(202)4 the plot

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

this publication is a place for me to reflect on productivity, health and tech, and drop unique opportunities in the space right to your inbox daily. if you’re new here, sign up to tune in!💌

scroll to the end for my daily roundup on unique opportunities!

onto today’s topic: (202)4 the plot 🪷 

undoubtedly, the plot took to new heights (literally) this year. i summited mount kilimanjaro, stayed locked in at a campus library study room until 2am for a week straight, ate japanese snacks by a river in the countryside, lived on a sailboat without electricity for 3 weeks, sipped tea in my friend’s dorm while playing cards, got kicked out of vietnam, and so much more in just one year.

in 2023, i wrote about 3 areas of growth i wanted to 10x. i would say i achieved 80% of it, but that doesn’t account for all of the success i unexpectedly found outside of those boxes. you can never truly plan out a year — making the most out of opportunities and encounters that serendipitously present themself in front of you is how you truly joyfully embrace the variability of life. 🍀 

each week felt like i was accumulating a year’s worth of laughter, struggle, stories, memories, and growth. january feels like it was eons ago. 2024 was filled to the brim with exciting experiences, a whole lot of firsts, and liberating autonomy.

let me take you through what the past 12 months looked like for me.

looking back at my 2024

my year can be separated into 3 main chunks.

from one country to the next 🌏️ 

i won’t spend very long detailing the latter half of my gap year, which was spent traveling from january to may. i experienced electric cultures, tried delicious food, met amazing people, and made lifelong memories in tanzania, south korea, thailand, vietnam, india, and japan.

i write about my different experiences and insights in my gap year post here.

fever dream of a summer ☀️ 

summer felt like one thing after the other in rapid succession. i had a month at home before i boarded my flight to unc chapel hill for a week to attend orientation (don’t ask me why it happens 2 months before classes start). then, my family and i filled up the car for a 2-week long road trip across canada’s east coast where we explored nova scotia, prince edward island, and newfoundland & labrador. i had 1 week at home to recover mentally, and then was thrown into a hellish trip in maine for 21 days. with 10 of my future classmates, we lived on a boat and sailed across the coast of maine without any electricity or running water. i wrote about my maine experience in detail here.

i had three (3!!!) days at home after that, and then it was …

hello college 📚️ 

in all honesty, i felt extremely underwhelmed during my first month at unc chapel hill. that was to be expected though. here, i’m made to believe my greatest adversity is getting a bad grade, yet i unlearned that years ago when i discovered opportunities are unlocked by real experiences, rather than a flawless transcript.

i knew this, but it felt like all of the self-growth and personal development i underwent over the last 2 years got knocked out of me — so, did i really grow or was it just because my circumstances were different? 🤨 

as i fit further into the mold of an educational system once again, the tight grasp i held over my own autonomy slipped more and more. i realized this when i was catching up with a friend and she asked me, “how are you enjoying college?” i couldn’t bring myself to give a truthful positive answer, and that set off an alarm in my head.

so, i joined clubs that excite me, took up my habit of cold emailing cool people once more, and escaped to different hikes and cafés over the weekends. in the same way i grew to enjoy high school, i bent college to my schedule and it now works for me.

i’m extremely happy to confidently conclude that i have indeed grown tremendously in the last 12 months, and that’s because my mental fortitude and attitude towards life has remained consistent despite the frequently changing environments i throw myself into. a little slump doesn’t take away from all of that learning, and that was my biggest point of growth in my first semester of college: developing confidence in my character as a result of my lived experiences. 🪴 

there’s a charm to college you can’t find anywhere else. you live with your closest friends, make a routine out of hitting the dining hall and walking to class, find solace in a friend’s dorm with a steaming cup of mint tea, go to your first garba dressed in traditional clothing and then make plans to attend another, build up a vault of inside jokes and clutch your stomach from the endless stream of laughter you hear in the background anywhere on campus, and live in a balance where we’re free in a way we’ll never be again.

lesson from semester one of college: enjoy it your way.

a series of 4’s

4 // mental switches that flipped

in other words, these are my 4 biggest lessons of 2024. they’re a little more than lessons though — perhaps significant mental inflection points would be a better way to put it.

1. you control your mind 🧠 

   i can’t control others’ actions or external circumstances, but i certainly can control how they affect me. multiple experiences in 2024 showed me that i can surpass even my physical limits and overcome the most ridiculous obstacles with mental clarity and optimism alone. no day is a bad day, simply because i won’t let it be — every day is the same beautiful gift, the wrapping paper is insignificant. it’s as simple as that, and life has been so much brighter as a result.

2. dreaming big isn’t limited to childhood ⭐️ 

   at what age did we start scoffing at someone saying their dream is to “change the world” or to “help a billion people”? isn’t it so sad that we shed away dreams to be realistic as we get older? screw being realistic. success favours the bold, the passionate, and the ambitious. if i was realistic, i wouldn’t be writing this post right now. to dream is to chase realms beyond your capabilities. to chase in such a way is to grow, and most importantly, with a fire for life fuelling your feet. i will continue to dream big, and you should too.

3. i love my own company 🪷 

   solo travel will do that to you. if i want to hit up a new cafe, explore a new part of the city or anything that’s conventionally a “social” activity, you best believe i’m going. if another friend is down, that’s great, and if not that’s cool too. i’ve learned to genuinely enjoy my own company and spend time with my thoughts — it’s also a great forcing function to put myself out there. as a result, i’ve also become less susceptible to fomo.

4. friendship is laughing and growing together 🫂

   i’ve never really opened up and had vulnerable conversations with my friends. i wanted to keep friendship as an area in my life reserved just for laughter — that’s also why i felt like i’ve never grown extremely close to anyone in my life. there’s more to friendship than just joking and laughing together. by having these conversations and opening up more in 2024, i’ve learned that the root of a meaningful friendship is an unsaid shared desire to grow together.

4 // speedrun

1. what kept me sane?

   my noise-cancelling headphones & rollerblading on campus.

2. what did i get really, really, really excited about?

   half-days while interning on a tea farm in japan.

3. what song will always remind you of this year?

   feel it by d4vd.

4. what did you want and get?

   friends that i absolutely adore in college. 💌 

4 // my favourite blog posts

a few i haven’t already hyperlinked.

1. action precedes inspiration

2. colourism

3. we’re all creatives

4. 9-5 slander

sparks i hope to grow in 2025 ⚡️ 

i write out my personal goals in further detail on notion for my own eyes but there are 3 large buckets i would like to fill in 2025.

build build build → my focus was shifted away from building cool projects and validating products in 2024. that was an intentional choice and i’m happy for it — my perspective has been expanded like never before and i’m buzzing with both ideas and anticipation. however especially when i started college, i was left somewhat unfulfilled because i wasn’t working on something. in 2025, i plan to get my head back into builder gear and actively ship.

health → in the last few months, health has truly become one of my top priorities, and i want to continue working towards caring for my body. it feels good to be healthy, and it’s the most surefire way to avoid burnout. be healthy, feel energized. a revolutionary concept, isn’t it? 😋 

shed my fear of rejection entirely → i’d say i’m pretty unafraid of rejection/failure in a professional sense. in 2025, i want to bring this mindset to my personal life as well. i want to be able to step into a room and not care about how others are going to perceive every little action. i hope it’ll translate to me also being more confidently outgoing.

and 2024 comes to a close. 📕 

i’m endlessly grateful for everyone i crossed paths with this year, even if we didn’t continue hiking the same route. i am particularly thankful for my parents, siblings, best friends scattered across north america, and mentors i can always rely on. each day was touched with the love of these people and i’m so privileged to have such a community.

unlike previous years, it doesn’t feel like 2024 slipped away. i firmly believe i lived every day to its fullest. i was present every single day, and that’s largely thanks to this blog. i was made to reflect every day and ground myself to my thoughts and the memories associated with each square on a 365-day calendar.

if 2024 left me with one thing, it’s the priceless value of living in the present and making it count every single precious day. it’s time to make 2025 count too.

happy new year. here’s to a better us. 💐 

daily opportunity + resource drops 🔍️