Hey rockstars, 

It’s been a whirlwind of a week, with lots of highs-highs (one of my close friends got married this weekend to the love of her life!!) and lots of low-lows (I’m livid at the state of the world and annoyed that journalistic integrity is taking such a horrible hit). On Friday night I was talking to my friend Neel and I was talking maybe a mile a minute. He said “are you spiraling?” and I said “No, I just haven’t taken a deep breath in a week and a half.” So then I spent the weekend taking multiple deep breaths, and now here we are, back at work and back to being very under-regulated. 

Looking at the general melancholia I have these days (*gestures at everything*), I have been searching for answers in every small thing. I was tempted to write a poetically sad piece about signs – like the fact that within 5 minutes of each other, (1) I saw my second ever High Country Suburban (dream car); (2) my favorite song, Dekhha Tenu, played on Spotify even though it was on actual shuffle and it shouldn’t have played; and (3) my Instagram algorithm has told me in 150 different ways that I need to be brave, pack my things, and move to Colorado. 

I could talk about the significance of those signs. I could talk about the fact that maybe it’s all leading up to some good news. I could also talk about the fact that these signs in quick succession are also gutwrenching. 

Buuuuuut, instead I’m going to shove those feelings down and pretend that everything is fine, and I will instead try to be grateful and reflect on my life instead. 

Last night it was Katie’s birthday and she had a really nice birthday dinner with most of her closest friends. I love going to these events in your 30s because it’s just your core friend group and you get to just catch up and talk about all the things that happened since the last time you saw them. I think I used to be a lot better at messaging my friends. Sometimes about the most mundane things.

For a while, whenever I was faced with a dilemma or I had to write a professional email back to someone who was snarky or said something to me that I didn’t like, I would message my closest friends and say “Hey, etiquette question” or “can you tell me if this is English?” or “look at what she emailed, can you help me figure out how to respond?”

Now all of that is gone, and I just go straight to AI.

In an effort to be more efficient — to get answers quicker, faster, in an “easier way,” to write things better — I worry I’m erasing my personality and erasing my connections to those around me. 

But here’s the thing. We were meant to be analog. 

We are meant to have dumb phones and analog watches. We are meant to use our brains and seek out knowledge from books and dictionaries and encyclopedias. Growing up, if I didn’t know something, then my parents would encourage me to look it up, and I’d find a book on the bookshelf, or go to the library to learn about my latest obsession.

We are not meant to be readily available and accessible at all times of the day. We are not meant to immediately respond to text messages and work pings. I’m meant to leave my phone upstairs while I sit in the living room talking to my dad.

We are meant to have binders full of recipes, and learn skills from books rather than the internet. I am meant to pour over old photo albums and laugh about how we could ever be so small. I’m meant to look at these same pictures of my parents (who, at my age, already had 2 kids — a 7 year old and a 2 year old) and admire how they did it all when I can barely take care of myself.

We are meant to do things with our hands: crafts, write love letters and let people fall in love with our handwriting.  I want to hold cards, art, picture frames and admire the beauty. I want to make legos and not let the fact that I have absolutely no space to display them deter me from buying and making more.

We are not meant to get cheap dopamine from social media likes and bright overstimulating colors. We are meant to read books, and mispronounce words because we’ve only seen them in writing and never heard in real life. We are meant to start obscure collections and then share them with our loved ones years later. We are meant to experience the world through our eyes and not through our camera lens. 

I am meant to regulate my nervous system. I am meant to relax. I am meant to stand in the sun and breathe the fresh air. I am meant to pick flowers and look at the sky. I am meant to build a life that is mine and that I’m proud of. 

AI is too embedded in my life for me to put a stop to it altogether — after all there are a lot of great uses for it. But maybe I can reduce my dependency on it. Even as I opened a new tab, instinctively I typed “chatgp” before realizing I meant to type “coffeeandcheckins.” And the next time I need to reply to an email, I’ll message my group chat instead of immediately going to AI.

And maybe in time, I’ll relearn to pause and take the slower route.

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!🙂❤