Zoe and Rajat recently asked me to share a note for their son’s 13th birthday. The ask was simple, yet it suddenly made me think of my life in third-person, also sending me back in time to pay a visit to 13-year old Akshay. Even as almost everything had changed, the memories from steel city Bhilai in India were as vivid as if it were yesterday.

As I thought more on something meaningful to share with them, my mind revisited a characteristically deep conversation with Kevin, Patxi, and Maria when we met after a long time in October 2019.

Kevin lamented, “You know, sometimes I really miss having role models in my life.”
Maria and Patxi both nodded in agreement.
It’s a void many of us may have felt at times, and I responded with another thought, “what if we went beyond human role models, and focused on principles instead?”
Kevin responded, “that’s an interesting thought…”

I don’t recall how the conversations meandered after, but the thought stuck with me for a while.
I believe role models are essential because they show us how to live principles in action. But isn’t it also equally important to put our finger on the underlying principles themselves – if only to guide us in possibly embodying a role model figure ourselves? Voila!

So I decided to make a 13-layered cake out of lessons for their son, some of the lessons drawn from my own experiences too:

The Bread:

1. Be careful about the role models you choose, and how deeply you choose to embody them – lest you end up becoming their pale shadow, missing the chance to investigate your innate potential. It’s a fruitful exercise to go deeper into what about the role model draws you – if you can boil it down to a few simple principles, it becomes much easier to carry!
2. Everything in moderation, including moderation – so you should go wild sometimes – “sometimes”. But that also means saying no to yourself many-a-time – even for your favorite Netflix show or meal. No one ever said they regretted eating healthy the night before. 🙂
3. The only honesty that really matters is with yourself – parents, friends, teachers can all be hoodwinked with some luck and perseverance (you’re a smart guy), but you can’t be dishonest with yourself without consequences.
4. You may understand this more as you grow older, but the fact that you’re reading this note (and many others, courtesy your parents) on your birthday already puts you high on the bar of privilege. While the world’s suffering shouldn’t weigh on your conscience, it does present you with a unique opportunity for impact. ‘Who’ is benefitting (or alternatively suffering) because of your efforts (and how) matters more than ‘what’ you do.
5. Similar, but different – the only time you should look into your neighbor’s bowl is to see if they have enough. The only way we’re going to make it through is together. Anthropology studies say that an individual human gene is not that different from that of our closest primate friends – what is different though is our language and ability to cooperate, even in as large numbers as 100,000 (size of a typical large corporation).
6. Mastering processes > achieving goals. Mastering processes requires deliberate practice to apply resilience, perseverance, and ability to focus through pain, boredom, and discomfort without snapping – these are all basic ingredients that set top performers apart from others. The harder you work at building things (even habits), the harder it is to let go of them, and the higher the odds that they integrate into your identity. Basically you just ‘become’ what you practice every day.
7. Uncomfortably optimistic > comfortably despondent. If you practice keeping your mind open, you will become better at finding inspiration from the smallest things around you – and that’s enough to keep you going.
8. You may reach a stage in life where you feel no one around is able to answer your hard questions any more (yes, not even Google). It doesn’t mean you stop asking hard questions – there is always a silver lining to each dark cloud – spotting it depends on how hard you can look. The corollary is also true though, just because you can ask a question doesn’t mean that there is a ‘right’ answer to it. Sometimes you have to make up your own answers just to keep going.
9. When you sense doubts or conflicts within, the last thing you want to do in life is to go faster to outpace them. Alternatively, stillness sometimes has a way of teaching us subtle truths and uncovering blindspots that we wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. Use stillness to accept and tame the butterfly-like mind inside.
10. Why did science win the battle against dogmatism? Because science was willing to accept faults and failures, and start over again. Be like science.
11. Fighting for what you believe in > fighting against what others believe in. Why? Because there’s a chance that everybody wins in the former (it can actually happen), but the latter almost always is a zero-sum game, i.e. has a winner and loser. Most people will support you for what you do passionately, because they see you come alive doing it.

The Icing:

12. Joseph Campbell said, “The best things can’t be told. The second best are misunderstood. The third best are what we talk about.” Life’s real secrets are secrets not because they’re physically concealed in some texts, sermons, or life experiences, but because no one understands them despite their numerous references and omnipresence.
13. Frank Zappa said, “If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.” None of us adults have seen or are fully prepared for the times ahead of us – use your head, trust your instincts, and have fun!

I hope you too will have fun cutting into the cake and relishing it, and digesting what you choose to eat. Please do send me return cakes as well if you’ve learned to bake yours yet!

Bonus: Which one was your favorite? Fill in the Google form here, and I’ll post the top voted-for principles in one of my next posts.