I finished The Next Day by Melinda French Gates last night, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
The book touches on the end of marriage in two different stories. Once through death, and once through divorce. They’re not the same kind of loss; the pain is different, the aftermath is different, but in both, life continues. You move on. What stayed with me is how honestly she sits with that.
It got me thinking about my own culture. Divorce isn’t common where I come from (it’s becoming more accepted), slowly, but the older generation, especially, a lot of those marriages probably should have ended, but didn’t. Not because things were good, but because nobody wanted to put that on the family. I used to understand that reasoning. Now I’m not sure I agree with it. Staying in something that isn’t working isn’t protecting anyone, not the people in the marriage, not the people around it. I think choosing to leave, when that’s the right choice, takes its own kind of courage.
But honestly, what I kept coming back to wasn’t even about marriage specifically.
It’s this: you can’t lean too heavily on anyone. Not your husband, not your kids, not your friends. Not because they don’t matter, they do, but because people change. Everyone is, in some way, a passing cloud.
The only person who is always there is YOU.
So I keep coming back to this to find the quiet. Sit in it. Listen to yourself. What do you want? What are you feeling? What are you becoming? Because here’s the thing, even you change. You’re not the same person you were five years ago, and you won’t be the same person five years from now. So self-knowledge can’t be something you figure out once and set aside. It’s something you have to keep coming back to.
That’s what this week has been for me. A reminder to check back in with myself.
Methods to Find Yourself
I started thinking about what it actually means to check back in with yourself, as a practice. Something I can do regularly. Because the noise doesn’t stop on its own. The world doesn’t pause and say, take a moment, find yourself. You have to carve that out.
So here are the things I’m bringing into my life, as commitments.
Write
There is something that lives underneath your thoughts that you don’t know is there until you start writing. Journaling isn’t about documenting your day. It’s about excavating yourself. You put pen to paper, and things surface feelings you hadn’t named, patterns you hadn’t noticed, truths you’d been too busy to sit with. You don’t know what you actually think until you write it down.
Try it. You’ll surprise yourself.
Meditate
Meditation is another way to listen to yourself. Or maybe more accurately, a way to stay still. We are so used to moving, filling, doing. Meditation is the practice of stopping and just stopping the running. That capacity to just be to sit inside the quiet without immediately reaching for a distraction, is rarer than it sounds.
Read
Reading is solitude that doesn’t feel lonely. A good book pulls you out of the noise of your own life and somehow, in doing that, helps you see it more clearly. It slows things down. And right now, slowing down is exactly the point. It has transformed me.
Walk Without Distractions
Just walk out into nature. There is something about moving through the world in silence that shakes things loose. Some of the most honest conversations you will ever have are the ones you have with yourself on a quiet walk.
Sit in the Quiet
This one is the simplest and somehow the hardest. Just sit in the quiet. We have trained ourselves to fill every gap, to reach for something the moment stillness arrives. But the quiet is where you hear yourself. Really hear yourself. What you want. What you’re carrying. What you’ve been avoiding. It’s all in there.
What I’m Reading
The Next Day— Melinda French Gates(Finished)
I recommend this book; it’s an easy read. Personally, I found it enlightening to see how someone like her can embrace change and go through it so publicly. She has written about her experiences beautifully.
Everything Is Tuberculosis— John Green (Currently reading)
This book explores the history and global impact of tuberculosis (TB). The book explains how TB has shaped societies, medicine, and public health, while also highlighting the inequalities that affect who gets treated and who doesn’t. Excited to dive in.
What Else Dropped This Week
Off Script
How Priya Built Punar with Purpose — and Took It to the Oscars
How to Turn Strategy Into Action, Natalie Trotta on Building a Consulting Career
Under the Hood
The Art of the Brand Collab: Why Some Partnerships Work and Others Blow Up
On My Reading Desk
How Apple became Apple: The definitive oral history of the company’s earliest days
AI is creating the first generation of cognitively outsourced humans
How This Founder Grew Her Brand’s TikTok Shop Revenue 10x in Just 1 Year
Note to My Future Self
No matter what happens, no matter what ends, what changes, what catches you off guard, you have to move forward. That part isn’t a choice. But whether you move forward knowing yourself, whether you stay connected to who you are along the way, that part is entirely up to you.
I’d rather move forward with myself than leave myself behind in the process.
Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.
— Sai Menon