before about how invisible stress can quietly sit inside an ordinary life, and how gratitude can make a strange place feel like home. Those thoughts still walk beside me today. The Invisible Stress You Didn’t Know You Were Carrying and Sunday Letters: When Gratitude Feels Like Home are, in their own ways, pages from the same larger diary—the diary of becoming human.

So come on, my friend.

Don’t play too much with life.

Don’t spend all your years wearing masks simply because the world expects a certain face.

Be what you are.

Keep your core soft.

Keep that komal part of you alive—the lotus that still opens despite the mud, the quiet heart that still believes in kindness, the little cosmic player inside you who knows that life is both serious and a little funny.

Let it glow.

Let it play.

And when Thursday brings rain, don’t curse the clouds.

Perhaps the sky is simply reminding you:

You are still travelling.

You are still becoming.

And the most beautiful chapter of your life may still be waiting to be written.

Until then, keep walking gently.

— Rohitash