Kavi Arasu

Quitting gets a bad name. But what if it’s not failure, but clarity?

Me? Quit?

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A young man in his mid-20s came to me a few years ago. Well, technically, his parents sent him. They wanted me to “talk some sense into him.” He had decided he was done with the corporate world. Said it was petty. Petulant, even. He didn’t believe in it, didn’t enjoy it, and didn’t want to stick it out.

He had no grand plan for what came next—just a clear conviction that there had to be something better.

We had a fantastic conversation. We explored possibilities, entertained wild dreams, and poked at what really mattered to him. He didn’t need advice. He needed space to think.

His parents, on the other hand, were unimpressed. They were hoping I’d march in, deliver a sermon about hard work and perseverance, and send him back to the grind. Instead, I made quitting sound even more interesting.

In their eyes, I’d joined the rebellion. Alas.

Quitters Never Win?

Let’s face it—quitting gets a bad rap.

Everywhere you look, there’s something preaching against it. Posters shouting “Never give up!” Books with suitably motivating titles. And videos of people crawling across finish lines while orchestras swell in the background.

It’s all very dramatic. And, frankly, slightly exhausting.

But what if quitting isn’t failure? What if, instead, it’s a deliberate, thoughtful choice?

We tend to think of quitting as dramatic or desperate. But some of the most thoughtful people have done it with calm, clarity, and purpose.

A Bend in the Road

Simone Biles, the world’s most celebrated gymnast, stunned everyone at the Tokyo Olympics by withdrawing from several events. She was at the top of her game, but “the twisties” had set in—a mental block that could have caused serious harm. So, she stepped back. It wasn’t weakness. It was wisdom.

Ashleigh Barty retired from tennis. Twice. The first time, she left to play professional cricket. The second, after winning Wimbledon and the Australian Open, she walked away for good. Why? She’d achieved what she wanted and didn’t see the point in chasing more.

Ravichandran Ashwin recently retired from Test cricket. He’s known for adapting and reinventing himself. His decision wasn’t emotional or sudden. It was calm, careful, and clear-eyed.

These aren’t stories of people giving up. They’re stories of people turning corners.

The Quiet Quitting Trap

Then there’s the other kind of quitting. The quiet kind.

You show up every day, but your mind isn’t in it. You go through the motions, but the spark is gone. The work feels dull. The goal is a blur.

It’s not quitting, technically. But it might as well be. Quiet quitting isn’t dramatic. It’s just sad.

The Sunk Cost Spiral

Knowing when to stop isn’t easy. Especially when you’ve poured so much of yourself into something.
But not everything we invest in is worth continuing. Sometimes, we keep going for all the wrong reasons.

Sendhil Mullainathan, Harvard professor and co-author of Scarcity, explains this beautifully using a simple classroom game. He auctions off a $20 note. The rules are simple: the highest bidder gets the $20, but both the highest and second-highest bidders must pay their bids.

It starts off small—$1, $2—but then things get out of hand.

Someone bids $1. Someone else says, “No way he’s getting $20 for just $1,” and bids $2.

Now both are stuck. The highest bidder may get the $20, but the second-highest still has to pay.

The $1 bidder thinks, “I can’t lose $1 for nothing. I’ll bid $3—maybe I’ll win.” The other counters with $4. Then $5. It still feels like a bargain.

But soon, it becomes about something else. Not losing face. Not “wasting” what’s already spent.

And just like that, it spirals. $10. $20. $30. Even more.

It sounds silly. But we do this all the time. Stay in jobs we don’t enjoy. Stick with plans that no longer excite us. Keep going just because we’ve already spent time, effort, or money.

It’s not about the $20 anymore. It’s about the fear of letting go.

The Strength of Knowing

Here’s the thing about quitting: it’s not about giving up. It’s about knowing when to step back and ask, “Is this still worth it?”

Some goals begin as passing desires. But they can grow into something deeper, if nurtured. Other times, we realise the goal was never really ours to begin with.

Both are perfectly okay. What matters is that we notice the difference.

And just to be clear—this isn’t about walking away the moment something gets hard.
Challenge is part of the journey. Stay. Struggle. Figure things out.

What I’m speaking of is the opposite: don’t stay in something just because you’ve already stayed for a bit.

Not every story of quitting makes headlines. Some play out quietly, with a different kind of courage.

Moving Forward

As for the young man who walked away from the corporate world? He’s doing well—for now. He’s a tour guide and runs a fledgling travel company, employing four other people. Still figuring things out, but loving the journey. “I wake up with joy,” he told me.

Quitting didn’t end his story. It helped him start a better one—at least for this chapter.

I’m not saying he’s found his forever. Or that every day is perfect. Just that, at this point in time, this is where he is. And it seems to fit.

Sometimes, what looks like the end of the road is just a bend.
You pause. You breathe. And then, you move forward—lighter, clearer, and ready for what’s next.

Flyover: What Birds Can Teach Us About Teamwork

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At Nudgee, I once saw something curious. Two birds — clearly different species — were standing a little apart, watching the water. One flapped its wings noisily, stirring up fish. The other swooped in and grabbed a snack. Then they did it again. And again. It looked rehearsed. It made me think about what birds can teach us about teamwork — not just within their own flocks, but even across species.

I didn’t know what they were at the time. I just stood there, amused. Impressed. A few clicks and a bit of help from the internet later, I figured them out — one was a white-faced heron, the other an eastern great egret. Different birds, different styles. But clearly in sync.

They didn’t speak. Didn’t exchange glances. But they worked together like seasoned professionals. It was quiet, effective teamwork. And it stayed with me.

We’ve been studying animals for years. Not in the wild, but in labs. Think of Skinner’s pigeons. Pavlov’s dogs. Harlow’s monkeys. Thorndike’s cats. All of them in cages, pressing levers, solving puzzles, or drooling on cue. From them, we learned about rewards, conditioning, learning curves, even motivation.

Great science. But very controlled. And very individual.

Push a button. Get a treat.
Climb a pyramid. Reach your potential.
Respond to a bell. Salivate on time.

Useful frameworks, no doubt. But they often missed something that birds in the wild seem to understand naturally — the power of doing things together.

Birds Of Different Feathers

A new study from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute changes the frame. Researchers analysed more than 20 years of data from five bird banding stations in the Americas. What they found was remarkable. Certain migratory songbirds — like the American redstart and magnolia warbler — regularly travel together, across species lines.

Not by accident. On purpose.

These birds form what the researchers call “cross-species communities.” They migrate together, stop at the same places, forage in the same areas. Not because they’re best friends. But because it works. More eyes to spot predators. More beaks to find food. Less energy wasted. Better odds of survival.

Emily Cohen, co-author of the study, put it well: “We found support for communities on the move — considering migrating birds as part of interacting communities rather than random gatherings.”

It’s a lovely phrase: communities on the move.

Not networks. Not teams. No. Not even flocks. Communities.

It makes you pause and ask again: what birds can teach us about teamwork may be deeper than we assumed.

Together Is Smarter

We humans still cling to the idea of the lone genius. The hero’s journey. The self-made success story. But the truth is usually more tangled. Behind every solo act is a hidden chorus. A parent. A mentor. A partner. A team. A silent helper who made the win possible.

Flying solo might get you a headline. But it rarely gets you very far.

Those birds at Nudgee reminded me of that. Different feathers. Different instincts. But a shared goal. They weren’t doing a trust fall exercise. They were trying to eat. And they knew they could do it better together.

Nature doesn’t do TED Talks. It does what works.
And what seems to work — even across species — is collaboration.

So next time someone says, “I built this myself,” you might want to ask:
Really?
Or did someone help stir the fish?

The Checklist Trap: How We Turned Leadership into a Lifestyle Product

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Leadership used to be messy, thoughtful, human work. Now, it risks becoming a lifestyle product—complete with listicles, morning routines, and pastel-quote inspiration. That is the essence of Satish Pradhan’s post titled “The Seductive Simplicity of ‘7 Steps to Greatness’“. Satish is a thought leader I immensely respect and whose views have guided me for a while now. This time, as always, his writing offers a sharp take.

He writes: “Leadership becomes a lifestyle—a performative state of constant optimisation and vague inspiration.” Ouch. True.

I couldn’t help but add this in the comments:

“Also begs the question—who made it this way?
Boards, wanting bandaids?
Leaders, craving a formula?
HR, trying to package potential?
Consultants, with frameworks that look good on slides?
Academia, chasing citations over messy reality?
Or TED Talks, with applause timed to the speaker’s smile?
Not a blame game. Just a call to reflect.
If leadership is now theatre—who wrote the script?
And more importantly… who’s still reading the footnotes? 🙂”

Truth is, we didn’t land here overnight. As I wrote earlier in a piece titled “Decline Creep,” these shifts happen gradually, then suddenly. The seductive simplicity of seven steps isn’t a glitch—it’s a feature of a broader cultural operating system.

Leadership development is a multi-billion dollar global industry. Estimates put it at over USD 350 billion annually. With that kind of investment, you’d expect profound change. We often get ‘pass me the popcorn’ stuff.

The Current Cultural Operating System

The milieu we operate in shapes our defaults. Leadership and its development has not escaped the broader shift toward speed, scale, and surface over substance. Here are some attributes of this time and space.

1. Everything must be tangible.

If it’s not tangible, it must not matter. This is a tragic oversimplification. Real progress in leadership is often subtle. A better conversation. A delayed reaction. An unexpected apology. Tangible, if you know where to look—and if you look with intent.

Deep learning and behavioural change are not immediately visible, but they are transformational over time. Sitting with the intangible, the ambiguous, the unresolved—this takes patience. But that’s precisely what we seem to be losing.

2. We live in a fast-food world.

Everyone wants nourishment in the form of a nutrient bar they can eat before catching a train. Sure, it feeds the immediate hunger. But it cannot offer the satisfaction of a full-course meal. Or the long-term health. Leadership frameworks are now nutrition bars: portable, efficient, and forgettable.

Herbert Simon, who coined the term “bounded rationality,” reminded us that humans tend to satisfice—settling for what’s good enough. Quick lists cater to that tendency. But leadership needs more than adequacy. Over time, ‘adequate’ becomes the benchmark. And then the ceiling.

3. The tyranny of the quarterly result.

The short term is now. The long term is the next quarter. It’s as if the world will cease to exist beyond the quarter. If something doesn’t shift short-term metrics, it’s dismissed. Leadership development doesn’t always give you a spike in numbers. Sometimes it just quietly prevents a disaster. Or helps someone stay.

Peter Drucker is often quoted as saying, “What gets measured gets managed.” Full stop. But that’s not where he stopped. He actually said: “What gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so.”

Perhaps we were in a hurry and didn’t soak up the full sentence.

4. The obsession with machine-like efficiency.

We’ve come to admire speed, standardisation, and output so much that we expect people to behave like machines. Fast. Predictable. Always on. That logic has quietly crept into leadership development too.

It’s now packaged like a factory model—designed to scale, deliver uniform results, and run on schedule. But leadership doesn’t work on conveyor belts. It doesn’t follow a clean workflow or offer batch processing.

People are messy. They take time. Conversation. Reversals. Detours. Leadership requires recalibration, not just repetition. Efficiency looks good on paper. But it rarely builds trust or courage.

This obsession leads to box-ticking: feedback session done, 360 report filed, coaching logged. But that’s not growth. That’s admin. Cookie cutters work well with cookies—not people.

5. We’ve unhooked from research.

There is a deep and evolving body of work in the social sciences and leadership literature—decades of inquiry into motivation, learning, group dynamics, and organisational culture. Thinkers like Chris Argyris, Edgar Schein, and Mary Parker Follett have explored the nuances of influence, systems thinking, and human potential. Their work offers complex, often uncomfortable truths.

But such research rarely makes it to the glossy handouts or keynote slides. Why? It demands thought. It questions assumptions while resisting slogans. And isn’t easily reduced to three boxes and a circle.

Instead, we pick up ideas stripped of their richness—psychological safety as a checklist item, or systems thinking reduced to bullet points. The substance is lost in the translation.

Academia speaks in nuance. Practitioners crave action. Somewhere in between, we abandoned the bridge.

We need to reclaim it. Not for the sake of theory—but for depth, integrity, and honest conversation. Leadership deserves nothing less.

6. Deliberate effort on development is seen as optional.

Focused development is treated like a side hobby—something to do if there’s time. A luxury. Not core. There’s a comforting belief that leadership emerges on its own. That wisdom arrives with age. That real work is separate from leadership work.

But the demands are more complex now. The path to leadership is often shorter, with less grounding. And the illusion of expertise is everywhere. Ten-second clips pass off as wisdom. Everyone has an answer. Few ask better questions.

What’s missing? Time. And deliberate effort. To learn. To experiment. And reflect. The pause to ask, “What did I learn from that?” feels indulgent. But without it, growth is shallow.

7. Real change happens at work. And it is bespoke.

You can have perspective in a classroom. Maybe even a breakthrough in an offsite. But change? That happens on the ground. In Monday meetings. In the pause before a reply. When noticing what you once missed.

One size doesn’t fit all. It doesn’t even fit most. What works for one leader may confuse another. The best leadership development is bespoke—stitched with care and context. You can learn from shared perspectives. But applying them? That’s personal. That cannot be outsourced.

As Manfred Kets de Vries once quipped, “Leadership is like swimming—it cannot be done by reading a book about it.”

Change is contextual. It escapes formula. It demands participation. So yes, the seven steps might sell. They might even help a little. But let’s not forget: leadership is a practice. Not a product. Not a performance. And definitely not a PowerPoint.

It is messy, slow, human work. And if we want real change, we must learn to value that again—even when it doesn’t come with a checklist or a bestselling cover.

So, there. 7 points. Stacked and ordered. I have a few more. But they won’t fit seven. I am part of the problem you see 🙂

I Am the Traffic

A road safety campaign in Sweden once carried a brilliant line: “You are not in traffic. You are traffic.” Simple. Sharp. It flipped the narrative—from blame to ownership.

That idea travels well. In leadership, culture, and checklist thinking, we aren’t bystanders. We’re not stuck in the system. We are the system. Participants. Sometimes even enablers.

It was never just about traffic. It was about agency. And responsibility. In many ways, it’s a reminder for all of us engaged in leadership and development work.

We may not like the system. But let’s admit it—we help make it. Through what we reward. What we tolerate. And what we scroll past without question.

Culture is not created in boardrooms alone. It’s created in choices. Daily ones. A ticked box here. A skipped conversation there. Over time, these become norms.

We are not stuck in it. We are it.

Development doesn’t happen by accident. It needs intentional choices. Time. Attention. Depth.

So, what do we do? I don’t know. Perhaps, start with Satish’s post. Maybe read the comments. Linger. See what resonates. What provokes. What’s missing.

Because no framework—however snappy—can replace the quiet courage of doing the hard, human work of change. And yes, let’s still read the footnotes. 🙂

The Second Story: Seeing Beyond Failures and Success

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In December 2017, Charlene Murphey, a 75-year-old patient, was admitted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee after suffering a brain bleed. Within two days, her condition had improved. Doctors ordered a PET scan before she was discharged, and prescribed Versed, a mild sedative, to help calm her nerves.

Nurse RaDonda Vaught was assigned to administer the medication. She went to the automated medication cabinet, typed in the drug name—but it didn’t show up. This was a familiar glitch. Staff had grown used to bypassing it. So Vaught used the override function, a routine workaround in the hospital.

But something went terribly wrong. Instead of Versed, she pulled out vecuronium—a powerful paralytic. She administered the drug and left. Murphey stopped breathing and never woke up.

The First Story and Its Limits

The hospital fired Vaught. Her license was revoked. She was convicted of criminally negligent homicide.

To many, the case seemed open and shut. A nurse made a fatal error. Justice was served.

But that’s only the surface story—the one that provides a name, a mistake, a punishment. Sidney Dekker, Professor in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University in Brisbane invites us to look deeper: Why did this make sense to the nurse at the time?

That’s where the Second Story begins.

A System Set to Fail

Vaught was not careless. She worked in a system that had quietly normalised risk. Medication cabinets were glitchy. Overrides were expected. Nurses weren’t trained on the risks of the override function. No one flagged it, because everyone used it.

This wasn’t just human error. It was a system error.

Organisational thinker Chris Argyris called the surface-level response Single-Loop Learning—fixing the behaviour without questioning the system. The real opportunity lies in Double-Loop Learning: changing the underlying rules and culture that made the behaviour possible.

Culture in Action—And Why It Matters

Every organisation has two cultures: the one printed in posters and handbooks, and the one people actually live.

One says, “We value safety.” The other says, “Don’t slow down.” When those messages clash, people choose the one that protects their job or helps them survive the day. It’s that simple.

Over time, shortcuts become habits. Risks become invisible. And when something breaks, the system often blames the person it failed to support.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. In Japanese train stations—some of the safest and most efficient in the world—staff follow a practice called “pointing and calling.” I saw them point to signals, say them aloud, and actively confirm their actions. It looked dramatic, but I learnt that it significantly reduces errors. There, safety isn’t a statement. It’s a system. It’s culture by design—not by hope.

That’s why the Second Story in organisations matters so much for managers, leaders and of course, consultants. The First Story gives you a neat diagnosis and a fast fix. The Second Story in organisations requires deeper listening and more courage—but it reveals where change is truly needed. It shows the disconnect between values and behaviour. It helps leaders shift from blame to learning and therefore, to change.

Questions To Ask

Crucially, the Second Story isn’t only for understanding failure—it helps explain success too. When an athlete wins gold, it’s not just about training hard. It’s about the coach, the physiotherapist, the diet plan, the mental support, the facilities, DNA—everything behind the scenes that made excellence possible.

In organisations, too, when a team thrives, don’t just clap. Ask: What made this work? What conditions allowed people to do their best work? When we see the system behind the success, we can repeat it. When we ignore it, we leave future outcomes to luck.

Final Thought

The Second Story is always there. It’s not about blame—it’s about learning. It helps us see not just what went wrong or right, but why it made sense, and what needs to change.

Charlene Murphey didn’t just deserve a trial; she deserved a transformation. A system that looked at what failed her—not just who did. And perhaps the Nurse RaDonda Vaught, too, didn’t just need punishment; she needed a system that supported her, trained her, and designed work that made safety easier, not harder.

Because the best way to honour a tragedy is to make sure the system learns from it—and becomes less likely to repeat it.

If you’re willing to look deeper, you’ll see more. And in that, lies the path to better systems, better culture, and better outcomes.

The Real Deal Isn’t Signed

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Many moons ago, as a teenager, I had a bad fall while riding my bicycle. A sharp stone hit my head. I started bleeding and eventually passed out on the road. There were no phones. No emergency helpline. Just the road, my bleeding head, and the sky above.

But help came.

A few passing strangers stopped. They sprinkled water on me. Teased out my name and address from my semi-conscious brain. Got me to a hospital. Found my parents. And then—they disappeared. No names exchanged. No credit taken. Just people who saw a teenager in trouble and stepped in—because they could.

I still have a scar on my head from that day. But I also have a memory. A quiet one that reminds me I survived not only because I was lucky—but because someone chose to be kind.

Whose Quid? What Quo?

We’ve quid pro quo our default setting. Latin for “this for that”—but really, “don’t do anything unless you get something in return.” It sounds neat. Fair, even. Until you ask: Whose quid? What quo? And what happens when kindness comes without a price tag?

Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui once walked the streets of Mumbai broke, hungry, and almost invisible. In his words:

“There were days when I had no money for food. But there was always someone—someone I didn’t know—who’d offer chai or a meal.”

No conditions. No contracts. Just chai. Just kindness.

When Life Becomes a Ledger

Today, deal-making is fashionable. Everything is a deal. A pitch. A negotiation. The word transaction has crept into places where it doesn’t belong—like friendships, partnerships, even parenting. If you do X, I’ll do Y. If you help me, I’ll remember you. If you don’t, I’ll remember that too.

But here’s the problem. If life becomes a ledger, what happens to the things we can’t count?

Gratitude. Care. Listening. Sitting quietly with someone. Standing by a friend even when they’ve messed up. These don’t show up on balance sheets. And yet, these are the very things that make us human.

The Kindness That Doesn’t Trend

Everyday kindness is far too ordinary for primetime.

It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t come with background music.

No one’s cutting a reel when you offer your seat to someone or help them pick up a fallen grocery bag.

It’s instinctive. Like scratching your head when thinking or offering tea when someone visits. It’s coded into our DNA, so natural we barely notice it ourselves.

And when it does make the news—“Man helps elderly woman cross street!”—you know the world’s a little upside down. That headline should be the default setting, not the exception.

Kindness doesn’t ask for attention. It just shows up, quietly, like it always has.

Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku, who later became an Australian citizen and author of The Happiest Man on Earth, put it plainly:

“Kindness is the greatest wealth. It costs nothing, but it means everything.”

The Real Deal

So if you must make a deal, make this one:

Offer kindness without calculating return. Build trust without waiting for leverage. Be generous without expecting applause. Because the real deal isn’t signed.

It’s just done. Silently. With grace. Often without anyone watching. And maybe that’s the point: the real deal isn’t signed.

It becomes part of your signature move—how you show up for others, without fanfare or fine print. Kindness is not weakness. It is strength.

We get by because of others. Even if we sometimes forget to say so.

Not everything is a transaction. Life is the bigger deal—larger than all the deals you can ever make. Because the real deals in life—the ones that change you—are never signed.

They are simply made. By people who show up, sprinkle water on your bruised head, and walk away quietly.

What would it take be like her?

She Stood Her Ground

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At different stages of life, different parts of my great grandmother have come into my awareness.
It was all in her, always. I just get to see more of it when a particular context envelopes me.

The last few years—and especially the last few months—have been about resilience.
And when I think of resilience, I think of her.

She was as strong-willed a woman as a woman could get.
Educated in the University of Hard Knocks, but never cowed by it.
She took a few punches from life. And landed a few herself.

She was knocked down, more than once.
But from her, I learnt something I now value deeply—how to get up again.
To dust off. To start all over.

That takes grit. Just raw grit.
To stand when no one is in your corner.
To take on men. In a man’s world.
To fight without formal education, without the safety net of support.

She had little formal education.
But she made sure her grandkids got the best.
She argued her way through with academicians of the time—sharp, clear, and unrelenting.

Then there was her poise.
Being tough didn’t mean she let go of grace.

Her days had rhythm. Her habits had structure.
Her sarees had bold checks, bright patterns, and vivid colours.
I have clear memories of the comfort they offered.

Her hair was always in place.
Her routines, never rushed.
She wore her bright, bold tattoos as her second skin — not a style statement.

She lived with intention. Always.
“Face everything,” she used to say. And she did.

And then, her humanity.
Anyone passing by and pausing near the steps would hear it:
“Who is there?”
Followed quickly by, “Have you eaten?”

Didn’t matter who it was. If you hadn’t eaten, something would reach you.
Food, yes. But also warmth, without ceremony.

And of course, her stories.
She never performed them. She remembered them out loud.

I was far too young to understand most of them.
But I remember the tone. The pauses.
The look in her eyes. The smell of the room.
Those stories stayed. Somewhere in me, they still echo.

She’s been gone a long while.
But grit, poise, humanity, and story—that’s a strong mix.

Every now and then, I catch a glimpse of her.
In a routine. A question. A memory.
And I sit up straighter.

Today, I remember her.
It was on this day that she left.
But in many ways, she never did.


Some years ago, I wrote another piece about her — from a different time, with a different lens.
It has a few more anecdotes and details that some of you may enjoy.
If you’d like to read it, here it is:
What Would It Take To Live Life Tall?
She’s always had more stories than I’ve been able to tell.

All the Coins Go Back in the Box

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George Foreman passed away this week.

The headlines remembered his fists. I remembered his friendship. With Muhammad Ali.

They gave us one of boxing’s greatest rivalries. The Rumble in the Jungle was brutal. Ali won. Foreman fell. But the real story began much later. They became close. Joked with each other. Grew old together. Foreman once said, “Ali was the greatest man I ever met.” Not the greatest boxer — the greatest man.

It reminded me how often fierce competition leads to something deeper. A kind of friendship that’s only possible after both have given their all.

Like Jesse Owens and Luz Long. Berlin, 1936. One Black, one white. One American, one German. Hitler in the stands. And yet, Long helped Owens adjust his take-off. Owens won gold. Long stood beside him. They exchanged letters until Long died in the war. Owens later said, “You can melt down all the medals and cups I have, and they wouldn’t be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long.”

Or Federer and Nadal. Their rivalry defined modern tennis. They fought over every inch of grass and clay. But off court, something shifted. They laughed together, practiced together, cried together. When Federer retired, Nadal flew in just to sit beside him. He said, “When Roger leaves the tour, an important part of my life also leaves with him.”

Some friendships are forged not despite the competition, but because of it.

Like Leander Paes and Mark Woodforde. They played on opposite sides of the net. But somewhere along the way, Woodforde became more than a rival. He became a mentor, a guide. Paes said he learned how to be a better player — and a better person — from him. Woodforde, in turn, called Leander “a brother in tennis.” Sometimes the real partnership begins after the match.

And speaking of brothers — Ashok and Vijay Amritraj. Sometimes opponents, sometimes doubles partners. Always, a team in the bigger picture. Their rivalry never came in the way of their bond. You could watch them play and not know who won. You could only tell they cared.

Even across borders, this thread holds.

Neeraj Chopra and Arshad Nadeem throw javelins for different countries. But after the finals, it’s always the same scene. A handshake. A smile. A shared photo. “Neeraj is my brother,” said Arshad. And Neeraj replied, “Sport brings us together.” They compete with full force. And then, they connect with full heart.

Maybe that’s the point.

You have to compete. You don’t have to hate. That’s a higher order — not everyone reaches it. But those who do leave behind more than medals and records. Sports makes it visible.

They remind us that when the final whistle blows, what remains isn’t the scoreboard.
It’s the story. And sometimes, the friendship.

Because eventually, all the coins go back in the box.
What stays is who you became while playing the game.
And who stood beside you when it was over.

Robert Paul Wolff: A Personal Tribute to a Life of Teaching and Thought

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I didn’t get to know of Robert Paul Wolff’s passing until recently. And yet, his work has been with me for years.

He made Kant and Freud more accessible to me. For that, I will always be grateful to him. I was an Eklavya of sorts—learning from a distance, drawing from his words, and inspired by a life that fought on despite odds that I only knew too well.

His personal blog, with all its warts and all, is a window to his mind. It is unfiltered, deeply intellectual, sometimes grumpy, often humorous, and always honest. It is a rare thing—to get inside the head of a philosopher, not through curated books but through everyday reflections, political rants, and candid stories of struggle.

This is a personal tribute to the man.

A Teacher Until the End

In the spring of 2024, at the age of 90, Robert Paul Wolff was still teaching. From a nursing home in North Carolina, he logged into Zoom every Friday to lead a discussion on Das Kapital. His students weren’t just eager undergraduates—among them were Harvard faculty and graduate students, all drawn in by his ability to make Marxist theory come alive.

“It was one of those very rare Harvard events where people actually showed up, not because of some resume item, but because they were actually interested,” said Social Studies lecturer Bo-Mi T. Choi in The Harvard Crimson, who helped design the course.

Even through a screen, his presence was unmistakable.

“Even on the Zoom screen, you could tell he was probably one of the most compelling teachers one could ever meet, a truly extraordinary man,” said David Armitage, Chair of the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies.

It wasn’t about status or prestige for Wolff. Teaching was simply what he did.

The Man Who Built Ideas

Robert Paul Wolff was the last surviving co-founder of Harvard’s Social Studies concentration—one of the first interdisciplinary programs of its kind. Launched in 1960, it brought together philosophy, politics, and economics to help students engage with the complexities of the real world. The idea was simple: problems don’t fit neatly into academic departments, so why should education?

During his time at Harvard, Wolff was one of the founding members of the Social Studies concentration in 1960 and became the head tutor for the program’s first year. At its inception, the program admitted only 20 to 30 honours degree candidates a year, hoping to train them in cross-disciplinary thinking unconstrained by departmental boundaries.

Armitage said Wolff, in the 1950s, felt that the world’s problems were “so big that they cannot be handled by one single department”—something Armitage believes is still true today.

But Wolff didn’t just build programs. He built ways of thinking.

At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he co-founded the Social Thought and Political Economy (STPEC) program, and when UMass wanted to establish a PhD program in African American Studies, he was asked to help. He had no background in the field. So, as the story goes, he spent an entire summer reading every major book in the discipline—because if he was going to be involved, he would do it right.

Why He Matters

1. He Made Philosophy Accessible

Philosophy can be dense and difficult. Wolff had a way of making it clear. His works on Kant, Freud and several others continue to be read by students around the world. His lectures—many of which remain freely available on YouTube—are a reminder that great teachers don’t just explain things well; they make you care about them.

His blog, The Philosopher’s Stone, was an extension of this. He wrote about the subjects that fascinated him, but also about his personal struggles, his frustrations with academia, and his reflections on life. It wasn’t always polished. But it was real.

2. He Never Stopped Teaching

By 2021, he had already been living with Parkinson’s disease for over a year. His handwriting had become nearly illegible, and he relied on speech-to-text software to continue his work. In a deeply personal note on his blog, he shared that while his body had begun to slow down, his mind remained clear.

By January 2024, at the age of 90, he reflected on how much his mobility had declined. He accepted it with characteristic bluntness. But what mattered to him most? He had one more chance to teach. He was preparing for a study group—one that would explore ideas he had studied for decades. That, more than anything, brought him joy.

3. He Stood for What He Believed In

Wolff wasn’t just an academic; he was an activist. He protested against apartheid, fought for university divestment from South Africa, and stayed politically engaged until the very end. For him, philosophy was never just about ideas—it was about action.

A Legacy That Carries On

Robert Paul Wolff passed away on January 6, 2025, at the age of 91.

The tributes that followed said it all.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst remembered him as a “brilliant mind and fierce advocate for interdisciplinary education.“ The North American Kant Society acknowledged his “significant contributions to philosophy.” Philosopher Brian Leiter summed it up best: “A long life, well-lived.”

Even Parkinson’s couldn’t stop him. Even when his body failed, his mind kept working, his passion for learning never dimmed.

His work lives on. His ideas live on. And if you haven’t looked him up before, now might be a good time. His books, his lectures, and his blog are still out there.

And if you want to see his mind in its rawest, most unfiltered form, start with his blog. It’s all there.

There are more fascinating insights about his generosity and commitment to change in his obituaries in The Harvard Crimson and UMass Amherst.

Decline Creep: The Slow Slide You Never See Coming

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How do you go bankrupt?

Well, gradually, then suddenly.

Thats my most favourite quote. By Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises

To me, his words aren’t just about money. They hold true for everything—careers, health, relationships, and even ambition. Because decline doesn’t happen in one dramatic collapse. It happens quietly, unnoticed, until the damage is done.

The slow erosion of standards isn’t dramatic. It doesn’t announce itself with alarms. It’s just small compromises made in moments of exhaustion—one deadline missed, one corner cut, one excuse justified. At first, they feel harmless. But over time, what was once non-negotiable becomes optional, and then, eventually, forgotten.

The quiet dulling of ambition doesn’t happen overnight. It starts with settling—choosing comfort over challenge, convenience over growth. The fire that once pushed you forward dims, not because you chose to give up, but because you stopped choosing to push. The hunger fades, replaced by a vague sense of inertia.

The steady lowering of expectations is the final piece. What you once aspired to feels distant, even unrealistic. You adjust—not because you believe less is enough, but because expecting more feels pointless. The extraordinary becomes unattainable, the average becomes acceptable, and before you know it, mediocrity becomes the norm.

Then, one day, you look around and wonder: How did things get here?

Not in a single moment. Not with a single decision. But with a thousand tiny ones.

Decline Creep is real. It thrives on neglect. It doesn’t need effort—it just needs you to stop paying attention. Many a time decline creep happens while you were busy with other things!

Progress, on the other hand, is different.

It doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intent. Effort. Discipline.

It’s never overnight. It’s never one sweeping transformation. It’s the small things, held steady. The right habits, practised consistently.

It starts with paying attention—continuously reflecting on what’s working and what isn’t. It requires taking corrective action before small missteps turn into major setbacks. A bit of optimism keeps you moving forward, but real progress demands a lot of focus.

Good things don’t come in sudden bursts. They come from the little things, done right, again and again.

Progress is built by design. Decline is powered by defaults.

Good things take time. So does decline.

The difference? One is a choice. The other is what happens when you stop choosing.

The Price of Form: Why Design and Care Matter

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Walking through Brisbane, I saw something simple but powerful. Storefronts, still under construction, covered in bright art. Not just a splash of colour. Thoughtful, intentional design. It changed the whole street. Made it feel alive. Inviting.

“But isn’t that fake?”

If a store isn’t ready, shouldn’t it show its real state? The half-built shelves, the bare floors, the mess? Isn’t authenticity about showing things as they are?

Authenticity doesn’t mean exposing every flaw. A closed store with bright art isn’t hiding the truth. It’s offering something better to those who pass by. It’s saying, “Yes, we’re still getting ready, but here’s something beautiful in the meantime.”

It reminded me of a conversation in India. Someone told me, “Art comes after the family is fed.” A full stomach before a feast for the eyes. The argument was clear—art is an optional extra, a luxury.

But is it?

Hunger is real. Survival comes first. But beyond physical hunger, there is another kind—the hunger for beauty, and connection. A need that isn’t always felt, but exists. A need that, when ignored, leaves something empty in us.

Yes. There is a cost angle. Keeping things well-designed takes money. That’s true. But neglect costs more. The Broken window syndrome is real. When a place looks abandoned, it slides further. When it looks cared for, people respect it.

And that’s the point—intentionality. Art, design, and care shape how we experience a space. They change how we interact with it. How we treat it. A well-kept street, a thoughtfully designed workplace, a welcoming public space—these aren’t just about looking good. They change behaviour. They build connection. And remind us that we aren’t just individuals passing through.

We belong to the whole.

It reminded me of other examples from Mumbai.

Fixing a cracked pavement, adding colour to a dull wall, keeping a space inviting—these aren’t small things. Just as we change ourselves, we must care for our surroundings. Because they shape us too.

Yes, form has a price. But leaving it perhaps costs much more.