Kay’s Odyssey

Category: About Life Choices & Potholes

  • The Myth of the Dream Job

    The Myth of the Dream Job

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s your dream job?
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    The question is deceptively simple. It appears at dinner parties, on application forms, in coaching sessions, and in the quiet corners of our own minds. What’s your dream job?

    Most people answer with a title. Author. Founder. Artist. Consultant. Professor. Something that fits neatly into a LinkedIn headline and earns polite nods of approval. But the longer I sit with this question, the more I realise that job titles are a convenient distraction. They are placeholders for something deeper we are often afraid to name.

    Because what most of us are really searching for is not a job.
    It is meaning with momentum.
    It is expression without invisibility.
    It is work that matters—and is seen to matter.

    This is where the question becomes uncomfortable.

    The Myth of the Dream Job

    The modern myth suggests that if you find your dream job, everything else falls into place. Fulfilment. Recognition. Financial stability. Validation. The market, we’re told, will reward authenticity.

    But anyone who has tried to build something original—especially in the creative or intellectual economy—knows how fragile this myth is.

    You can do work that is thoughtful, rigorous, emotionally honest—and still be ignored.

    You can write a book that carries years of lived experience and deep insight—and watch it disappear into the algorithmic abyss.

    The silence that follows is not just professional. It is existential.

    This is the moment most people don’t talk about when they talk about dream jobs.

    When Passion Meets the Market

    A dream job today often involves creating rather than merely occupying. Writing books. Building platforms. Offering ideas, frameworks, perspectives. We are told to “share our voice” and “put our work out there.”

    What we are rarely taught is how the market listens.

    The gap between creative intent and market response is where many dream jobs quietly die. Not because the work lacks quality, but because its creator mistakes depth for visibility, sincerity for resonance, and effort for alignment.

    This is especially true in publishing.

    Writing a book feels like the ultimate expression of intellectual authority. It is slow work. Solitary work. Honest work. And when the book doesn’t sell, the conclusion many authors draw is painfully personal: Maybe my work isn’t good enough.

    In reality, the failure is rarely artistic. It is structural.

    Authority Is Not What We Think It Is

    We often assume authority comes from expertise alone. From knowing more. From having lived more. From having something “important” to say.

    But authority, in the real world, emerges at the intersection of three forces:

    • Clarity of message
    • Emotional resonance
    • Market positioning

    Miss one, and even the most intelligent work struggles to survive.

    This is the uncomfortable truth behind many dream jobs that stall. We learn the craft. We refine the thinking. We do the inner work. But we never learn how value is perceived, not just created.

    And perception, whether we like it or not, is shaped by psychology, language, and money.

    The Silent Education Gap

    No one tells you that selling a book—or an idea—is not a betrayal of integrity. It is an act of translation.

    The market does not reject nuance; it rejects confusion. It does not punish depth; it punishes obscurity. And it does not reward effort; it rewards connection.

    This gap—between what creators believe should matter and what actually reaches people—is what inspired Why Is Nobody Buying My Book? Not as a marketing manual, but as a mirror.

    Because the real crisis isn’t unsold books. It’s the quiet erosion of confidence that follows. The slow decoupling of self-worth from work. The temptation to either shout louder or disappear entirely.

    Neither leads to a dream job.

    Redefining the Dream

    A dream job, I’ve come to believe, is not one where you are endlessly inspired. It is one where your work travels. Where it finds its readers, users, clients, or audience without requiring you to become someone you are not.

    It is work that understands the emotional economy it operates in. That respects attention as a scarce resource. That speaks with people, not at them.

    It is also work that allows you to remain whole when outcomes fluctuate.

    Because markets are unpredictable. Algorithms shift. Sales dip. Silence returns. The dream job is not immune to these realities—it is resilient in the face of them.

    The Question Beneath the Question

    So when someone asks, What’s your dream job? I no longer answer with a role.

    I answer with a condition.

    To create meaningful work.
    To understand how it lands.
    To bridge the gap between inner truth and outer traction.
    To remain intact when the market responds slowly.

    That, ultimately, is what most creators are searching for—whether they are writing books, building businesses, or offering ideas to the world.

    And that is the conversation we need to have more honestly.

    Not just about dreams—but about what it takes for them to survive contact with reality.

    Why Is Nobody Buying My Book?
  • You Don’t Need To Be A Leader To Lead

    You Don’t Need To Be A Leader To Lead

    Daily writing prompt
    What makes a good leader?
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    A good leader isn’t the loudest voice in the room. It’s the one that stays steady when the room gets noisy.

    I didn’t learn this in a leadership workshop or from a glossy business book. I learned it the slow way—through moments that felt anything but instructional at the time. Moments of uncertainty, exhaustion, reinvention, and the quiet reckoning that comes when the rules you thought were fixed suddenly change overnight.

    For a long time, I believed leadership meant endurance. That if I just worked harder, stayed sharper, said yes more often, and pushed through discomfort, everything else would fall into place. This belief was rewarded—until it wasn’t. The higher I climbed, the more invisible the cracks became. Burnout doesn’t announce itself with drama. It seeps in quietly, turning decisiveness into hesitation and confidence into fatigue. I learned quickly that burnout isn’t a personal failure; it’s a leadership problem—because it spreads. A tired leader doesn’t just suffer alone. The exhaustion ripples outward.

    In About Life Choices & Potholes, leadership appears not as authority, but as responsibility—to oneself first, and then to others. One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was when to pause instead of push. In professional spaces, momentum is worshipped. Pausing is often misread as weakness. But there were moments when stopping—taking stock, admitting I didn’t have all the answers—was the most honest form of leadership I could offer.

    Some of my most defining leadership moments came when information was incomplete. When decisions had to be made without certainty—during visa upheavals, career disruptions, and organizational changes that offered no clear playbook. I learned that leadership is rarely about making the right decision. It’s about making a thoughtful one, standing by it, and being willing to course-correct without ego.

    I also learned how easily “being dependable” can turn into self-erasure. I was often the one holding space—for teams, for friends, for family—believing that leadership meant being endlessly available. Over time, I realized that holding space for others while abandoning yourself is not leadership; it’s slow attrition. A leader who disappears internally cannot show up fully for anyone else.

    The leaders who stayed with me—who shaped how I now think about work and life—were not the ones with the most polished answers. They were the ones who listened before reacting. Who acknowledged uncertainty instead of masking it. Who understood that clarity is far more powerful than control.

    Leadership today exists in a landscape of constant change. Policies shift. Markets move. Personal lives intersect with professional demands in ways we can no longer pretend are separate. In this environment, certainty is an illusion. The strongest leaders I know don’t pretend the road is smooth. They walk alongside their teams, naming the potholes as they appear and trusting people enough to navigate them together.

    A good leader doesn’t promise ease. They offer steadiness.

    They don’t dominate the room. They anchor it.

    And perhaps most importantly, they understand that leadership is not about having all the answers—it’s about creating enough trust that people are willing to walk with you, even when the path ahead is unclear.

    About Life Choices & Potholes

  • The Invisible Clutter Of Burden

    The Invisible Clutter Of Burden

    Where Can You Reduce Clutter in Your Life?

    For the longest time, I believed clutter was a physical problem. Too many books on the shelf. Too many cables in drawers whose original purpose no one remembered. Too many mugs for a person who drinks tea from exactly one favorite cup.

    So I did what most of us do. I organized. I donated. I folded. I labeled.

    And yet, the noise remained.

    It took a life reset—one I didn’t plan, didn’t ask for, and certainly didn’t romanticize—to realize that the real clutter in my life wasn’t visible. It lived elsewhere. In decisions postponed. In identities I carried long after they stopped fitting. In the quiet pressure to explain myself to everyone but me.

    When I moved back to India after two decades in the U.S., I arrived with two suitcases and an unsettling amount of emotional excess. Jet lag peeled me open. The airport smelled like disinfectant, overripe fruit, and familiarity I wasn’t ready to embrace. Everyone moved fast. I moved cautiously. I had less stuff than I’d ever owned—and more mental clutter than ever before.

    Clutter, I learned, doesn’t announce itself as chaos. It disguises itself as responsibility.

    I had cluttered my life with “shoulds.”
    I should stick it out a little longer.
    I should aim higher.
    I should be grateful, not confused.
    I should already know who I am by now.

    These thoughts piled up quietly, like unopened mail. Each one harmless on its own. Together, overwhelming.

    Career clutter was the heaviest. Titles I no longer believed in. Definitions of success that felt borrowed. Resumes that flattened entire decades of living into bullet points that read like a stranger’s life. I kept polishing them, convinced clarity would arrive in the next version. It didn’t.

    Then there was relational clutter—the conversations replayed in my head long after they had ended. The people I kept holding space for while standing in the dark myself. The breadcrumbs I mistook for nourishment.

    At some point, exhaustion does what discipline cannot. It forces honesty.

    I stopped trying to optimize my life and began subtracting instead.

    I reduced clutter by letting go of the need to justify my choices. By accepting that not every pothole needs a lesson immediately. By allowing my days to be quieter, slower, less impressive.

    I reduced clutter by trusting my body—its hunger, its fatigue, its instinct to pause. By fasting not to purify, but to listen. By realizing that I didn’t need a diagnosis to explain my sensitivity or restlessness. I didn’t need a label to be allowed to be me.

    And perhaps most importantly, I reduced clutter by loosening my grip on certainty.

    Life didn’t become simpler overnight. But it became lighter.

    Clutter isn’t always about excess. Sometimes it’s about holding on too tightly to a version of yourself that once made sense.

    About Life Choices & Potholes is a story about those moments—when subtraction becomes survival, and letting go becomes the bravest decision you make.

    If you’re feeling overwhelmed, maybe the question isn’t what you need to add.

    Maybe it’s what you’re finally ready to release.

    About Life Choices & Potholes
  • Learning After Impact

    Learning After Impact

    What is your mission?

    About Life Choices and Potholes

    I wish I could say I saw it coming.

    That there was a moment of hesitation, a quiet instinct ignored, a clear sign misread. But most of the decisions that shaped me arrived without warning and unfolded without commentary. They felt reasonable at the time. Defensible. Sometimes even brave.

    The consequences arrived later.

    About Life Choices and Potholes begins with that delayed realization—the distance between choice and comprehension. It is written from the understanding that wisdom rarely precedes action. More often, it trails behind it, attempting to make sense of what has already occurred.

    This book is not a guide to better decision-making. It does not offer frameworks, heuristics, or corrective strategies. It is an examination of how insight is actually formed: through collision, through aftermath, through the slow, often uncomfortable work of reflection.

    We are encouraged to believe that good outcomes result from good choices, and bad outcomes from poor ones. This book complicates that assumption. It explores how context, limited information, emotional readiness, and survival instincts shape our decisions far more than rational foresight ever could.

    Potholes, in this sense, are not failures of intelligence. They are features of movement.

    My mission here is intellectual honesty—to resist the temptation of neat narratives that retrofit intention and clarity onto experiences that were, in real time, opaque. The book refuses the comfort of hindsight bias. It acknowledges that understanding is not always available when it would be most useful.

    Rather than judging past selves for what they did not know, About Life Choices and Potholes practices a different discipline: humility. The recognition that learning is often retroactive. That comprehension arrives only after the impact has already occurred.

    This book is written for readers who are weary of advice that assumes foresight. For those who are tired of being told what they should have known. It sits with the reader not before the decision, but after it—amid the debris, the recalibration, the slow reorientation that follows.

    There is no promise of mastery here. Only the quieter assurance that understanding does not require perfection—only attention.

    If you find yourself looking back, learning forward, and resisting the urge to rewrite your past into something more coherent than it was, this book is already speaking your language.

    It does not offer answers.

    It offers companionship—after the fall.

    About Life Choices & Potholes
    About Life Choices & Potholes
  • Something Honest

    Something Honest

    What snack would you eat right now?

    About Life Choices & Potholes

    I’d probably reach for something that exists in two very different emotional universes at once.

    In San Francisco, a “snack” meant artisanal. Almond-flour crackers, hummus with a backstory, kale chips that cost more than an actual meal and left you wondering if hunger was a personality flaw. Snacks were measured, optimized, eaten while standing at a kitchen counter, usually between Zoom calls.

    In Mumbai, a snack is a full-bodied experience.

    It crackles, drips, stains your fingers, and unapologetically demands your attention.

    Right now, I’d choose a vada pav.

    Not the Instagram kind. The real one. Wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper, green chutney leaking through the paper like a secret, garlic in the air, traffic honking in the background. A snack that doesn’t ask who you are or what you do—only whether you’re hungry.

    Food, I’ve learned, mirrors the lives we’re living.

    San Francisco taught me restraint. Efficiency. Eating for fuel.

    Mumbai taught me comfort. Chaos. Eating for survival and joy.

    Somewhere between protein bars and pavs, I realized snacks are never just snacks. They’re tiny reflections of where we belong—or where we’re trying to belong.

    That tension—between worlds, tastes, choices, and identities—runs through About Life Choices & Potholes. It’s not about food, really. It’s about what we reach for when we’re tired, unsure, or standing at a crossroads.

    Right now, I’d eat the vada pav.

    Because some days, you don’t need something clean or curated.

    You need something honest.

    About Life Choices & Potholes
  • A Space Where Magic Is Born

    A Space Where Magic Is Born

    You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?

    If I could build my perfect space for reading and writing, it wouldn’t look like a productivity hack or a Pinterest board. It would look like a life—one that made room for thinking, feeling, wandering, and returning.

    The room would have windows that open wide, not just to let light in, but to remind me that the world exists beyond the page. Outside, there would be trees—old ones, the kind that have seen cycles come and go. They would keep me honest while I worked on A Song and Dance for Mother Earth, grounding my words in gratitude and reverence, reminding me that stories, like ecosystems, need care more than control.

    A Song And Dance For Mother Earth

    There would be a writing desk scarred with use, not aesthetic, just familiar. That’s where About Life Choices and Potholes would live—pages written after wrong turns, pauses, and those moments when life teaches you something by first knocking you flat.

    About Life Choices & Potholes

    Nearby, a stack of half-filled notebooks would belong to Diary of Clichés, because some realizations arrive only after you swear you’ll never become that person… and then quietly do.

    Diary Of Cliches

    This space would have a couch meant for staring at the ceiling. Not resting—thinking. That’s where Fever Dreams would be written, in the liminal hours when exhaustion softens the edges of truth and clarity arrives without explanation. In those moments, the room would feel slightly unreal, as if it were breathing along with me.

    Fever Dreams

    There would be a door that opens onto a street or a park. I’d leave it ajar while working on Beautiful Men: The Dog Walker, letting life pass by—footsteps, chance encounters, fleeting glances that remind me that softness still exists, that sometimes the universe doesn’t instruct, it flirts. The kitchen would matter just as much as the desk, because Beautiful Men: The Chef would be written between meals and memories, where nourishment is not just consumed but received.

    Beautiful Men

    At my feet, always, would be a dog. Muddy paws, restless energy, unconditional presence. Adventures of Sauli the Rescue Pup could only be written in a space that allows chaos and joy to coexist—where healing shows up unannounced and insists on being played with.

    Adventures of Sauli the Rescue Pup

    The quietest corner of the room would belong to Finding Noir. No distractions. No mirrors, except the internal ones. That book would demand stillness, the kind that forces you to sit with what you’re really looking for, long after you realize it isn’t another person.

    Finding Noir

    There would also be a shelf that makes me laugh at myself. That’s where Why Is Nobody Buying My Book would sit—right next to hope and self-doubt, art and algorithms, reminding me that creativity is both sacred and absurd, and that both can be true at the same time.

    Why Is Nobody Buying My Book?

    Most importantly, this space wouldn’t be about selling stories. It would be about telling them. Every chair, window, and corner would exist to support honesty—whether the result is a book, a sentence, or just a moment of understanding.

    Because the truth is, all these books were written in spaces that already existed: borrowed rooms, kitchen tables, hospital waiting areas, long walks, sleepless nights. My perfect space is simply one that allows me to keep doing what these stories taught me how to do—

    Pay attention.

    Tell the truth.

    And trust that the right readers will find their way in.

    Author Profile
    Author Kay Jay
  • The Quiet Strength of My Father

    The Quiet Strength of My Father

    Describe a family member.

    (A reflection inspired by my book About Life, Choices, and Potholes)

    If I had to describe my father, I wouldn’t start with his profession or his habits — though I could. He was an engineer by training, a man of tools and precision, but his real craft was patience. The kind that doesn’t make noise, doesn’t demand recognition, but stays steady like the background hum of a ceiling fan on a humid night — always there, always working.

    Growing up, I used to think he was too quiet. He didn’t express affection in words; he showed it in ways you’d miss unless you were really paying attention — an extra roti on my plate before I sat down, the car tank always full, the lights left on when I returned late. His love language was logistics.

    When I moved to the US, I thought I was leaving that world behind — the world of early mornings, the smell of oil and diesel from his workshop, the steady rhythm of his tools. I was chasing independence, identity, a new story. But years later, when life hit a wall — job loss, immigration uncertainty, heartbreak — it was his voice, calm and undramatic, that steadied me again.

    In About Life, Choices, and Potholes, I write about that moment — when he cleaned up after my mess despite just recovering from spine surgery, even as eviction threats and house-hunting chaos unfolded around us. He didn’t complain. Didn’t remind me of sacrifices. Just did what needed to be done.

    It took me years to understand that kind of strength — the quiet resilience of doing what life demands, not because it’s fair or easy, but because someone has to.

    He’s the kind of man who believes in roads — in building them, fixing them, walking them. And maybe that’s why the book carries the word potholes in its title. Because life, as he taught me, is just that — a long, uneven road you keep driving on, knowing you’ll hit bumps, but trusting you’ll reach home.

    If there’s one thing my father has taught me, it’s this:

    Love doesn’t always arrive wrapped in words.

    Sometimes, it’s in the quiet act of showing up — again and again — even when no one’s watching.

    About Life Choices & Potholes
  • Do You Need Time?

    Do You Need Time?

    (an essay from About Life Choices & Potholes)

    Do I need time? Absolutely.
    But not the kind of time people talk about when they say, “Take a break,” or “Go meditate.”
    The time I crave is quieter, more practical, and oddly specific—like a Sunday morning that smells faintly of detergent and wet fur.

    For someone like me—wired on anxiety and caffeine, allergic to stillness—time isn’t about stopping. It’s about resetting.
    And my reset button happens to be a washing machine.

    Every Sunday, I start with the sheets. I strip the bed like I’m shedding another layer of myself—the one that’s tried too hard all week to appear fine. The washer hums in the background, rhythmic and reassuring. One small cycle of order in a world that rarely makes sense.

    Then there’s Sauli, my Belgian Malinois—my furry embodiment of chaos. She doesn’t believe in schedules or sanity. If there were a washing machine big enough for her, I’d use it. But instead, I wrestle her into the bathroom, half-laughing, half-regretting, as she shakes mid-soap, turning me into a drenched participant in her rebellion.

    And yet, that’s my favorite kind of time—the messy, wet, ridiculous kind that forces me to be here.
    No deadlines. No pretending. Just a woman, her dog, and the illusion that water can rinse away everything heavy.

    After Sauli’s done and sulking in her towel cocoon, I finally step into my own “washer”—the shower. It’s my private spin cycle. The steam fogs the mirror; the noise of life fades. For a few sacred minutes, there’s nothing but water and breath.

    If you’d asked me a few years ago what I needed, I might’ve said more hours in a day.
    Now? I think what I need is what Sunday gives me—just enough time to pause, reset, and laugh at the absurdity of trying to control anything.

    In About Life Choices & Potholes, I write about these quiet revolutions—the small moments that sneak up and heal you when you least expect it.
    Because time, I’ve realized, isn’t always measured in hours or days.
    Sometimes, it’s just a single spin cycle, a clean bed, a wet dog, and a deep breath that says:

    You’re still here.
    You’re still trying.
    And that’s enough.

    🫧✨

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  • The Road Not Taken (and the Many Detours Along the Way)

    The Road Not Taken (and the Many Detours Along the Way)

    What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?

    (Inspired by my book About Life, Choices, and Potholes)

    If someone had told me a decade ago that my “career” would one day include storytelling, healing, and writing about life’s unpredictable messes, I would’ve laughed. I was trained to think in straight lines — college, career, promotions, retirement. Life, however, had other plans.

    Like many of us, I once believed that fulfillment came from achievement — that your title, paycheck, and business card somehow proved your worth. And for a while, I played that game well. Until one day, the system I had built my life around — job, visa, stability — suddenly reminded me that I didn’t truly belong there.

    That moment cracked something open.

    I began asking questions I had avoided for years: If not this, then what?

    That’s how About Life, Choices, and Potholes was born — not from certainty, but from chaos. From nights of wondering what comes next when the path you’ve been walking dissolves beneath your feet.

    Since then, I’ve flirted with many alternative paths — each one whispering a different truth about who I am. Writing became my therapy. Teaching and mentoring opened my heart. Holistic healing, with its roots in energy and intention, taught me that success is not always visible — sometimes it’s felt.

    The world glorifies specialization. But what if we’re meant to evolve — to live many lives within one lifetime? To be the analyst and the artist, the strategist and the storyteller?

    I no longer chase one perfect label. I’m learning to honor the mosaic of it all — the detours, the dead ends, and the potholes that shaped me into something far richer than a résumé ever could capture.

    In About Life, Choices, and Potholes, I invite you to reflect on that too — the alternate versions of you that are waiting patiently to be lived. Because maybe the truest career path isn’t a ladder at all. Maybe it’s a spiral — one that leads you back to yourself.

    About Life Choices & Potholes
  • The Risk of Choosing Yourself — and Why It’s Worth It

    The Risk of Choosing Yourself — and Why It’s Worth It

    What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?

    (Inspired by my book About Life, Choices, and Potholes)

    If you asked me five years ago what my biggest dream was, I would’ve probably said something practical — to climb the career ladder, to live in a beautiful home, to check off a few more countries from my travel bucket list. But if you ask me today what the biggest risk I’d like to take is — it’s far less tangible and far more terrifying.

    It’s the risk of choosing myself.

    Sounds simple, right? But it’s not.

    Choosing yourself means walking away from what doesn’t serve you — even when it once did. It means saying no to jobs that drain you, to relationships that no longer see you, and to the version of yourself you’ve outgrown. It means rebuilding your life from scratch — not because something broke, but because you finally realized you deserve something truer.

    In About Life, Choices, and Potholes, I write about this very moment — that terrifying pause between knowing something isn’t right and daring to change it. I talk about how we stay in safe, predictable loops: the job that looks good on paper, the city that feels like home but treats us like guests, the people who like the version of us that never says no.

    But what if safety isn’t the goal?

    The biggest risk isn’t quitting or leaving — it’s believing that there’s more to your story, even when you can’t see how it ends. I learned that when I packed my life into two suitcases after years in the U.S., forced to start again because of a visa technicality. It wasn’t my choice, but it made me realize how many choices I had avoided making.

    I used to think that control equaled safety. But sometimes life pushes you off the edge to show you how well you can fly.

    So maybe the risk I haven’t yet taken — but hope to, every day — is living unapologetically by my own design. Not out of rebellion, but reverence. For the quiet knowing that whispers, “This isn’t the end — it’s your next beginning.”

    And if About Life, Choices, and Potholes teaches you anything, I hope it’s this — the road might be bumpy, but it’s yours. And that makes all the difference.

    About Life Choices & Potholes