Adult Money.

By now, I'd become accustomed to the slight upward shift in countenance whenever people first learn that I am a lawyer, 6th year in practice.

 "Isn't it really long hours, fast-paced and demanding?"

 Yes, yes it is. Believe me, I could write a whole book on the toll it takes on you in every aspect of your life.

Why am I still in it for the long run? I don't know. Along with the the dignified sense that you're a learned member of society, the creative methods you have to employ to become a professional problem-solver, the different ways you narrate your Client's story to a curious Judge, the inevitable end result of your Client now becoming your enemy when it's time to ask for fees, the doing (and undoing) of multiple drafts before you come up with the perfect end product with a resounding sense of content in your chest where no words could do the feeling justice (pun unintended), the ever expanding vocabulary you have to accumulate to reflect a persuasive argument, the corporate coloured blazers, the office lunches and dinners with equal part pseudo laughs and awe, and maybe planning meetings centered around the checklist of cafes serving different coffees and burnt cheesecakes you have to tick off before you retire from the professional life for good, ... you get the idea. 

Sure there's the stress. 

Is my hair dropping in chunks, and simultaneously threatening to turn completely white? Yes. 

Am I the chunkiest weight I have been in life? Also yes. 

Is there a light to the end of this tunnel? We don't know.

But also, every once in a while, there is the fact that you are woken up by your natural body clock on a Saturday morning, no passive-aggressive boyfriend (or girlfriend) to stress over, and wonder whether they feel prioritised enough, no crying baby or eager husband demanding what little residues of body battery you have left, and no ailing relatives to look after and stress over the medical bills you would have to foot because they didn't "believe" in insurance. It makes no difference whether you checked your phone all day , but not in a depressive reclusive, psychopathic way but in a way that feels thoroughly liberating. You take a deeper breath than usual, and for the first time in a long time, truly, truly experience the air slowly fill your lungs. What a feeling it is to be alive. Today , particularly.

Your Garmin watch, which , not too long ago, felt like an unnecessary, bougie purchase, alerts you that your sleep was slightly less than ideal but it was enough recharge to take on the day. You dry out your fresh laundry on the balcony of the 41st floor, low-key wondering if it would feel the same in your own place. A waft of laundry perfume (something you didn't even know existed until recently) fills the air. It almost distracts you from the fact that in approximately one year, you would be paying off a housing loan which has a tenure for longer than you've walked earth. 

The morning sun rays are gentle, not intrusive , inviting hope that maybe today will be soft. You put on a long white dress and your signature red lipstick. Your skin is doing much better from getting good rest and being fed with modest amounts of skincare , which , not too long ago, felt like an avoidable expense and a byproduct of capitalism's chokehold grip. So, you do not have any foundation or concealer on. Plus, it's good to let the skin breathe once in a while. You water your balcony plants which gives you the illusion that you're perfectly capable of caring for another life form outside yourself.

It feels like a day to have a good, hearty brunch. A sense of entitlement creeps in. You worked hard for this. You know most of the day would be spent aggressively punching on keys to meet this one work deadline , so you decide on extravagance. You take a slow drive to your office , a Spotify playlist dissecting a verse of the Genesis chapter in the Bible lingering in the background. 15 minutes in, you find a parking close by. 

You walk past a french bistro that you've passed by most of your two years in Bangsar but never walked into because the mere appearance of it means you'd be burning a huge hole in your (e) wallet. But , fuck it. Work hard , play hard. Your eyes scan the menu and land on the most pretentious sounding item. Barramundi in almond butter with ratatouille. You pair it with an overpriced iced coffee. 

Aha. That's it. That's the order that's going to make any of these long hours feel justified.

As you take in the checkerboard tiling, the warm yellow lighting you've now associated with French dining, and pick up on all the Parisian references in the 10 steps it takes to get to your seat, you look around and see an Indian man trying to impress his chinese girlfriend by taking her to this "new place he found online". Beside you, a young man scans the menu for a good while. Shortly after another effeminate man walks in and takes a seat across him. You're seated alone, taking yourself out on a solo date. Coherent thoughts are flowing seamlessly in your head, so you start typing in your notes app. Your soft grin is reciprocated by the waiters' own, eager to see if there is something further they can do for you. 

You contemplate whether to book a Pilates class over the weekend, or wait out the luteal phase when your body feels so goddamn weak. As your fingers graze the fully booked schedule, you can't help but admire your freshly done cat-eye gel manicure. You asked for nails resembling the galaxy, some part motivated by the need to feel like you've got the whole world in your hands. Freshly threaded eyebrows, not a single stray hair visible on your moisturised skin, your head held high from sheer joy, so much so your mild double chin (born out of a sedentary lifestyle) almost disappears. You savour the meal before you, contemplating whether to compliment the French owner in his native language, a skill you only acquired because you couldn't silence a five-year itch to learn French formally, so you signed up to do just that, in a French school run by the French embassy. 

Just 5 years ago, you never imagined you'd become a Pilates girl. You never thought you'd buy your own car with the fear of driving and whatnot. You never thought you'd see the day where you'd pay obscene amounts of money for someone to beautify your nails. You never would have thought you'd learn bachata, formally learn French before you even mastered your own mother tongue, or even live out of your parents' home in exchange for one day owning YOUR house. But it is what it is. 

You realise that, you've became the template, white collar, Bangsar babe.

The divine brunch, now ended, brings about the realisation that it is time to work in the office for the next 7 hours. 

Ah, sweet, sweet capitalism. If you can't beat it, join it, amirite? 

What is grief?

 

Someone once told me, in less refined terms, that I’d sat with grief for so long, over so many unresolvable issues in life, where ‘acceptance’ was the only way forward, that I have now developed some ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ with the feeling of grief. So, now, subconsciously, I seek out situations that lead me to it. Maybe I wouldn’t even know what to DO, with a life free from grief. After all, when you sit with grief for so long, it becomes part of your personality. So, I, subconsciously, in my day to days, feed it. Breathe it to life.

---

Why would ANYONE do that, to themselves, …one might ask? It would be easy to summarise it as “you think too much”. Maybe. If this were the price to pay for having a depth that expands like nebulae in an infinite universe, to be able to write with a profoundness that leaves readers with goosebumps, maybe, just maybe, I’ll take it.

Source: https://pixabay.com/gifs/galaxy-universe-cosmos-sky-3468/

How does one feed grief? Grief is nourished in the music you let play in the background, the words you read, the online content you consume, the people you surround yourself with, the type of conversations you have with yourself, the compromises you make that chip away too much from an authentic living.

Grief is apathy. It takes away your willpower to fight for people to stay in your life. “Oh, you think this connection is too one-sided? You don’t really feel like we know what’s going on in each other’s’ lives anymore? You think we have grown into wholly incompatible people as adults? Well, okay then. I hope you find someone who does it for you.” Poof, goes another 15-year friendship out the window. It is not even motivated by spite, it’s motivated from an increasing need for detachment from everything which matters because you know, all too well, that what goes up must come down. Everything has an expiry date. 

It’s like being in the midst of the longest free-fall of your life, constantly just WAITING for the moment things go “thud”.  EVEN IN THE MIDST OF EXPERIENCING GOOD TIMES.

Source: https://makeagif.com/gif/evanescence-bring-me-to-life-HHiseS

Grief is narcissistic. It takes away your ability to ‘lose the argument, not the person’. You just stop associating with those you know are going to see that giant glow of a red button that says ‘TRIGGER’ and press it with full force. But you forget, it’s only human, that the people you love, or even strangers, are going to gloss over that button whether they intend to or not. The world does not, and cannot operate around what your triggers are like a game of minesweeper.

 To some level, you are subconsciously, belatedly, “punishing” the person you just met for all the previous people who could have exercised better thought process over their words and decisions, which have now unfortunately altered you in a somewhat negative and permanent way. As you are doing it, you realise that this is not the way to go about interacting with people. But you just can’t stop. Deep down, you know. You owe yourself a duty to heal and fix yourself through your acquired knowledge of human interaction, and get back out in the game again to make someone’s day around you a little better than before you met them. But you’re already too worn out.  

Grief is erratic. Prolonged exposure to grief causes a learnt numbness, that you would do anything to make yourself feel a little more alive. Some resort to drugs. Shopping. Food. Sex. Gambling. Whatever it takes to feel a dopamine hit. It may create an erratic, impulsivity, that, to the outside world, makes you look so spontaneous, like you have retained your youth when others have let it slip away. So you let life happen to you, instead of you taking life by the horns, since everything you’ve tried to manage, control, structure, had plans of its own anyway that deviated so far from anything that you could have imagined. So, you just don’t ‘play with life’ anymore, like the sour grapes theory.

Source: https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/patrick-bateman-american-psycho-christian-gif-5104406

Marinating in grief takes the foundations, bases, the ground-zeros of someone’s life and pushes it one whole mile below that.  It strips you off everything you ever attached happiness to, like lying down on warm sand, then realizing that you’re fucked because it was quick sand, but making no attempts to get out of it anyway because maybe you’ve just resigned to this fate.

So, because of that, Grief is arrogant. It feeds you with a mistaken belief that ‘NOBODY’ could survive the things you go through, the thoughts in your head, the choices you had to make in the crossroads that you had to take, that it’s almost offensive (?) that someone else is going through what they term as grief. You forget, that, someone who drowns in 6 feet of water is just as dead as someone who drowns in 20 feet of water. You believe that it’s human nature to nourish and create a safe space. Not to destroy or belittle. …And yet.

---

Maybe this grief, now attached like a cancer, manifested in romantic interests who kept me a hidden like a dirty secret, then replaced me in weeks and some, even days (!) when I was prepared to take my whole world and spread it like a red carpet so their feet are padded from anything less than bliss. It’s slowly losing the ability to offer a kind of love that makes a beggar feel and walk like a millionaire.

Maybe, grief is hyperfixating on the one thing I could fix and have control over, i.e my career, (which to be fair is the only thing which has loved me back). Yet knowing at the end of the day that a job is just a means of making money, a man-made currency that cannot bury you.

Maybe, grief is losing a constant, but also having no willpower to fight for that connection to stay in my life because what I could offer into that person’s life pales in comparison to the interactions they could be having with others who more align with where they are in their life right now.

Maybe, grief is a sudden unexplained loss/disappearance of a pet I raised from when it took its first steps in this world, which, despite not being able to say a word to me, and running away from cuddles or sitting down with me, I know deep down loved me just as much as I loved it.

Maybe, grief is the increased isolation I feel from all that was supposed to be familiar, my childhood, parents. The age gap, language barriers, and differences are hyper imposed in my memory rather than all that makes us similar.

I go back to a textbook definition of love as found from a Bible verse:-

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 

I would have come across this verse many, many times in my lifetime. But today, it’s become crystal clear that grief is, (and risks turning you into) the opposite of love. And, quite heartbreakingly, grief is born out of the absence of love. Just look at the examples I wrote about immediately above.

 

 But here’s the kicker. Maybe, if grief can take this much hold over a person, and if it’s only an emotion that one spent too much time with after all, just imagine what cultivating a culture of sustained joy and love again can do.

With that , I am entering into 2025 with a different lens. The goal is simple. To cultivate love and joy above all.

 

Kamala Harris - The Truths we Hold (A Summary) .

Source: https://www.facebook.com/KamalaHarris/posts/the-truths-we-hold-coming-out-on-january-8-discusses-the-defining-moments-in-my-/10157364898867923/

        I completed this read about three months back. It was a book I purchased more than a year ago but did not have any sense of discipline to open and read. I remembered it again at the height of the US elections campaigning . I remember loads of commentaries brutally pick apart the two candidates and what they stand for, their inconsistencies, with hosts and commentators committing outright mockeries of each, thinking how an honest introspection like that could never happen here due to cultural differences. It's just... not our way. (To be honest, I had not even followed Malaysian elections that closely!) 

This years' elections had me on the edge of my seat. One reason why could have been due to the fact that the policies have a major ripple effect onto the international platform. It was especially important at a time and age where we have the Israel-Palestine war (two-state approach) (and US being for some reason, a country powerful enough to intervene and mediate or stop it for good), who would take a tough stance against China to prevent threats of possible espionage and/or who would be the target of economic sanctions, the strength of cryptocurrency, climate change concerns, who would manage the inflation bubble, the fact that housing was becoming increasingly unaffordable, immigration, policies to help the struggling middle class, electric vehicles, religion, abortion rights, unemployment rates, .. It was like watching the world about to undergo a big change in real time. It was two real polar opposite interests being advanced, with almost no overlaps. 

As an outsider, it really did look like a choice between one fraction who would run the country as if it were a giant business, versus one who would run the country to meet humanitarian, social, familial, middle class needs. One thing was clear, the latter was becoming increasingly unpopular due to the host of problems it spilled onto frustrated taxpayers. As the resounding quote from the recently watched movie Wicked goes:- 

"“The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”

We have seen it time and time again, and it was apparent that these elections were no exception. It was so polarizing, not just to American citizens, but everywhere and everyone else. Each fraction needed an enemy to despise, and they were more than ready to make it the other. 

And just while it's not completely off topic yet , let me share some insightful links :- 

VOX: The debate over why Harris lost is in full swing. Here’s a guide.
(https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/383897/harris-lost-debate-why-trump-won)

BBC: Why Kamala Harris lost: A flawed candidate or a doomed campaign?(https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr4l5j2v9do)

----

So, anywayy, back to the book I read, The Truths we Hold -- I ended up really loving this auto-biography. It was honest, relatable, and provided valuable insight into the stances and policies she adopted. Something within me wanted to see *cough* an  indian woman *cough* lead USA. 

Here are some impactful takeaways from the book. It's done to inspire you to get the actual book and read the whole story :- 

Preface:

1. We cannot solve our most intractable problems unless we are honest about what they are, unless we are willing to have difficult conversations and accept what facts make plain. 

Chapter 1 : For the People 

This chapter talks about the nudge which led to her running for president. It depicts her growing up middle class, and her mother throwing back the question to her, what did you do ? It speaks of her bad first experience as a prosecutor, and the empowerment she felt from stopping /curbing the cycle of foster care -> juvenile detention -> adult criminal system. 

Memorable quotes:

1.  It was a defining moment in my life. It was the crystalisation of how, even on the margins of the criminal justice system, the stakes were extraordinary high and intensely human. It was a realisation that, even with the limited authority and intern, people who cared could do justice. It was revelatory, a moment that provided how much it mattered to have compassionate people working as prosecutors. 
   
   
2. My mother was expected to return to India after she completed her degree. Her parents had an arranged marriage. It was assumed my mother to follow a similar path. But fate had other plans. She and my father met and fell in love at Berkeley while participating in the civil rights movement. Her marriage -- and her decision to stay in the United States-- where the ultimate acts of self-determination and love. 
   
   
3. It was a community that was invested in its children, a place where people believed in the most basic tenet of the American Dream: that if you work hard and do right by the world, your kids will be better off than you were. We weren't rich in financial terms, but the values we internalised provided a different kind of wealth. 
   
   
4. I didn't walk away thinking I was a failure. I walked away thinking I had done a great job, and just made one small mistake. It was moments like those that helped me build a natural sense of confidence. I believed I was capable of anything. 
   
   
5. For too long, we'd been told that there were only two options: to either be tough on crime - an oversimplification that ignored the realities of public safety. You can want the police to stop crime in your neighbourhood and also want them to stop using excessive force. You can want them to hunt down a killer on your streets and also want them to stop using racial profiling. You can believe in the need for consequence and accountability , especially for serious criminals, and also oppose unjust incarceration. I believed it was essential to weave all these varied strands together. 
   
   
6. But as it turns out, neither law school nor the bar exam really teach you what to do in court, and in those early days, it can feel like you've landed on another planet where everyone speaks the language but you. 
   
   
7. "For the people" was my compass- and there was nothing I took more seriously than the power I now possessed. ...I was just starting out as a prosecutor, and yet I had the power to deprive a person of their liberty with the swipe of my pen. 
   
   
8. There is a giant chasm between arrest and conviction, and if you want to get from one to the other, you need legally obtained evidence. 

----

Chapter 2: A voice for justice

Source: Creator: MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ | Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS (Copyright AP 2004)

This chapter detailed her experience as a public prosecutor, recognising the systemic issues about the justice system and trying to revamp it from the grassroot problems.

Memorable quote:

1. In the 1940s, the prospect of good jobs and affordable housing around the shipyard lured thousands of black Americans who were seeking opportunity and relief from the pain and injustice of segregation. These workers bent the steel and welded the plates that helped our nation win the Second World War.  
   
   
2. I wasn't running so I could have a fancy office downtown . I was running for the chance to represent people whose voices weren't being heard, and to bring the promise of public safety to every neighbourhood, not just some.
   
   
3. Still , this process didn't come naturally to me. I was always more than happy to talk about the work to be done. But voters wanted to hear about more than just policy. They wanted to know about me personally- who I was, what my life had been like, the experiences that shaped me. They wanted to understand what I was on a fundamental level. But I'd been raised not to talk about myself. I'd been raised with the belief that there was something narcissistic about doing so. Something in vain. And so, even though I understood what was motivating their questions, it took some time before I got used to it.
   
   
4. Modern campaigns rely on big data, analytics and sophisticated voter turnout models. But in my experience, I've found that a friend, a pen, and a bowl of spaghetti are just as effective.
    
5. When it comes to the things that matter most, we have so much more in common than what seperates us. 
   
   
6. I had run because I knew I could do the job-- and I believed I could do it better than it had been done. Still, I knew I represented something much bigger than my experience. At the time, there weren't many district attorneys who looked like me or had my background. There still aren't.
   
   
7. For me, to be a progressive prosecutor is to understand...that fairness is in short supply in a justice system that is supposed to guarantee it.
    
8. As a country, we specialise in releasing inmates into desperate, hopeless situations. We give them a little bit of money and a bus ticket and we send them on their way with a felony conviction on their record-not the kind of experience most employers are looking for. In so many cases, finding themselves rejected in the hiring process, they have no way of making money. From the moment they leave, they are in danger of returning. 
   
   
9. By its very design, the cash bail system favours the wealthy and penalises the poor. If you can pay cash up front, you can leave, and when your trial is over, you'll get all of your money back. If you can't afford it, you either languish in jail or have to pay a bail bondsman, which costs a steep fee you will never get back. 
   
   
10. Public safety depends on public trust. It depends on people believing they will be treated fairly and transparently. It depends on a justice system that is steeped in the notions of objectivity and impartiality. It depends on the basic decency our Constitution demands.

---

Chapter 3: Underwater

This chapter details the rising costs of living and her being in a place where she could do something to save the middle class from drowning in their financial crisis, specifically the housing market crash. 

Memorable quotes: 

1. Few realised that they were actually purchasing ticking time bombs. 
   
   
2. Foreclosure is not a statistic. Foreclosure is a husband suffering in silence, knowing he's in trouble but too ashamed to tell his partner that he has failed. Foreclosure is a mother on the phone with her bank, pleading for more time-just until the school year is over. Foreclosure is a sheriff knocking at your door and ordering you out of your home. It is a grandmother on the sidewalk in tears, watching her life's posessions being removed from her house by strangers and left exposed on the yard. It is learning from a neighbour that your house was just auctioned off on the steps of the City Hall. It is the changing of locks, the immolation of dreams. It is a child learning for the first time that parents can be terrified, too. 
   
   
3. From the banks' point of view, the faster they got bad loans off their balance sheet, the faster their stock price would rebound. And if that meant breaking the law, so be it. The could afford the fine. It was painful to me when I realised that the bank viewed the fine as just the costs of doing business. It became clear to me that they had built it into their bottom line. It was a damning portrait of an aspect of Wall Street culture that persists , the part that seems to care little, if at all, about the collateral damage caused by recklessness and greed.
   
   
4. For the vast majority of families, buying a home is the biggest financial transaction they will ever be involved in. It's one of the most affirming moments in a person's adult life., a testament to all your hard work. You trust the people involved in the process. When the banker tells you that you qualify for a loan, you trust that she's reviewed the numbers and won't let you take on more than you can handle. When the offer is accepted, the broker is so happy for you,you'd think he's going to move into the house with you. And when it comes time you finish the paperwork, it's basically a signing ceremony. You might as well be popping champagne. Your broker is there. Your banker is there, and you believe they have your best interests at heart. When they put a stack of paper in front of you, you trust them, and you sign. And sign. And sign. And sign. 

---

Chapter 4: Wedding Bells

Source: https://depositphotos.com/similar-images/106450052.html?qview=106450028
File ID: 106450052 By: hinhanni

This chapter tells the story of how she met her now husband.  And what a great complement he was (instead of diming her light). It also touches on her stance on LGBT's right to marriage. 

Memorable quotes:

1. We were following in the footsteps of giants, and widening the trail for our time.
   
   
2. The first dot concerned the importance of third-grade reading proficiency. Studies show that the end of third grade is a critical milestone for students. Up until that point, the curriculum focuses on teaching students to learn to read. In fourth grade, there's a shift, and students transition to reading in order to learn. If students can't read, they can't learn, and they fall further behind, month after month and year after year-which forces them onto a nearly inescapable path to poverty.
   
   
3. The connections were so clear. You could map the path for children who started drifting away from the classroom when they were young. The truant child became the wanderer... who became the target for gang recruiters... who became the young drug courier... who became the perpetrator-- or the victim-- of violence.

---

Chapter 5: I say we fight 

This chapter details the journey to run as senator. To those outside of America, it's a state representative. Each state in the US elects two senators who serve six year terms in Washington DC. 

Memorable Quotes:

(I didn't highlight any paragraphs from this chapter) 

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Chapter 6: We are better than this 

This chapter details what happened when Kamala was elected as senator. 

Memorable Quotes:

1. I talked about the outsize impact on the state of California, because I believe California is a microcosm of who we are as Americans. 

Chapter 7: Every Body 

This chapter deals with Kamala's views and stance on healthcare, and on the side, tells the story of her mothers' death, a person who helped shape most of her fundamentals. This chapter does a great job at explaining the bridge between poverty/race and mortality.

Memorable Quotes:

1. Nearly all of us will face a prognosis that requires profound interaction with the healthcare system.
   
   
2. A 2016 study found a ten-year gap in life expectancy in America between the most affluent women and the poorest . That means that being poor reduces your life expectancy more than a lifetime of smoking cigarettes.
   
   
3. But think about that for a minute. This is the world we could return to if they abolish the ACA: women denied healthcare coverage for perpetuating the species. Let's remember the words of Mark Twain: "What sir, would the people of the earth be without women? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce."
   
   
4.  It should have come as no surprise that over the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have spent about $2.5 billion on lobbying. Imagine the new drug trials they could have funded instead. 
   
   
5. Between October 2013 and April 2014, the company increased the price of Pravastatin, a statin that helps reduce cholesterol and prevent heart disease, by 573 percent.
   
   
6. It's heartless and wrong for companies to make a fortune by exploiting the fact that their customers literally cannot live without their products. 
   
   
7. 7. Black women are also at least three times as likely to die due to complications relating to pregnancy than white women- a shocking gulf that transcends socio-economic status. 
   
   
8. And because black Americans are more likely than their white counterparts to be born and raised in low income, high crime neighbourhoods, they are more likely to experience a phenomenon known as toxic stress, the result of trauma caused by things ranging from witnessing violence to experiencing it. 
   
   
9.  One study found that children who go through at least six adverse childhood experiences could see their life expectancy reduced by more than twenty years. Physiological stress leads to hypertension, which results in higher rates of infant and maternal mortality, among other conditions. Research has even found that certain levels of stress shorten our telomeres, which are structures that hold our chromosomes together. As we age, our telomeres naturally get shorter until cells start dying, which leads to disease. A study at the University of Michigan measured the telomere length in hundreds of women and found that black women were biologically more than seven years older than white women their age.
   
   
10. It's also the case that black Americans experience poorer care when they go to the doctor. White patients are 10 percent more likely to get screened for high cholesterol than black Americans, even though their rates of heart disease and stroke are higher among black Americans. Black patients are also less likely to be trated using procedures to repair blocked arteries. White women are more likely to get breast cancer screenings than black women and Latinas. And women of colour are more likely to have their symptoms dismissed by their doctor, regardless of their economic status. 

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Chapter 8 : The Cost of Living 

Source: https://depositphotos.com/photos/cost-of-living.html?qview=577973632

This chapter goes into the income imbalances across America, in view of the ever rising costs of living which was highlighted to her through the letters from people within her constituency. It deals with income polarisation, how today's financial policies are 'hollowing out the middle class'. 

Memorable Quotes:

1. The nation's clearest voices and strongest leaders in the fight for economic justice had been suddenly, irrevocably, silenced...I remind people that when you adjust for inflation, the federal minimum wage is actually lower now than when Dr. King spoke of 'starvation wages' in 1968. What does that say about how our country values the sanctity and dignity of work?
   
   
2. For me, reading these letters isn't just about understanding what their lives are like, both the joys and the fears. When people write to me, it is often as a last resort. They are struggling, and in real trouble, but nothing else they've tried has worked. And so they turn to me and share with me the things that have upended their lives. 
   
   
3. How can you dream when your pay barely budges no matter how hard you work, while everything else keeps getting so much more expensive? How can you dream when your son is sick but you can't afford your copay or deductible? A middle-class life isn't what it used to be. Being middle-class ought to mean having financial security and stability. But how is that possible when the cost of living is so high that you live one setback away from catastrophe? An injury. An illness. Nobody expects life to be easy, but it's not supposed to be a life-altering crisis when your car's transmission fails. 
   
   
4. Every letter stands on its own. But, together, they tell the same story. It is the story of Americans trapped in a cost-of-living crisis, where everything from housing and health care to child care and education is way more expensive than it used to be while wages remain as low as they have been for decades. The letters I receive consistently tell the story of the hollowing out of the middle class, and of an economic life defined by intense struggle. 
   
   
5. From the big business's perspective, it was those who owned a piece of the company who deserved the lion's share of the riches, not the people who made the company run. So while productivity improved 74 percent between 1973 and 2013, worker compensation rose just 9 percent. 
   
   
6. What's the result of all this? It's been great for the richest 1 percent of American households, who now own 40 percent of the nation's wealth, which adds up to roughly $40 trillion. But it's been a financial nightmare for the middle class. According to research done by United Way, 43 percent of households can't afford basic expenses: a roof over their head, food on the table, child care, health care, transportation, and a cell phone. 
   
   
7. We are running out of time. That's the hard truth . And not just in terms of dealing with what is so urgent right now. We are running out of time to deal with major changes to come. With the rise of artificial intelligence, we are likely to face an automation crisis in this country with millions of jobs on the line. Industries are changing. Self-driving trucks couod cost 3.5 million truck drivers their jobs. The entire tax preparation business could disappear, too. The McKinsey Global Institute found that as many as 375 million people worldwide will need to switch jobs because of automation and predicts that 23 percent of current working hours could become automated by 2030. 

---

Chapter 9 : Smart on Security 

Source: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/medium-shot-security-officer-posing-studio_39916156.htm

As the name suggests, this chapter details Kamala's stance on security. In her pursuit of being more in touch with the issues surrounding security, she joined the Senate Intelligence Community. It's top secret but in there people are not seperated by their political beliefs, they are all united to serve one purpose, to protect America from her enemies. It also explores the invisible thread linking climate crises to an influx of disease , threatening the safety of the average American. 

Memorable quotes:

1. The rigid partisanship that has paralyzed much of Washington somehow fades as we enter the room/ We are, all of us, keenly focused on the weight of the work we are undertaking and its consequences. There is simply no room for anything other than a focus on America's national security and the protection of anything other than a focus on America's national security and the protection of American's privacy and civil liberties. 
   
   
2. I sometimes refer to it as a war without blood: there are no soilders in the field, no bullets and bombs. But the reality is cyber warfare aims to weaponise infrastructure , and, at its worst, could result in casualties. Imagine, for example, a cyberattack on railroad switching signals or hospital generators or a nuclear power plant. 
   
   
3. Climate change can be seen from many angles. Some see it purely as an environmental issue. They point to the destruction of habitats, the melting of ice sheets, and a comong mass extinction of species. Others see it as a public health issue that demands a world where clean air and clean water are readily available. There is also the economic dimension of climate change: ask farmers about the complexity of their work, about their precise and measured focus on weather patterns, about the incredibly narrow margins that exist between a successful harvest and a ruinous one, and you will come to understand that extreme weather events and unpredictable shifts in the climate are nothing to dismiss. 
   
   
4. But when you speak to generals, when you speak to senior members of the intelligence community and experts on international conflicts, you will find that they look at climate change as a national security threat -- a "threat multiplier" that will exarcebate poverty and political instability, creating conditions that enable violence, despair, even terrorism. An unstable, erratic climate will beget an unstable, erratic world.
   
   
5. Climate change also increases the risk of deadly global pandemics making their way to the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that between 2006 and 2016, the number of Americans infected by diseases like West Nile, Zika, and Lyme more than tripled. As temperatures continue to warm diseases are flourishing in parts of America where they wouldn't have been able to survive in the past. 
   
   
6. This isn't the stuff of science or of a dystopian novel set far in the future Climate-driven crisis is already on the rise. In late 2017, for example, water reserves fell so low in Cape Town, South Africa, that the city of more than three million people, South Africa's second largest, was at risk of having its taps run dry. Residents started showering over buckets so that they could reuse the water in their washing machines. Farmers had to abandon about a quarter of their crops. 
   

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Chapter 10 : What I've Learned

This chapter ties all the previous ones together in a neat close, in the form of summarised nuggets of wisdom, before some pictures are slotted right after and the books end.

Memorable Quotes:

1. Of course, it isn't possible to reduce the complexity of leadership to simple slogans. But my team and I rely on these mantras as touchstones and guideposts -- as starting points for policy conversations and as ways to determine whether we're on the right track.
    
2. It's the kind of topic I have to remind myself not to talk about too much at cocktail parties, since most people don't find it as interesting as I do. "Why the fascination? He explains that 40 percent of people on earth owe their lives to higher crop outputs that were made possible only because of fertilizer. It was the literal fuel for the Green Revolution, which helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. What Gates understand is that there is a big difference between announcing a plan to end world hunger and actually ending it/ And closing the gap depends on seemingly mundane details like fertilizer and weather patterns and the height of wheat. 
   
   
3. Politics is a realm where the grand pronouncement often takes the place of the painstaking and detail-oriented work of getting meaningful things done. This isn't to say that there's  anything inherently wrong with grand pronouncements. Good leadership requires vision and aspiration. It requires the articulation of bold ideas that move people to action. But it is often the mastery of the seemingly unimportant details, the careful execution of the tedious tasks, and the dedicated work done outside of the public eye that make the changes we seek possible.
    
4. My point is: You have to sweat the small stuff-because sometimes it turns out that the small stuff is actually the big stuff. 
   
   
5. Words have the ability to empower and to deceive, the power to soothe and to hurt. They can spread important ideas and wronghead ones. They can spur people to action, for good or ill. Words are incredibly powerful, and people in power, whose words can carry furthest and fastest, have an obligation -- a duty -- to speak them with precision and wisdom. Scripture tells us, "The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint , and whoever has understanding is even tempered.
    
6. Second, I choose to speak truth. Even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it leaves people feeling uneasy. When you speak truth, people won't always walk away feeling good-and sometimes you won't feel so great about the reaction you receive. But at least all parties will walk away knowing it was an honest conversation. That is not to say that all truth is uncomfortable, or that the intention is to cause discomfort. Many truths are incredibly hopeful. I am simply saying that the job of an elected official is not to sing a lullaby and soothe the country into a sense of complacency. The job is to speak truth, even in a moment that does not welcome or invite its utterance.
   
   
7. I've seen a lot in my years of public service. And what I've learned can't all be boiled down. But I've come away with the firm belief that people are fundamentally good. And that, given the chance, they will usually reach out a hand to help their neighbour. I've learned, through history and experience, that not all progress is gradual or linear. Sometimes, it simply goes from one plateau to another. Sometimes, we fall back tragically. Sometimes, we leap forward and achieve things beyond the realm of what we thought possible. I believe our job is to provide the force propulsion that will get us to a higher plane.
   
   

Key Extracts from '7 Habits of Highly Effective People' by Stephan Covey

Ah, Steven Covey. You genius, you.

Being an internationally acclaimed best-seller and the fundamentals of most successful management moguls (whether they realize they emulate this or not), the foundation of school modules, the subject of motivational talks for companies, I had to give this a read, mentally prepared for the possibility that it was going to be dry and well, everything that you'd expect a self help book to be.

For context, it's a synergy of many minds' extracts, conceptualized from the 70s , a product of painstaking review of success literature as part of a doctorate program. So it's not one man's brainchild per se, but a mode to have these  'natural laws' synthesized and made accessible for people. 

I was pleasantly surprised (!) because it was laden with one-liner gems and easily adaptable habits, which, if adopted, have the power to create a ripple effect of change which makes you so proud you started with the small steps. It only took three months, in between the toiling with my regular work as a litigation lawyer. But it's finally done. I will try to keep this takeaway as TLDR as possible. 

The whole book is split into internal changes (Habits 1-3) which have to be worked on before you generate outward habits or changes (Habits 4-6). 

Habit 1 :Be proactive.

Less complaining and more effort. Be grounded in what we CAN CONTROL versus ruminating on what we CANNOT CONTROL. Be proactive and take responsibility over your choices. In order to be effective, we must be proactive. Reactive people take a passive approach and complain, favoring blaming the mishaps on circumstances beyond their control, often having a blind spot to what was within their control, dooming themselves. Reactive people feel victimised. This shrinks their circle of influence. The positive acts we take  increases the radius of our 'circle of influence' within our 'circle of concern'. 

Reactive language: He makes me so mad!

Proactive language: I control my own feelings.

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MEMORABLE QUOTES:

• "Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose."
  
  
• "A serious problem with reactive language is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People become reinforced in the paradigm that they are determined, and they produce evidence to support the belief. They feel increasingly victimized and out of control, not in charge of their life or their destiny. They blame outside forces- other people , circumstances, even the stars- for their own situation."
  
  
• "If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so."
  
  
• "It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us...our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future, and to inspire others to do so as well."
  
  
• "Nothing has a greater, longer-lasting impression upon another person than the awareness that someone has transcended suffering, has transcended circumstance, and is embodying and expressing a value that inspires and ennobles and lifts life."
  
  
  
  
  
  

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind.

Start with a clear destination in mind. Use our conscience to decide what values will guide us. Evaluate the meaning behind our business and victories. Are we running purely on automatism? So the key is to have a personal 'mission statement' , whether in businesses, families or even self goals by identifying our values. Re-scripting is writing off limiting scripts and and rewriting proactive ones. Are you doing things in life which align with what you want to say about your own self at your funeral? Do you want to be able to say you were a good spouse? then are you doing the things which allow you to say that, or are you filled with negativity when you see your spouse?

What to do:

1. Visualise your own funeral- who's there, what are they saying about you? how would your priorities change if you knew you only had 30 days to live?

2. Break down different roles in your life, i.e personal, professional or community , then list 3 goals you want to achieve to meet standards set for them

3. Define what scares you - Then visualise how you would handle your situation. 

---

MEMORABLE QUOTES :

• "If you carefully consider what you wanted to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success. It may be different from the definition you thought you had in mind. Perhaps fame, achievement, money, or some of the other things we strive for are not even part of the right wall."
  
  
• "We reactively live the scripts handed to us by family, associates, other people's agendas, the pressures of circumstance-- scripts from other people's agendas, the pressures of circumstance- scripts from our earliest years, from our training, our conditioning. These scripts come from people, not principles. And they rise out of our deep vulnerabilities,, our deep dependency on others and our needs for acceptance and love, for belonging , for a sense of importance and worth, for a feeling that we matter. "
  
  
• "If my sense of security lies in my reputation or in the things I have, my life will be in a constant state of jeapordy that these posessions may be lost or stolen or devalued. If I'm in the presence of someone of greater net worth or fame or status, I feel inferior. If I'm in the presence of someone of lesser net worth or fame or status, I feel superior. My sense of self worth constantly fluctuates. I don't have any sense of constancy or anchorage or persistent selfhood. I am constantly trying to protect and insure my assets, properties, securities, position or reputation."
  
  
• "The individual who is friend or enemy centered has no instrinsic security. Feelings of self worth are volatile, a function of the emotional state or behaviour of other people. Guidance comes from the person's perception of how others will respond, and wisdom is limited by the social lens or by an enemy-centered paranoia. The individual has no power. Other people are pulling the strings."
  
  
• "Principles don't react to anything. They don't get mad and treat us differently. They won't divorce us or run away with our best friend. They aren't out to get us. They can't pave our way with shortcuts and quick fixes."
  
  
• "The personal power that comes from principle-centered living is the power of a self-aware, knowledgable, proactive individual, unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviours, and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental influences that limit other people."
  
  
• "A mission statement is not something you write overnight. It takes deep introspection, careful analysis, thoughtful expression and often many rewrites to produce it in your final form."
  
  
  
  
  
  

Habit 3: Put first things first.

It's more technical and uses a 'time management matrix' but in essence, it preaches to identify your end goals and then act in ways which align with these goals. Have discipline to prioritise our day to day actions based on what is important, not what is the most urgent. Act according to values not impulses. For example you cannot say you want to be healthier but do not devote the time, this valuable resource we have, in the day to exercise, care about your nutrition, etc. Move as many items into Quadrant 2, Not Urgent but Important. 

---

MEMORABLE QUOTES:

• "The degree to which we have developed our independent will in our everyday lives is measured by our personal integrity. Integrity is, fundamentally, the value which we place on ourselves. It's our ability to walk our talk. It's honour with self, a fundamental part of the Character Ethic, the essence of proactive growth."
  
  
• "Discipline derives from disciple-- disciple to a philosophy, disciple to a set of principles, disciple to a set of values, disciple to an overriding purpose, to a superordinate goal or a person who represents that goal."
  
  
• "That subordination requires a purpose, a mission. A Habit 2 clear sense of direction and value, a burning 'yes' inside that makes it possible to say 'no' to other things."
  
  
• "Trust is the highest form of motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience, and it doesn't preclude the necessity to train and develop people so that their competency can rise to the level of trust."
  
  
• "Set aside 30 minutes each week to plan your week, and watch it change your life."
  

Habit 4: Think Win -Win

It prescribes that nobody has to 'lose' in order for you to 'win' . Not everything has to be like a zero sum game. In order to establish effective interdependent relationships that are mutually beneficial and satisfying to each party, win-win is the answer. 

4 Paradigms of human interaction:

1. Win-Lose people are prone to use position, power, credentials and personality to get their way. 

2. Lose- Win people are people pleasers and seek strength from popularity and appearances. 

3. Lose- Lose people are driven by their egocentric , stubborn. 

4. Win-Win or no deal- If an agreement cant be reach where it's not mutually benefit, then there is no deal. It is premised on an abundant mentality or that there is enough for everyone. The more committed we are to win-win, the more powerful our influence will be. 

Each approach must be selectively used at different times and places!

What to do?

1. Align our reward systems with our goals and values 

2. Have systems in place to support win-win - write a list of what the other person needs to win, and how you can contribute to that. Do you give more than you take, or take more than you give?

3.  Deeply consider your own interaction tendencies and whether it serves you well in your relationships.

---

MEMORABLE QUOTES: 

• "When someone has to earn love, what's being communicated to them is that they are not intrinsically valuable or lovable. Value does not lie inside them, it lies outside."
  
  
• "Certainly we need law, otherwise, society will deteriorate. It provides survival, but it does not create synergy."
  
  
• "Some people become so centered on an enemy, so totally oblivious with the behaviour of another person that they become blind to everything except their desire for that person to lose, even if it means losing themselves. Lose/Lose is the philosophy of adversarial conflict, the philosophy of war."
  
  
• "If you value a relationship and the issue isn't really that important, you may want to go for Lose/ Win in some circumstances...'What I want isn't as important to me as my relationship with you.'"
  
  
• "What constitutes a win-what is, in fact, harmonious with our innermost values."
  
  
• "Consideration deals with the long-term welfare of the golden egg, consideration deals with the long-term welfare of the other stakeholders"
  
  
• (On the meaning of emotional maturity)"the ability to express one's own feelings and convictions balanced with consideration for the thoughts and feelings of others"

Habit 5: Seek first to Understand, then to be understood

A simple example would be , imagine you've visited an optometrist because you have troubles seeing clearly. He takes off his own pair of glasses and hands it to you , compelling you to try it because it worked for him for years. Don't prescribe solutions before you deeply understand the problem. Don't listen with intent to reply. Listen with intent to understand. It emphasises emphatic listening, being do not listen autobiographically (i.e, with our own perspective as our frame of reference) to shove your experience down someone's throat , they are not experiencing this through your lens. They want to be heard first before they require your prescription. Don't neglect the second part, seeking to be understood takes courage. 

What to do:

1. Look at interactions outside of words, but body language. 

2. When presenting, root it in empathy, describe the audience's point of view in great details 

---

MEMORABLE QUOTES:

• "Because we listen autobiographically, we tend to respond in one of four ways. We evaluate- we either agree or disagree; we probe-we ask questions from our own frame of reference; we advise- we give counsel based on our own experience; or we interpret - we try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behaviour, based on our own motives and behaviour"
  
  
• "Can you see how limited we are when we try to understand another person on the basis of words alone, especially when we're looking at that person through our own glasses? Can you see how limiting our autobiographical responses are to a person who is genuinely trying to get us to understand his autobiography? You will never be able to truly step inside another person, to see the world as he sees it, until you develop the pure desire, the strength of personal character, and the positive Emotional Bank Account , as well as the emphatic listening skills to do it."
  
  
• "Describe the alternative they are in favour of better than they can themselves. Show that you understand them in depth. Then carefully explain the logic behind your request."

Habit 6: Synergy 

Basically the whole is greater than the sum of parts. [1+1 = 3] Value each others' differences being the essence of synergy, i.e the mental, emotional and psychological differences between us. It serves to add to your knowledge bank. It also defines brainstorming as an evaluation being subordinated to creativity, imagination and intellectual networking.

What to do:

1. Mastering Habit 4 and 5 first, Think win-win then seek first to understand. Only then you find strength in the alternative perspectives.  

2. Only then, you can synergise your desires with the other , it's both against the problem, understanding the needs, and creating a third alternative solution so there's win-win and the relationship is nurtured in the process. 

3. Think about someone you hate and why he disagrees with you after you first put yourself in his shoes. The better you understand him the better you get to synergise. 

4. Think of someone who you get along with. What conditions were met for synergy to be optimised in these good interactions?

MEMORABLE QUOTES

• "Nearly all creative endeavors are somewhat unpredictable. They often seem abigious, hit-or-miss, trial and error. And unless people have a high tolerance for ambiguity and get their security from integrity to principles and inner values, they find it unnerving and unpleasant to be involved in highly creative enterprises. Their need for structure, certainty and predictability is too high."
  
  
• "The person who is truly effective has the humility and reverence to recognise his own perceptual limitations and to appreciate the rich resources available through interaction with the hearts and minds of other human beings. That person values the differences because those differences add to his knowledge, to his understanding of reality. When we're left to our own experiences, we constantly suffer from a shortage of data."
  

Habit 7 : Sharpen the Saw 

We can't find 30 minutes a day 4 times a week to go to the gym. We can't read a book 15 minutes a day to stimulate our brain. You're saying it takes too much time. But your goal would have been to be healthier and fitter, and to be smarter. This prescribes not skipping the foundations and jumping straight into the finished product because you think you're saving time. It's counter productive ! There are 4 dimensions to our nature which must be exercised often. 

What to do?:

First, the physical, which requires us to eat well, exercise to benefit flexibility and strength. 

Secondly, spiritually we are renewed when we have leadership in life and commits us to our value systems. Communicate with nature ! immerse in great literature  ! 

Thirdly , mental dimension is intended to continue expanding our mind and its thresholds. We do this by journaling and reducing our  unproductive screen time. 

Fourth, socially helps us have meaningful connections with others- We do this by deeply understanding people, maintaining an abundance mentality. 

MEMORABLE QUOTES:

• "A good exercise program is one that you can do in your own home and one that will build your body in three areas: endurance, flexibility and strength."
  
  
• "The essence of renewing the physical dimension is to sharpen the saw, to exercise our bodies on a regular basis in a way that will preserve and enhance our capacity to work and adapt and enjoy"
  
  
• "To him, prayer was not a mechanical duty but rather a source of power in releasing and multiplying his energies."
  
  
• "Where does intrinsic security come from? It doesn't come from what other people think of us or how they treat us. It doesn't come from the scripts they've handed us. It doesn't come from our circumstances or position. It comes from within. It comes from accurate paradigms and correct principles deep in our own mind and heart. It comes from inside-out congruence, from living a life of integrity in which our daily habits reflect our deepest values."
  
  
• "This is the true joy in life- that being used for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one...It's sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." 

----

Some OTHER memorable quotes for me from the book:

• (On how perceptions are formed) "It taught me that we must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as at the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world"
  
  
• "The success literature of the past 50 years was superficial- it was filled with social image consciousness techniques and quick fixes - with social Band Aids and aspirin that addressed acute problems and sometimes even appeared to solve them temporarily, but left the underlying chronic problems untouched to fester and resurface time and time again"
  
  
• "Many people with secondary greatness- that is, social recognition for their talents - lack primary greatness or goodness in their character. Sooner or later, you'll see this in every long-term relationship they have, whether it is with a businessman associate, a spouse, a friend, or a teenage child going through an identity crisis. It is character that communicates most eloquently. ... What you are shouts so loudly that I cannot hear what you say"
  
  
• (On the idea that there is more than one way to look at things that neither has to be "wrong". It's being open and receptive to another's idea. )"The more bound a person is by the initial perception, the more powerful the "Aha!" experience is, It's as though a light were suddenly turned on inside"
  
  
• "We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behaviour and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviours flow."
  
  
• "Principles are not values. A gang of thieves can share values, but they are in violation of the fundamental principles we're talking about. Principles are the territory. Values are maps. When we value correct principles, we have a truth- a knowledge of things as they are...The more closely our maps or paradigms are aligned with these principles or natural laws, the more accurate and functional they will be."
  
  
• "Borrowing strength builds weakness...And what happens when the source of borrowed strength - be it superior size or physical strength, position, authority, credentials, status symbols, appearance or past achievements -changes or is no longer there?"
  
  
• Albert Einstein observed, 'The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them' 
   
• "The inside out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others."
  
  

TLDR:

This is one of those reads which altered my brain's chemicals, thought process and structures. Would recommend people to read, annotate and apply this in their daily lives through the guided journal workbook that you can find in a bookstore.