What a time to be alive

Hmm.. Where do I start?

I’m 25 today. I’m going through cycles of joy and sorrow. I’ll tell you why?!

It is almost 1.5 years since we started Record, and the needle hasn’t moved yet. We have not generated revenues. Most of my time is spent in Record but no significant progress yet. We are improving incrementally, but nothing so far that we could say as a milestone. Every day I wake up thinking of quitting, but something in me says “Don’t quit”. We are bleeding money. We are putting in time, effort and money, getting rejected on a daily basis. But we are not giving up. We are doing everything in our capacity to succeed. Here success means generating revenues and reaching our first milestone. I really can’t handle the ups and downs of the startup journey. It is draining me mentally and emotionally. But I’m not showing it to anyone. I can’t show. I have never complained. I don’t like to. Regardless of whether we succeed or not I wake, sit and work. Outcomes are simply a by-product.

My 2nd company, Adtitude Labs, is doing well. But not the department that I’m taking care of. LinkedIn personal branding vertical is not scaling rapidly at least at the pace at which the other 2 verticles are growing. But the company as a whole is doing well. We are expanding rapidly. I take care of sales at Adtitude and I’m doing a terrible job honestly. I’m not able to get meetings and close deals. Probably time to change the strategy.

I’ve ₹0 in my savings. Literally 0. I have a 7 figure debt under my name. I own 6 credit cards and 4 of them are maxed out. My revenue for January is zero. My freelance income for the last 6 months is some ₹50k. I spent all of it. I don’t even have money to pay my next month’s rent. To make things worse, my parents have ₹0 in savings. They are totally dependent on me. Our household income is zero if my income is zero. My father’s business is not doing well, for the past 10 years. It is only bleeding money every month. I can’t fall back on them. It is them who can fall back on me. As a family we have zero assets under our name. This includes me, Amma and Appa. When I say zero, it is literally zero. The situation is so bad so much that I can’t even ask Appa to pay the house rent for the next month. He has his own debts under his company’s name.

The stress of meeting my revenue goals per month is not letting me think about anything else. My mind is occupied with the stress of making money. So in hindsight, I have a sales problem in all my three ventures. At Record, At Adtitude and in my freelancing career. If at least one of the ventures is sustainable I can go ahead and spend a lot more time doing sales. I’m finding it difficult to manage the sales problem of all three ventures. It is taking a toll on my mental health.

I’ve taken fitness seriously again. I’m going to the gym regularly and eating a decently good diet. Right now I’m not even going to the gym for my physical fitness, I’m going for my mental stability. To keep me sane. I don’t want to lose my mind thinking about so many things.

My mental health is below the negative zone. It is so bad right now. I’m not able to think and take decisions properly. I need a break. A small break where I don’t care about money or paying bills for the next month.

My sister is carrying, one of the happiest moments in all of our lives. So my mother is with her, taking care. She will not be here until March. I miss all of them. I probably think I’m going to have a niece. Let’s see. I think I might have to visit Dubai. But I don’t have the money to do that. We should probably take care of all the expenses during this period. My father is relying on me for this. I don’t know what to do.

To make things even worse, amidst all this chaos. I’m going through a breakup. The girl I was in a relationship with is getting married to someone else. Their family didn’t approve of our relationship. We tried making things work, but the reason was obvious. She comes from a family of means. Her family is like 500x wealthy than us. Probably even more wealthier. So she had to say Yes to the arranged marriage setup her family planned. Things are rough for me. I thought she was the one. While I was not ready for marriage, I really thought she was the one. With all the above mentioned in my mind, I also didn’t fight for the marriage. Because right now she is going to much much well-to-do family than ours. If I wanted the best for her, then letting her go is the right thing to do. With me, she is obviously going to suffer. So I thought it is better to sacrifice the relationship than put all of us in trouble. Often times, the right time to do and the hard thing to do are the same.

I’m not able to process this breakup. She is too. Both of us are on good terms but are parting ways due to a lot of factors. This alone is taking a huge toll on my mental health. I’m not having the same energy I used to have earlier. Every day the thoughts of her and our relationships crosses my mind while I try to concentrate on my work. Yes, I know love, comes and goes. Nothing is permanent in life, time will heal, and suffering is a choice. Blah, Blah. But to be honest, this breakup has affected me so badly. I’m not able to speak about it to anyone else either. With my other problems in my life this is nothing. But I had all the above problems when I was in the relationship too. But I had a different level of drive and motivation to work harder and make things right. Now everything feels like meh!

She is gone. I’m just living with the memories. For both of us, it was one of the best times of our lives. We enjoyed it while it lasted. Now is the time to let go of each other. Suffer for some time and let time heal the wounds of love.

Two of my best friends are in a relationship. One of them 6 months into it. He is enjoying and having the time of his life. Another one just a week into talking to a girl. But this has come after 3 years of a dry spell. I’m happy for them. It is 2am in the night. All the 3 of us are in our home. The first one is talking to his gf in the balcony outside, another one is talking to his new girl in my room in the front. I’m writing this sitting alone in the sofa in my living room. Life indeed comes a full circle.

To sum things up I’m going through a breakup, my gf is getting married to someone else, I’m broke AF, I’ve debts to repay, my parents are struggling, my sister is about to deliver a baby, 2 of my companies are having a serious sales problem, one of the company has just 2 months of runway left, my freelance income is at a dead end, my mental health is in the drains, I’m getting frequent anxiety attacks, sharp pain in the chest and I’m struggling to talk about this openly to my friends. I’m down physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.

I don’t know what to say more than this. I don’t know what is ahead in life. I don’t know if all this suffering is worth it. All I know is that I’m the only reason for my situation and I’m the only person who can turn this situation around.

I just need some time to breathe. I’m drained fully. I’m on the verge of quitting. But something in me says we can figure this out. I don’t know what is it. My heart feels heavy all the time. I can’t cry. I can’t laugh. Everything I do is for the sake of doing it.

But what I can say is if I can come out of this alive and survive this storm I’ll be able to conquer anything in life. Probably this is the toughest challenge and phase life has thrown at me. I’m the creator of this game and I’m the player. Let’s see if I can come out alive of this. If I do it successfully it will be one of the great turn around stories. Not for me but for people like me. If someone as stupid, as weak and as naive as me can get through such situations, think about what anyone with a better capacity than me can do.

Reminds me of my most favourite quote of all time

“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”