When did life get so complicated?

Notes and reflections on my 2024

I moved to a sublet in San Francisco on nothing more than good vibes and a tourist visa 15 days prior. 15 days in SF felt like 3 months in Toronto. The summer I spent in SF felt like a year. The past year in SF has had a greater impact on my life than the previous 3 years combined. There’s something special about this city

My past was over, my future was just starting, and it had to start by leaving my old self behind on a different coast in a different country.

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Yearning

My entire life it feels like I’ve been looking for something. I’m a consistent pacer, can’t sit still, and my greatest fear is being bored. I actually can focus quite easily when I care about the subject, and can settle in to comfort when I like where I’m at. But most of my life has been denoted by looking for new opportunities and trying to improve my circumstances.

I felt the most amount of stability this year. Which was fairly quickly shaken up by the universe sending a typhoon of events to shake me into awareness again. Almost as if it was saying “You can’t rest yet, this isn’t your time.” I grew up religious but never really believed in God or the Universe until this year. Superstition generally doesn’t appeal to me — I like to think everything is malleable, and admitting things are out of my control is just an excuse for laziness. Trying really hard has gotten me to where I am today — why would I ever leave anything up to anyone but myself?

I think that’s what I’ve been yearning for for so long — the ability to just live and let God. Or rather, to trust that something or someone other than myself would be there to take care of me. That’s what underlined this entire year. I remember early in the year talking to my brother and mentioning, “Everything is so great here. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like it can’t always stay this good, right? Something terrible must be coming, so I can’t just give up and relax, I’m too anxious.”

And he said it so simply yet somehow it stuck.

“Yeah, problems will always come up. But you’re very well equipped to solve those problems. Growing up isn’t trying to make everything feel good all the time, it’s believing that when things go bad, you have the ability to make them good again.”

This is the first year I’ve believed in myself to have that ability. I moved to SF with no plan on how I’d stay, but I just did. I got a skilled worker visa without a university degree, even though I normally would need one. The place I loved most in the world, where I made my best friends, what I moved to SF for, closed down this year — I didn’t know how I’d go on. There was multiple times this year I felt so anxious, so tired, so beaten up, I didn’t know how I’d go on. And each time, I was picked back up and compelled to keep on moving. Call it God but I prefer to call it my friends and family being the greatest ever. Surrendering to the fact that, no matter what, I will figure out a way to go on and that I don’t have to do it alone doesn’t make me superstitious but it does make me a little stitious.

I think this innate belief that somehow my life will work itself out has been an idea I’ve avoided for so many years that even now it feels hard to reconcile with. As in, if I believe my life will work itself out, why do I need to work?

Reality is a little different. By believing that I’m able to get myself out of whatever complicated, sticky situation I’m in, I’m not saying that my life is complete and I’ll never again yearn for more. It’s saying that I have a certain amount of belief in myself to make good of almost any situation that nothing can shake my core, and everything is now built from that strong foundation. It’s not that I’m comfortable and therefore not striving, or that I have no wants anymore. It’s that I’m no longer doing things to fill in a pit but rather building a sandcastle on top the earth. I am already enough, and everything I do is because I want to, not to fill some sort of hole in my heart.

When I look at it, getting that base is actually quite simple, but not quick. For me, it involves taking care of 3 things:

• a sense of belonging

• a sense of purpose

• a sense of fitness

For me, those are fulfilled by work, side projects, my close friends, meeting friends of friends (and occasionally some epic internet strangers that turn into close friends), climbing, lifting and playing basketball — all of which I engaged with plentifully in 2024, and why I felt so stable this year for the most part.

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Ego

I feel like the second I feel like I’m doing well in life, like I have some stuff figured out, like I’m finally getting my footing, the universe decides to humble me. I think that’s a good thing — it’s pretty easy for me to get a big head. Growing up, whenever I’d start bragging about myself, my mom always said “You’re floating towards the sky. I’m here to bring you back down to earth.” But always felt like I had to celebrate myself otherwise no one would. That there were tons of people around to beat me back down to earth, but not many people around to actually lift me up and make me feel good about myself.

This insecurity of mine, of not feeling like anyone was proud of me so I needed to have excessive pride in myself and express that over people, manifested itself this year. When I’m feeling down on myself, it’s easy for me to try to help others for the wrong reasons, to feel good about myself rather than actually wanting the best for others. I think helping others is a core, good character trait of mine, but making people feel like they owe me something, that I’m better than them, isn’t. That just comes up when I really need the ego boost, and there were some times this year where my intentions were mostly good but got clouded by needing people to know how good I am. I learned this year that a good deed’s reward is the fuzzy feeling you get from doing it, not someone patting you on the back for it, or standing on someone else’s shoulders and calling yourself tall.

This year I felt like I had a lot of successes, life and work wise, and I’d usually keep most of them to myself, but this time I just tried sharing, seeing as I felt more belonging this year than ever before. Overtime I just learned that people don’t really want to hear about what I’m up to or what I’m happy about, they just want to talk about themselves. Asking “how are you” is just a formality, right?. And that’s not anyones fault, or even a bad thing even though it’s largely seen as such, it’s just how life is. You spend most of your time thinking about yourself because you spend 100% of your time with yourself — being self-centered is an innate byproduct of being human. It’s why the easiest time I’ve had connecting with people is when I’m innately curious about their inner world, because everyone, including myself and introverts, is looking to share it. We spend all our time thinking about it—it’s just easy to talk about.

It wasn’t until this year that I actually felt like I had people that I’m not related to who are truly excited to see me do well. Friends who ask how I’m doing and genuinely want to know. Friends who send text messages out of nowhere to thank me for helping them, or that they noticed my energy was different this year. Close companions who, when I mentioned I didn’t want to tell them about my day when they were feeling down even though it was good, responded saying that that’s especially when they want to hear about my day so they can feel happy through me. My brother told me he was proud of me, and I saw that he truly meant it, and I just broke down into tears. I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear that. Of course bragging all the time is quite unbecoming and I’m still trying to find the balance, but some part of me is healing a bit knowing I have people who are happy for my happiness.

Last year I learned it’s cool to care. This year I learned that I don’t need to be strong, silent and nonchalant. It’s actually cool to be fun, happy and loving.

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Love

I’ve never considered myself much of a loving person. Or rather, I’ve tried to hide that part of myself for a long time. Never care, never get hurt, right?

Loving someone is really giving them the ability to hurt you and trusting them not to. I’d never fully understood why love and vulnerability are often mentioned together until this year. Being alone is safe. Letting someone really know you is like giving someone a map of your entire being, all your doubts, fears, hopes, and insecurities, a delicate web that you’ve spun for as long as you’ve been alive. Love is handing them some scissors and praying they don’t decide one day to cut through all of it.

The line between platonic and romantic love is much thinner than I’d previously thought. And it makes sense — we let our close friends know us incredibly intimately, and tons of emotions that come with having a partner you like also come with having friends you really like. Safety, trust, joy, and shared struggle are all common within most of my close friendships. The difference comes down to 3 things I think:

1. Chemistry — is there some level of unspoken tension and release between us? Do we just fit and feel good together?

2. Repetition — could I see myself us doing nearly everything together and having a good time? If we amplify our personalities 100x, would we get sick of each other?

3. Communication — Are we good at fighting with each other? Can we say the quiet part out loud?

If I think about attachment, a concept really commonly applied to romantic relationships, I started learning how to be more securely attached through my friends. I was definitely avoidant until I learned over a few years that the people around me are reliable, they’re not going to hurt me (intentionally), and they actually do want me around.

I’m now less scared of things going wrong, and more scared of never giving anything enough of a chance to go right. Assume the best, prepare for the worst.

I now lean a little anxious. I’ve always been socially anxious in general. Unlearning that has also happened through friends. Knowing that I can show up just as I am and be appreciated for it, rather than changing myself to be more likeable and fit the mould of whatever the people around me are doing, has made all the difference. The biggest change for my attachment this year was feeling like what made me weird in Toronto makes me cool in San Francisco, and having friends that can sense when I’m being inauthentic, or “off”, and know how to bring me home even if I myself don’t.

You can really only love someone as much as you love yourself. I learned what love really looked like when it was shoved down my throat by all the amazing people I met in Summer 2023, and that theme stayed in 2024. My friends who check up on me if they haven’t seen me for a bit, who welcome me in when I stop by their houses, who ask if I’ve eaten (for those who know, in immigrant households, “have you eaten?” translates to “I love you”). The more love I feel the more I’m able to express it, and even though I was very loved as a child, experiencing love as an adult by interacting with people that don’t have to yet choose to love me, has made it all the more palpable. To the point where after not saying it for 21 whole years, my parents and I now say “I love you” and “I’m proud of you” to each other. In that way, love is teachable.

You only fight with people you love. Before this year, no one had seen me cry except for my brother, mom, and dad. I usually average 1 cry a year, and my first cry of the year was held in the entire day and let out secretly at night on a bench overlooking the water in the SF marina. Since then, I’ve let it out in front of a few trusted friends who keep with them a part of my soul, and each of those friends feel like people from my own household to me. You can love someone as a partner, a friend, as family, at the end of the day it’s all mostly the same love. I think of them all as people I’m willing to let see me at my worst, who’s worst I want to be there for, who I want to fight with to show how much I care, and who I care for so much that I want the best for them even if it hurts me¹. It’s the people that really love you back that’ll see past the words you say and stare directly into your soul to check that your intentions are pure.

You never really fall out of love with someone. I guess that’s why they call it getting over someone, not getting rid of someone. I can’t rip out the piece of soul I have of them — I just grow around it. Eventually it takes up relatively less space. I still think about people I loved years ago, thinking about how I denied how much I loved them, but they’re a part of me and I them. I deny it to feel less pain, but sometimes I want to feel the pain. To know that I cared so much and my experience with them was so deep that their loss feels so heavy. It weirdly brings a smile on my face sometimes.

It’s bittersweet to know that it's possible to appreciate how someone’s helped weave the tapestry that is my personality, and thank them for their contributions but also know that their services are no longer required. It’s easier to hate, but I’ve always somehow had to take the hard path. And it hurts to love but I think it’s better in the long run to keep loving and feeling the pain of losing it than to hate, alienate and never feel the warmth that comes with really, truly falling.

I used to default to hate to ease the pain of loving. Now that my world is more open, I realize: How could I ever hate someone I loved so much?

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Loss

I’ve lost a lot of stuff this year. Jobs, family, homes, friends, my airpods, you get it. This year, my friends have been through a combined 11 breakups. I left the city I spent 95% of my life in. My last grandparent moved on. The place I loved most in the world shut down. Some of the people I once considered my best friends I no longer speak to.

There’s a few things all loss has in common.

1. Your brain already knows but your heart keeps searching.

I lost all my IDs and credit cards sometime this year. And still months after losing them, I still sometimes remember and search the whole house thinking, “Okay I just didn’t look hard enough last time, it’s gotta be in the house. Where else could it be?”

I’ll walk the same streets we used to walk together and wonder where they are. I’ll reference them in a story and it’s like they’re still here. I’ll look at the couch and realize they’re not sitting there. It’s like I forget they’re gone until my brain reminds me.

2. Mourning the loss also means mourning the future you could’ve had together.

“Oh but we never even got to…”

“We were supposed to go to a concert in March, I bought tickets in advance.”

“I wrote you a letter you’ll never get to read. I bought you a jacket you’ll never get to wear.”

Knowing that every tough situation you’ll have to face, you’ll have to face it without them, is a thought that makes you want to curl up into bed and never face the world ever again². Knowing that everything you want to show and tell them you just have to journal about, or tell someone else, but it won’t be the same.

3. You think “What could I have done differently?”

Nothing, probably. Some things just aren’t about you, but like I said, humans have default self-centered views. Sometimes it’s just out of your control — the universe has a plan for everyone, and not every plan involves you. Again, your brain knows this but your heart disagrees.

In the face of loss, I’ve been given a great opportunity to reflect on what I have. When my grandfather passed, I looked inward to find that I care a lot about my family yet find it difficult to show them. I always forget to call my mom, feel guilty, and avoid calling for even longer to avoid that guilt. So I told her to call me everyday no matter what, even if we have nothing to talk about, and that’s made all the difference for our relationship. Just to see each others faces.

Selfishly, after all the breakups, it’s been really nice to spend more time with my friends. We missed each other a lot, and after spending time with them, I realize there’s no lack of love in my life. #kissyourhomiesgoodnight

I hold a great deal of love for Toronto. Thank you for raising me. And thank you to the border patrol officer who gave me my visa so I could leave the life I’d built there behind in order to forge one that fits my current form. San Francisco is where my heart is at, and hopefully where it’ll stay for the next 3-5 years. I’m just better here.

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New

A lot of new things happened this year: I moved to a new city, picked up an instrument, made new friends, new foes (kidding! hopefully…), lived in new apartments, got a new job, fixed an old car, worked with hardware, developed new music taste, visited London for the first time, did my first road trips with friends, and lots of other new experiences for those who know.

One of the new things I’ve been thinking about is how, given enough time and proximity, conflict is inevitable. And so now when thinking of relationships I want to last for a long time, I now place less importance on how much fun we have together and more on how well we deal with conflict. Having fun is easy, and comes naturally, but being able to disagree and show each other our worst sides yet still reconcile is hard and takes courage. You can only be friends with people who want to be friends with you, and a big sign that someone wants to be friends with you is if they’re willing to tell you things you need to hear even if it hurts in the short term. If they see you as long term enough that they’ll bring up conflict to nip resentment in the bud rather than letting it fester and grow.

Of course fun is important and there’s no lack of it in my life, but in the long run, I strive to be someone that can balance both. I’ve had 10x more problems come up from not talking than talking, and there’s also certain people in my life now that I never feel worse after talking to (and many others who do make me feel worse). I’m a firm believer that if you talk about it, it gets better. And if you don’t feel like talking, write about it — it’s like talking to yourself. Much better than ruminating and letting it all fester in your head.

I’ve learned that approaching a discussion seeking to prove that I’m right often leads talking with someone to go poorly. Sometimes I want to prove I’m right so badly, we both stop trying to get on the same page and considering all the possibilities but rather trying to prove my point right or wrong. The whole point of talking is to seek understanding. It’s no coincidence that my favourite people to talk to are also the most curious, and it’s that ability to just constantly seek truth rather than prove superiority that makes me like them. This doesn’t mean I’m going to speak less confidently, but rather just give my take when asked for it, and then listen and learn about how the people around me think— that just sounds way more fun.

I used to think I needed to hide the bad parts of myself around people and always be up. I now realize that to be known and noticed is to be loved, and I myself can easily tell when someone is being fake and would rather they be themselves than try to hype themselves up into being on all the time. In the long run, it’s just too exhausting to be anyone but yourself. For you and for everyone around you. That’s not an excuse to never try to be better than you are, but to ask yourself, “Am I acting this way because I really want to and it’s core to me, or for some other external reason related to my past or my surroundings?” And if you truly do act in a way that doesn’t leave any cognitive dissonance³, you’ll feel so much better and be a magnet to the types of people you want to and are meant to be with.

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Next?

Here’s a few things I want to keep in mind during 2025:

• Look at the world through a lens of curiosity, not judgement. Every moment is an opportunity to learn, and assuming you know is the enemy of learning. Being right means you don’t get to learn — don’t tie your worth to being right.

• You spend 100% of your time with yourself. You like hanging out with yourself. Instead of beating yourself up, push yet provide comfort and safety for yourself like you would your friends.

• You know nothing. Don’t make anyone feel less than you. Respect is viewing everyone as an equal. The world is a mirror — give it and receive it.

• You’re a good person. No one can say anything to make you not believe that. The only true evil is the good that never examines itself. Keep trying, and keep reflecting.

• You can be funny without being mean. If it hurts someone, it’s not funny.

Here’s a few things I want to focus on in 2025:

• making people feel at home around me, safe and comfy

• trying hard at work, pushing myself to learn through discomfort

• being more open to experiences, saying yes much more often

• taking care of my body

And here’s some tangible things I want to do more of:

• cooking at home

• playing guitar and singing

• hosting friends at my place

• getting my license and going on road trips

• making videos

This year more than any other I have the least idea of what to expect. Everything I could’ve planned for in life turned out massively different than I anticipated, yet 16-year-old Aadil would be hyped to meet me today anyway. The tapestry is richer and more detailed than ever, and the tapestry is still being woven.

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Thank you so much if you made it this far. I want to continue writing — thank you to anyone who’s ever encouraged me in any way. Even if you just drop a like on here, I read every single notification. Even if you’re just a silent 5 star reader, I notice. If you liked any of the music in this post, I made a playlist of my 2024 by each month, go listen.

Special shoutouts to Jacky and Grace for reading early drafts of this. To Sharif for telling me I’m a good writer. Thank you Amit for getting me out of bed — don’t know if I’d have finished this piece without you. To Aileen for going away that one time to let me focus. To Farzain, for being my first ever subscriber, my writing inspiration, and the origin of maybe 80% of the good things that’ve happened in my life.

1. To any friends reading this, your burdens burden me at about a tenth of the rate that they burden you. Remember this: A joy shared is a joy doubled. A burden shared is a burden halved. I’d rather know whats troubling you and sit with you through it than sense something’s troubling you and know you’re going through it alone.

2. Luckily you remember you’re surrounded by some of the best people ever and that doesn’t last too long.

3. So much easier said than done. I feel like it gets easier when you’re older since you have less energy to pretend. But my identity is so fluid as an early 20-something. Every year, I feel like I solidify a little more and have less but better friends because of it.