How my perception about entrepreneurship changed after visiting the Himalayas

This article was originally published on Medium where I am no longer active. You can find the original here.

Recently, I was in the Himalayas for 2 weeks. During those 2 weeks, I had zero communication with the outside world. Climbing 14,000ft. in the dreadful nature left my mind in a complete desolation. By the time I reached home, my mind was a blank slate like I was reborn. This gave me an opportunity to look back at my life in a new perspective.

In past 5 years, I introspected a lot, and also observed people around me. I realised that most of the people don’t think for themselves, own things which they don’t need and most importantly do things which they don’t want to do. Rather than understanding what their needs are, they buy things which they see in advertisements just to show how ‘modern’ they are. Most of them do not like their work and spend all their weekdays waiting for a weekend or worse tweet about how pathetic their job or boss is.

I always thought that I am not like ‘these’ people, I am much better or in other words — superior. Rather than following the trends, I always asked myself — ‘why should I do it?’. I thought I was listening to my own voice rather than the noise around me. I tried to live a simple life instead of filling my life with things which I didn’t want. I believed that I was living my life the way I wanted. But I was so wrong.

When I came back from the Himalayas, I looked at my life. I saw the people I was following on Twitter, newsletters I subscribed to, blogs which I used to read, events I used to attend and I realised that I was no different than those people around me. From college days, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. It was not because I loved fixing things, it was because I was influenced by people like Paul Graham, Jack Dorsey, Bill Gates, Elon Musk etc. I wanted to change the world because Steve Jobs said that in a YouTube video. I created a startup because I used to read TechCrunch a lot. Even I was following a trend just like people around me. The only difference is, this trend of entrepreneurship and startups is highly ambitious which can drown people. Even after realising this truth, I was unable to turn down the path of entrepreneurship. There was something which was pulling me back. After a while, the answer was crystal clear — ‘Thrill’.

The reason why I went to the Himalayas, rode 650 KM in a scorching heat for a week or turned down a high salary job with an opportunity to settle down in North America was same — it made my heart beat the hardest. Entrepreneurship is not about acquisitions or raising million dollars; It is about thrill, unpredictability, living with constraints, pushing yourself to a new high, being innovative and trusting your own gut over stats. I crave for this and I love every single moment of it. That is why I chose entrepreneurship.

Life is an empty slate and you are free to do anything you want. You want to change the world? go ahead and do it but first ask yourself — do you really like disruptions in your own life? or is it because you read an autobiography.

When you do things which you love only then you will enjoy life to it’s fullest and with no regrets. You will discover things about yourself which you never imagined. Otherwise you will die in a boredom waiting for ‘that’ blissful weekend.