Hey friends, long time no see!

If there were a leaderboard for the number of times someone quit posting/updating the site/sending newsletters, nobody would be surprised to find me at the top.

If there is one thing I want ya'll to take away from this post, it would be this -

Please do not be stopped from building a life you love. Listen to your heart, relentlessly chase the life you'd love to live.

The life that if you were to die tomorrow, you could die in peace with yourself knowing that you have done the best job at living the gift God gave you - the gift of life.

Listen to your heart, use your mind to achieve it. Believe me, you can actually live the life of your dreams. Wait, don't just listen to me, look at people who built that life for themselves. Its going to inspire you way more than this post, lol.

Where I've been

Life has been miles over top of my head - as far back as I can remember, and it made me adapt to a way of living which I do not like. I stopped my side projects, I stopped experimenting and having fun at work. I stopped enjoying the little things of life.

However, lately there have been significant life changes (will share them soon) which have motivated me to find time for things I love doing and much more. So here I am.

After lots of self-doubt, questioning, and breakdows - I came to realize a lot about the kind of work I want to do, the life I want to lead, at least for now.

For the past two years, I have been working in a full-time job as a developer and designer, and I have realized it's time for me to move on and venture into uncharted territories. Not to take away from the amount of gratefulness I have in my heart for the life I led in the last two years. But I have grown to know, I find it most fun when I'm constantly learning, experimenting, along with building my own business. I think it's because when you run your own business - with full agency, you are the bottleneck to the progress you can make. You have full freedom, along with full responsibility for your own trajectory. And nothing motivates me more to grow.

I can't wait to write more about it in the upcoming weeks.

What Now

I chose to send this post today because of a special reason. Here it is.

As of yesterday, June 6th, 2024, I celebrated my 20th birthday.

Entering my 20's feels like many things. Scary. Overwhelming. Too much to handle. Getting older. What if I lose the child inside me? What if I end up being like one of those boring uncles and aunts. But it also feels exciting. Opening a new book. Writing a new book. An entirely new journey where I can choose to let go of the good and bad of the past.

A new chance to build a life I love. A new story.

And I'm starting again to do just that.

What's Next

I'm excited to carry forward the hundreds of lessons I had in my teens (especially in the last two years), and venture into a new decade. My 20's.

I wanted to send this post today as a good checkpoint for this new journey. And here's the first step I'm taking.

Doing things I love, starting with writing online.

I came across the idea of publishing my work, sharing my thoughts on the internet around the year 2020. I was inspired by the work of ​Ali Abdaal​, a medical student, doctor, and a part-time YouTuber at that point in time. He was (and is) a big advocate of being a citizen of the internet. Writing, sharing, talking about your work, passion online.

His advice always felt like its coming from a friend. So he made me do it.

I started my blog at yashjaing.com (now yash.so) in 2021 and wrote a few blog posts on productivity and things I was learning. I sent them as newsletters to my new subscribers.

I'm so grateful to some of you who subscribed to my work then, in the beginning. It was a boost to my motivation. But since 2022, when I got more engaged full-time as a designer and developer, writing kind of fell off the cliff. I stopped.

For the last three years, there have been times when I tried to continue again, but I failed miserably. Work pressure increased, life happened, and I let go of things I loved.

But not anymore. Today, I'm promising ya'll to show up once every week in your inbox and share what's on my mind. I haven't decided on the structure yet, but that can come later.

I'm asking you guys to keep me accountable and would love your support on this. If you are not interested in hearing from me, or you don't even remember who I am because I have been so inconsistent - it's totally fine, my friend!

But your support means a lot to me!

Signing off, will see you all in a few days.

Yash xx

ps: As of writing this post, I realised how much I missed this feeling of writing online and sharing my thoughts with you guys. I missed it so damn much - it feels so nice to be back. Thank you so much for following along my journey! <3