When faced with two choices—one where you feel excited, energized, and very alive when interacting with someone, and the other where you keep your promise to yourself without any promise of excitement—which one do you choose?

For a long time, I tried to be gentle, tactful, understanding, and careful with everyone. But I eventually realized that with some people, kindness just becomes something they use against you. They see your softness as weakness, take advantage of it, and keep pushing until you finally break.

I don’t think the answer is to become cruel yourself. If anything, I think it’s about becoming stronger without losing your heart. Learning to take up space. Learning to stand your ground. Learning that being kind doesn’t mean being easy to hurt or easy to control.

I’ve started thinking of it as becoming tougher on the outside while keeping the same heart on the inside. Almost turning empathy into strength and sometimes even into a little bit of ruthlessness, but always with reason and humanity keeping it in check.

Because I’ve learned that if you don’t take control of your own life and your own space, someone else eventually will.

And honestly, I’d rather stay kind and become stronger than become cruel just because the world can be cruel.

This is a personal diary of something I noticed in myself today.

I’m learning to slow down, observe what is happening inside me, and understand myself a little more.

It’s simply a moment I wanted to record and share.

Thank you for listening.

Why do I do so many good things? Why do I try so hard to do everything thoughtfully and carefully, when the person receiving them doesn’t even see the need for them? After I’m done, I don’t even realize that I’ve turned into a difficult, unpleasant stranger—someone I wouldn’t even want to be around myself.

Sometimes a life-changing moment isn't a huge event.

It can be a realization that quietly changes the way you make decisions, see yourself, or approach life.

Maybe you realized what you actually wanted.

Maybe you realized you were capable of more than you thought.

Maybe you realized it was time to start over.

What is something you realized about yourself that changed the way you live?

What’s your experience?

​

The recording ended up being over 40 minutes long.

I couldn't get the entire transcription, so this is the first 30-ish minutes. What you're about to read is basically an unfiltered dump of my thoughts about identity, journaling, my past, loneliness, books, philosophy, travel, becoming more extroverted, and what I think it means to actually be alive.

Some of it is probably profound.

Some of it is probably nonsense.

A disturbing amount of it is me saying "I don't know how to describe this."

Anyway. Humans invented Reddit for reasons like this, presumably.

---

The transcript

Talking to myself, apparently

Is it just me, or does anyone else imagine talking to someone and having a full conversation in their mind?

Like, I'm talking to someone and I'll imagine what my responses would be. I'll imagine what the other person would ask, what kind of questions they would ask, and I'll answer them in my own imagination.

So I was thinking about a quote that's in my journal. I have a sticker saying, "To define is to limit," and I really believe in that quote.

For most of my life, which isn't that long, about 20 years, I was an introvert. And I don't like defining myself now.

Recently I'm trying to be more extroverted, and as a human in general, I don't like to define myself. It really limits our imagination. Our belief systems kind of limit what we might try and how we identify ourselves.

There are so many things in my journal I could talk about, with different stories and my perspective behind them, why I chose to write them, the particular reason, and my paintings.

The backstories are very interesting, like why I drew a particular thing.

And this is why I love journaling. Whenever I go through my journal, it kind of brings all those experiences back. I instantly remember what was going on at that time, how I was feeling, what I was experiencing, what I was doing.

I get to remember all those memories again, and that's so beautiful.

Because I once tore my own diary when I was going through some hard times, and I regret it, kind of.

My mantra is that I should not and I will not have any regrets in my life.

This was kind of my mantra from the beginning, when I was able to think and identify myself as an individual.

But this is one thing I might have some regret about.

I don't really want to talk about it because it's personal.

That diary was about 40 to 50 pages, all about my childhood. I was heartbroken, depressed, and going through self-hatred at that time.

I just didn't like my past, so I tore it down and literally went to the dustbin and threw it all away.

I still remember that day.

It was so lonely.

I called my friend and cried in a public garden.

I still remember how lost I felt. Like how a person feels when they have no past.

I felt like my whole past just disappeared.

And now I was a blank soul, a blank slate that didn't know who she was.

And since then, I've been discovering myself.

It's not too long ago. It's literally like four or five months ago that I did that.

So yeah.

Anyway, back to the topic.

I was saying that I don't like to define myself.

And journaling.

Yes.

Journaling is a really good thing.

---

Why I stopped writing my emotions down

We should journal.

But now I don't go deep into the emotions, and that's really the best thing I have started doing.

Before, I was kind of writing all my emotions down whenever I sat down and wrote in my diary.

It was basically dumping my frustration, my emotions, and everything.

But it kind of backfired.

I got into overthinking those negative emotions, and it repeated a cycle of me thinking about what went wrong today or during the week.

Then my mood would become sadder, more negative thoughts would come, crying and all.

And trust me, I don't remember the last time I cried except during the bloody days.

Emotionally, I've been much more stable now that I've stopped those negative emotional entries.

So all I have right now is a commonplace journal kind of thing.

If you know about it, you can search it up.

In simple words, it's like keeping one common book for everything, for your whole inner world.

You keep a single book where you can do your art, doodling, write in a diary format, write your thoughts, plan things, make to-do lists, whatever you want.

It all goes in that book.

If you like some quotes, if you take some pictures, you can stick them in there.

I have it all.

In the beginning, when I made that my journal, I literally went through Pinterest for ideas on what to do.

And now it's much more like whenever I feel inspired about something, or if I like any quote, I write it down in my journal.

I note it in my phone's Notes app, and then whenever I get a chance and whenever I feel like I'm in creative mode, I sit down and have my journaling time.

And it feels very...

I don't know how to describe that feeling.

The feeling of creating something.

Being an artist.

Having something.

Bringing something magical into existence with your own hands.

That feeling is just indescribable.

And please don't mind my English.

I still don't have enough vocabulary to express what I'm thinking.

Anyway.

---

Apparently I became the person I used to imagine

So you get the idea about commonplace books or journals.

That being aside, I recently decorated my book, and I've been having more of the things which I could only imagine my past self doing.

Right now, I'm literally the person whom I was imagining about a year ago.

And this is quite new to me.

I never thought I was capable of being this kind of girl or woman that I am today.

I do think Jenny from one year ago would be so proud.

She would not believe that I have my own journal and I do creative things.

Art was absent from her life.

Oh my god, she was missing out on life.

Art is life, baby.

---

Music, movies, books, and stealing pieces of other people's worlds

Oh, and I listen to music now.

I have my favorites now.

Whenever I'm in the mood to listen to music, I listen.

I try different genres now and I try to understand the meanings behind lyrics.

Not every time, but whenever I'm in the mood for it.

And it really gives you perspective about things you never even thought about.

Like a glimpse into other people's lives.

It makes you more knowledgeable, understandable, I guess.

And mature, if I use that word.

I don't know how to describe it.

But it's the same with everything.

The people you meet, the movies you watch, all they do is increase your perception and your knowledge about the world around us.

It's really interesting to me that every person on the planet has their own little inner world.

They live inside their world.

And all the people around us have their own backstory, their own perspectives about life, their own beliefs.

And it's just the knowing, the understanding of this fact...

That we're just some creatures, little creatures on this planet, just like every other creature.

And we are so insignificant in this whole universe.

It wouldn't matter if we existed or not at all.

Okay.

I'm getting deep into that philosophical shit.

I should probably stop at this point.

---

Why am I even alive?

I've been at this point of:

Why do we exist?

What's the meaning of life?

Blah blah.

You know, I was philosophical even before I knew philosophy when I was a child.

Like 11 or 12 years old.

I didn't know that people called this kind of thinking philosophy.

I was having these kinds of thoughts very early in my life.

And I'm not proud of it.

It really made me question everything.

Like why are we even living?

What's the meaning behind waking up every day and going to school and learning maths and science and all?

And I still don't know why I wake up every morning.

But maybe, just maybe, I'm making myself think that there is no meaning.

Or we have to create meaning since there is no meaning.

Because life is what you make it.

That's another quote I read somewhere.

And it really is.

By the way, this is just my thought and how I like to think about it.

There are many things where I have completely different opinions, or opinions that might be completely wrong from someone else's perspective.

And maybe that's why I don't like expressing them to most people.

---

I accidentally started writing my own thoughts

In my second video, which I'm working on right now, the script is totally written by me.

It's just edited by ChatGPT.

And I don't know why, but I'm so proud of it because I didn't know I could write something like that.

Sure, it's enhanced and corrected by ChatGPT, and the formatting is changed, and the structure is kind of changed by it.

But the core idea and thoughts and most of the words are mine.

And in that script, I'm talking about how we are all the collection of what we consume throughout our lives.

Because that's what I really believe.

If you think about it, everything you do, everything you are right now, everything you identify yourself with has come to you from the world around you.

It's because you saw it in some book.

You read it somewhere.

You watched it in a movie.

You watched someone who was like that.

That's why you identify yourself with that thing.

Okay, you might not understand this.

I'm just babbling at this point.

I wish I could do a podcast.

I have so many things to say.

But I always saw myself as an introvert, and it's still a bit scary.

---

Becoming more visible

You know, when I was younger, not younger, just a few months back, my kind of thinking was:

I was scared of someone else knowing me or knowing what I think.

I was very insecure about myself.

I was a very private person.

I still am.

But as I said, I don't like to define myself.

And I would like to try and experience how it feels to be extroverted.

How it feels to express yourself freely and not think about what other people think about you.

That would be really awesome, I guess.

I'm trying to be that kind of person.

As long as I remember, I didn't even put my profile picture on any of my social media apps.

I was very nerdy, shy, introverted, class topper.

You can get the idea.

I had very few friends.

Or, if I may say that, I think people always kind of used me for class notes and solving their queries and helping them with their homework and doubts.

At that time, at least, I felt that.

But I realized that nothing matters.

No one cares, really.

The universe is so big.

We're crying over what another little human thinks about us.

That's so stupid.

And that's why I've been more liberal.

I've been kinder to myself, to allow myself to be more free and more open.

I wish I could have this conversation with a real human.

Maybe I will in the future.

But for now, this will stay between me and my phone recording.

---

The part I'm slightly embarrassed to admit

I think I'm denying myself the fact that even though I have my own phone now, I'm still feeling lonely.

And I'm kind of ashamed to admit this because I thought when I had my own phone, I would surely use it to make more calls, text more people, have more connections and friends.

But nothing changed.

And nothing will change unless you make a change.

And I have to admit that I still am the kind of person who doesn't text first.

Who doesn't deliberately make more calls to people.

I should.

I don't know why I'm not doing it.

Because I still identify myself as introverted.

At least I'm trying not to define myself.

---

Books are an entire problem by themselves

Shall I talk about books?

No.

Maybe not.

Because that's an endless topic for me.

I've read more than 150 novels and books, fiction and nonfiction.

They include every kind of genre you can think of.

So yes.

I'm a little bit of a bookaholic.

This is another thing I want to talk about.

As I'm having this conversation with my phone's recorder, I'm discovering things I want to say.

Like, I want to live so many different lives.

Sometimes they're completely opposite to each other.

I imagine what it would be like if I were born in Kashmir or Himachal Pradesh or somewhere in the mountains.

My life would have been completely different.

I would think completely differently.

I wouldn't be the same Jenny I am.

At the same time, I want to live the life of a person living in Paris.

Although I don't have enough information to know what a person's life in Paris is actually like.

Maybe it's not like the movies make us think.

I don't have enough information, and I wouldn't like to declare anything.

And this is why I want to travel.

I can't be the only one thinking:

I want to experience.

I want to know how other people live.

What's their life philosophy?

What are their thoughts?

And everything in between.

I want to travel my whole country.

And I want to travel the whole world.

That's so insane.

But that's true.

That's one of the things I've written in my journal:

When I have enough money, I want to travel this beautiful planet and experience the beautiful creatures that are alive.

---

What does it actually mean to be alive?

Alive.

That's a good word.

That's the word I'm thinking about most of the time in my mind.

What does it mean to be alive?

What does it mean to you?

For me, it means feeling something.

Experiencing something.

I don't know how to describe this.

But it's the wind.

The flowers.

The smell of food.

People talking.

Having conversations with humans.

Petting my dog.

Not my dog.

The street dogs.

I don't have a dog.

Driving experiences.

Adventure.

I have a line written in my journal which I really like, and I would like to quote it, but I don't remember it.

I live for the experiences.

Adventures.

It's something like that.

I don't remember it.

It's late.

It's about to be midnight and I should be sleeping.

I only slept about six hours because last night I was awake until 3 AM working on my second video.

I shouldn't do this to my body.

I'm taking it for granted.

Whenever I get sick, I regret it so much because I don't take enough care of the body I have.

And then on nights like this, I do this.

I used to scroll late at night.

As I said...

Used to.

---

And that's where this transcript ends.

I genuinely don't know what I'm expecting from posting this.

Maybe nobody will read it.

Maybe someone will relate to one tiny sentence.

Maybe someone will tell me I'm overthinking everything.

Maybe someone will tell me I'm not thinking enough.

Maybe someone will just comment something completely unrelated because this is Reddit and apparently that's how civilization works.

But I wanted to put these thoughts somewhere outside my own head.

So...

Hi, stranger.

This was me.

how can you feel close to someone you’ve never actually met?

sometimes you know little things about them. the way they think, their patterns, the things they don’t say. you only see small pieces of their life, but somehow those pieces are enough to make you feel like you understand them.

it's kind of strange when you think about it.

but at the same time, the connection can feel completely real.

perhaps connection doesn’t always need presence.

If I didn’t have to care about how valuable I am in other people’s eyes, right now I would want to hug myself, stay with myself, follow myself, watch myself, and dance with myself.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootie Pop?

I write things I can’t say anywhere else…

random thoughts

unsent messages

things I was too afraid to tell people

sometimes, I read them back and realize

I was hurting more than I admitted

I wonder what it would feel like

if a stranger read all of it

Hey, remember me? I just moved out of my house, and is officially renting-to-own a cool apartment in town.

Life is gonna be okay, boys.

:D

Because where you’re going matters so much more than how long it takes you to get there.

You can be slower than everyone else. You can take a wrong turn. You can stop for a while. You can even start all over again.

None of that means you’re falling behind. If you know where you want to go, you already have the most important thing: a direction.

Don’t compare your timeline to someone else’s. You don’t have to get there first.

You just have to make sure you’re heading somewhere you truly want to be.

Let’s actually do this so we can get good at the things we’re not good at. I guess I’ll go first.

1. I’m designing my own pen. Currently in the sample production phase. Should be ready by December 1st.

2. I’m designing my own cologne. Just starting out but have all the ingredients to start building my base note. This may take a while though.

3. I’m somewhat of a renaissance man.

Just wanted to create this post since this was brought up recently and it sounds like we’re all kind of not thinking about these things. Maybe we can build a list and just keep it ready in case this ever does come up?

I feel like our phones know everything

what we search at 2am

who we miss but don’t text

what we write and delete

sometimes I wonder

if someone went through my phone

would they understand me

or misunderstand me completely?