An Action-Packed Week and Phenomenal Reads

What do you like to read? “The message from my bank that says salary credited,” said a friend, borrowing from a joke not far from reality. Then I shared a few pieces from os.me with her, and her list has expanded to include our engaging content. 

This week, many of you must feel the same happiness about your OSKarma account. You set your Karma accounts ringing with all those record number of posts you wrote. The more you wrote, the richer you became. That’s just osdotme for you, where you are always a winner. 

When I showed her around the website, she exclaimed joyfully, “It has unparalleled diversity of voices and views.” This week has been even more enriching. There are deeply personal accounts to learn from, humorous tales, heartfelt poems, straight up hacks, useful suggestions, magnificent ideas, silly jokes, fun stories and invaluable wisdom from Swamiji. 

Truth be told, I am still catching up on all the compelling reads that came up with #TheWriteChoice. Despite the gloomy times outside and this lockdown that just keeps getting extended, this community brought excitement and glee. 

Every second you spend here is worth that amount of life expended in the act. If you feel the same, spread the good word about us, share these articles with your friends and family. Simply encourage them to make a free account or even better, gift a membership. 

However, just for this moment, pause and catch your breath. You have been on a roll this whole week! When I want to unwind I usually let the transformational beauty of osdotme articles wash over me. 

Here’s our weekly pick of phenomenal reads, life-changing resources and wisdom from Swamiji, certain to improve your life.

Wisdom from Swamiji

How To Forget Someone: Love is so short, forgetting is so long,’ said Chilean poet-diplomat Pablo Neruda. Memories can be like black holes: deep and mysterious. To forget someone you’ve to go past memories. Swamiji offers three simple words to help move on. 

The Practice of Concentrative Meditation: Swamiji shares the secret of one of the best ways to increase your brainpower. Experience bliss, calmness and quietude in your life, practice concentrative meditation. 

8 Real Experiences 

Don’t Bargain: Back in 2005, Prahalad Rajkumar was about to let go of his favourite car over $100. That’s when his dad taught him an important lesson. Several years and continents later, he is about to do the same mistake, when a flash of realisation makes him an even better person. A truly lovely story. Follow him, for he has been writing some amazing posts all week.

The Spark doesn’t Mean a Soul’s Purpose: Aditya Chatterjee alludes to Pixar’s amazing film, Soul, to bring home an important truth — the purpose of life lies not in grand things. So what is it then — and other existential questions we have been losing sleep over — find the answer in this piece. The film explores “the modern tragedy of finding purpose in a passionless life”, and Aditya draws out the meaning for us.

The Divorce Dilemma: “Finally I am getting divorced and I am eating my favourite pizza to celebrate it,” writes Ritu Sharma in this deeply personal piece. Not very long ago, she did everything she could to save her marriage. Read about how she has come to accept the truth.

The Jobless: This is the true story of a bright young man who cracks a difficult engineering entrance test but is unable to bag a placement upon completion of his course. He desperately sends his response to every place he knows might have a vacancy, gets turned away by guards, shows up for walk-in ads. Hetal Sonpal, a successful entrepreneur today, revisits his old days to offer many lessons.

Setting Boundaries in a Relationship: Good fences make good neighbours, and good boundaries make good relations. Neelanjan offers suggestions for this cause.

How to Breathe Properly: Breathing is the basic function that keeps us alive. But are you doing it correctly? Yash Chawda’s tips might come in handy for improving your cycle. Follow these tips, feel more energetic and centred.

Nutritious Golgappas: Whether or not you are in lockdown, it is always wise to consume homemade food. But what about all the irresistible chaat and other street food? Here’s Chandrika Shubham Saini’s lip-smacking recipe for those delish golgappas. It is rich in iron and protein, say ‘yay’ to guilt-free bingeing.

Antebellum – 1: “What was unknown to Zainan was the fact that his life wouldn’t get any better than it was at that very moment”, reads a line from the story. Antebellum is a collaborative series by Hemanya Vashishtha and Rishi Sridhar, both teenagers. The dystopian tale showcases their writing prowess.

#OSdotMe Challenge: The Whopping Numbers 

It has been a spirited five days of #TheWriteChoice challenge. All you lovely people wrote 455 posts and a neat 7,400 comments. What a week!  You definitely hit it out the park. Everyone is a winner, I say that because your Karma Points must have gone up. But as is the tradition of contests, we will have those who are first amongst the winners. 

Results:  May I have the drum roll please for — Hritik (87), Chandrika Shubham (78) and Kunal Arora (42) for winning the first challenge. A special mention to Prahlad Rajkumar, who stands fourth with 38 posts, including this one about the challenge. Most of you went full-throttle on the last day of the competition (24 May), with some of you writing as many as 37 posts in a day!

In the second category, we have a clear winner in Supriya Patnaik who said 671 nice things in just 5 days. I know what else you want to know, Ripandeep Kaur has 590 and Meera Om has 456 comments to their name. 

What, you want another challenge? Aren’t you on a roll! Let’s give it a break so that we have enough time to read all those 450 posts. 

An update: Our last week’s Get Social Challenge has one more winner. Due to a glitch in the system, we missed out on Mudit Saxena’s social media posts. He made 1271 posts. He is clearly a winner. We manually went and checked. Therefore, he will also get the top choice. The last roundup post has been updated, too. 

Let me know what you think about the week that just went by. I’d wait to hear from you. Pratik Wadhwa, thank you for noticing the featured image in the newsletter. I spend an unhealthy amount of time sifting through pictures. 

I am sure you’ll all enjoy reading these two articles, here and here. You are welcome 😉

Until next…

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