Diet is very important. You become what you eat. This thought is not just about food, but I will start this post with food.

I went for the karate class last evening and I was feeling miserable the whole time because I had eaten just three hours before the class. Moreover, it was also not light food. I have not been eating well during the last two weeks since my schedule got messed up on my birthday. Last weekend I couldn’t go to the market because I was busy with the visa application of my parents. And since the last two weeks I have not done well in sports. I did well today on the outside but inside I was not comfortable.

I thought some time ago that I must follow good diet all the time if I want to do well in sports. I cannot eat junk five days a week and expect myself to do well in sports the next two days. It just doesn’t work like that. I cannot expect myself to learn the essence of karate if I forget about it the moment I step out of the dojo. I cannot acheive the focus of a boxer if I box only in that one room and forget about it afterwards. The body and mind need to be trained even while we are not learning. Good diet, good mindset, good exercise, good ethics are needed to make serious progress.

But this was just about food. I realised in the last eight months that I feel much better physically and mentally when I have my diet under control. I wrote some days ago that I recentlty changed my mind about two things – social connections and work. The change about work is also in terms of diet.

Over the last four years I have been all over between the extremes of hating and loving academia, and these fluctuations made me spend too much for two less time on my own projects. At times I admired the people who are so passionate about what they do that they think about it practically all the time. At other times I despised these people for being monotonous and for “not having a life”. I realised recently that staying connected with our passion is just like eating healthy to maintain physical fitness. We cannot be good at something if we do not spend enough time doing it. And to keep doing it we need to keep our mind and body healthy. We need to stay focussed, we need to keep good company, we need to surround ourselves with like-minded people, we need to keep in touch with our passion, we need to avoid getting distracted by other shiny things.

Nowadays I am actively trying to stay more connected to physics outside of work. By doing this I expect myself to hold the momentum better while working, stay motivated, productive for longer, and most importantly, maintain the passion about what I do. I need to maintain a good intellectual diet to keep the rhythm in my work life, just like I need to eat healthy to be able to do well in sports.

Bye bye…