At 24, I Finally Understood My Superpower…

Notes on force, flow and finding my way.

For me this year has been about being aggressive in my actions. I was aggressive about making money, following my north star and delivering my best work. I was also aggressive about staying open, feeling deeply and letting each moment leave its mark.

And even then, I had the audacity to ask for more. More life. More colour. More truth in every moment.

I had my fair share of my downs as well. My aggressiveness led to burning a few bridges, which in the moment was unexpected and way too surprising for me.

Early this year someone asked me, “What’s the burning desire in you?”

And I said, “I don’t have anything burning in me. I am water. I am adaptable. I can strike against the rocks and I can also transform myself to become so calm and still that the moon can see its reflection.”

That one insight became my truth for the whole year. The kind of aggressiveness that flows and transforms has brought an intensity to my work that wasn’t there before.

Some saw this intensity and told me to find balance. They meant well, after all ‘balance is the key to life.’ But to me balance is boring and bland. It offers you a neutral calm. The core of zen philosophy is If you don’t want to feel too sad at your lowest than don’t feel too happy at your best.

Balance is the game of minimizing pain by minimizing everything else too. Ultimately playing it safe.

But the best stories don’t come from a balanced life. It comes from the transition between extremes. When joy crashes into sadness, when certainty dissolves into doubt, when strength surrenders to vulnerability.

I feel the most alive when I am at the extreme. In the space between being utterly lost and completely found.

If I have been aggressive about making money, my feelings, certain life altering decisions then I have also been slow and calm in my travels. Stayed in cities until they became part of me. I have found beauty in slow thinking and slow writing. I have seen how much better my work becomes when I am aggressive with my actions but patient with the final output.

There was a time in the middle of the year where I wondered how much my life could have been different if I had studied literature after high school. I would have known so much more than I do now. But then I wouldn’t be standing on the amalgamation of technology and writing either. I wouldn’t have found my love for being an autodidact. Choosing the subjects to learn, deciding my own timeline and following my own learning curve has made things all the way more fun.

The happiness, sadness, everything was more vivid this year, too colorful, too bright, too memorable.

Now, I feel a shift coming. The kind that happens when water changes state — not lesser, not greater, just different. The endless travel that once felt like freedom now feels like only skimming the surface. I’m ready for new depths. Ready to transform into something else, something more.

Because that’s what water does best — it adapts, it changes, it becomes what it needs to be.

I am water. And at 24, I’m just beginning to understand what that means.

Happy Birthday Akanksha ❤

Ps: To everyone who became part of my story this year, the midnight conversations that added to my perspective, the trust that turned strangers into friends, the cities that became home, and the unexpected connections that made me believe in magic — thank you.

I wrote this self reflection on Dec 6.