Hey rockstars, 

I hope you’ve all been well. A few updates from me.

Since it’s LinkedIn official, I guess I can make it official here too: I’ve started my MBA and I’m super excited about it. I’ll only be doing it part-time, and I started 2 weeks ago and love it so far.

Second, some of you know that right before the East Coast snowstorm, the heat at my parents’ house went out. We endured eight days of tundra-level temperatures. But! I’m happy to report that the house finally has heat again. Today, my mom plans to make a beautiful fruit tart, and we all plan to celebrate with pho – the warmest possible way to mark the moment. 

Third, I’m praying for warmer weather. It’s February, which means birthday month!! If it weren’t my birthday, February would probably be one of my least favorite months. I’m still figuring out how to celebrate, so if anyone has ideas, let me know. I just know my true personality doesn’t radiate in the dead of winter. I need late spring / early summer energy! I need floral shirts, short dresses, suede boots, iced drinks, walks on cobblestone streets, and warmth.

But my birthday is in 27 days, daylight savings is in 35 days, spring is in 47 days, and soon the sun will set at 6, 7, and even 8pm. And that’s the hope I’m looking for. 

Lately, when life has felt hectic and stressful, I’ve been slowing down by: (1) coloring; and (2) watching Girl Meets World. 

Now, I recognize I’m not the target demographic for this show… but maybe I am. Maybe I appreciate it more now that I can actually understand the life lessons and relate them to my own experiences.

In the show, there’s a recurring theme about hope. One of the girls is Riley (played by Rowan Blanchard), and she’s full of it. The other is Maya (played by Sabrina Carpenter), who needs a little extra sometimes. Another continuous theme is that the secret to life is that “people change people.” There’s a scene in Season 2 where Maya lets herself experience hope for the first time. For so long, her family was just her and her mom. Now, she’s letting her guard down enough to let someone else in—and to let that person know how much she cares about him.

“Do you see the expression on their faces? You know what that is? Hope. Funny thing is, they can use just about exactly as much of it as you can.”

It was one of those quotes that even though it wasn’t dramatic or loud, it made me sit for a moment longer than expected. It didn’t promise anything. It just stated something quietly radical: that hope is not rare, not magical, not unevenly distributed, and it instead exists in roughly equal measure within all of us.

What changes isn’t how much hope we’re allowed to have. What changes is how close we are to it at any given moment. Hope isn’t blind optimism or relentless positivity. It’s fuel. It’s the thing that lets you show up tomorrow, try your best, and take a leap.

Physics Mini Series about Hope and Matter

In physics, we learn that in a closed system, matter is conserved: it is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. This principle is known as the law of conservation of mass. Objects and substances do not disappear; their constituent atoms are rearranged. When ice melts, its molecules remain the same but shift from a solid to a liquid state. When wood burns, the atoms in the wood react with oxygen to form ash and gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapor, while releasing heat and light. In ordinary chemical reactions like these, the total mass of all reactants equals the total mass of all products.

At a deeper level, however, Einstein’s theory of relativity showed that mass and energy are fundamentally linked. In nuclear reactions, a small amount of mass can be converted into energy. Even then, the broader rule still holds: while mass alone may change, the total mass–energy of the system remains conserved.

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I go back and forth on whether hope works the same way, or whether we truly create and destroy it. But I don’t think hope is something we generate out of thin air. Instead, hope often exists inside us, compressed into another shape: fear, frustration, exhaustion, anger, even grief. During hard times, hope doesn’t evaporate; it disperses.

And when people come into our lives, they don’t give us new hope so much as help convert it. One sweet conversation can shift it. A shared laugh can condense it. In these moments, hope becomes something shared rather than transferred. Still, I do believe hope can be created, especially together.

I’ve realized that we tend to encounter people in one of three states: 

1. Those we can give hope to; 
2. Those we can receive hope from; and 
3. Those who need roughly the same amount of hope that we do. 

The truth is, we all move between these states throughout our lives.

The first group is often the most visible. These are the people leaning on us, whether they say it out loud or not. They may be navigating loss, transition, failure, or simply a season where everything feels heavier than it should. Around them, we become steadier. We listen more carefully. We choose our words with intention. We remind them that what they’re feeling is survivable. And even when we don’t feel strong ourselves, we brave it out because someone else needs us to be.

The second group includes those we tend to hold close. They’re the radiant ones who make us feel strong when we don’t feel it ourselves. These are the people we receive hope from: mentors, partners, friends, or even strangers who arrive at exactly the right moment. They don’t fix things or promise outcomes. They simply make it easier to breathe. Receiving hope requires a different kind of courage, because it asks us to admit that we’re not fine and that we need reassurance.

The third group may be the most meaningful of all: the people who need the same amount of hope you do. These relationships don’t involve rescue. There’s no imbalance. No one is holding the light while the other stumbles in the dark. Instead, there’s a quiet agreement: we’re both believing in something bigger than us. They don’t ask you to be stronger than you are. They just walk alongside you, matching pace. It reminds me of one of my favorite Taylor Swift lyrics from Call It What You Want: “You don’t need to save me, but would you run away with me?”

What’s striking is that these roles are not fixed. The person you support today may be the one who steadies you tomorrow, or vice-versa. Hope, unlike physics’ ideal closed systems, is not fixed. It spreads faster in groups and collapses faster in isolation. It’s relational. And most importantly, giving hope doesn’t usually deplete the giver, just like lighting one candle from another doesn’t make the first candle dimmer.

Maybe life knows what it’s doing. Maybe we meet people not by accident, but by alignment. Maybe we cross paths with exactly who we need, when we need them, not to change our circumstances, but to help us endure them.

Sometimes people find each other because they’re exactly what they need.

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

Celebrate my 30th year around the sun with me! Click the follow or subscribe button to stay updated! You can also connect with me on twitter, my coffee and checkins Instagram, my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Amazon Music. Have a topic suggestion? Email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com! I’d love to hear from you!🙂❤