This post is dedicated to Kiran, my personal trainer since 2019.
Every morning, when we'd start our workout session, he'd tell me, "Bhaiya, please focus on the workout." He'd see right through me that I would be thinking about a hundred things in my head. From the meeting that's about to start in the next two hours to where I'd need to be to buy a few planters to the Airtel Broadband monthly bill. I was usually comfortable with that but not until recently.
As I was chatting with him this morning, a phrase came to my mind.
Be where your feet are. He has been saying it in different words for years but I think I truly got it today. He said it about the present moment, but I think he was actually saying something about the body. The feet are the part of you that cannot lie about location. The mind can be in twenty places. The feet are in one. The workout area. If you want to know where you are, look down.
I genuinely feel that the pace of the year 2026 is not the pace a human body was built for. The body was built for one place at a time. We are now expected to be in four. The expectation is producing a class of people who are not, strictly speaking, present anywhere.
The work of becoming the first kind of person includes a slow re-learning of how to be in one place at a time. I've started writing some short reminders for myself to acknowledge the pace:
1. The room you're in, is literally the only room.
It's so common to find friends on phone even if you are having a gathering. They're chatting with someone or on IG scrolling through something or even legitimately finding some saved reel to continue contributing to a conversation. Naturally, no one remembers stuff anymore about the space.
When you walk into a room, look at the space with walls, different kind of chairs, lighting, even the thought and science of arrangement so it creates a certain mood. It's definitely more interesting than a luxury hotel lounge you see on the feed.
2. Stay present with the actual person in front of you.
When Nandini and I started hanging around, much before we started 'dating,' we always kept our phones in the pocket - never out. The group of friends we were a while ago, would keep all of our phones away from the moment we got together for two straight days.
You see, the person you meet and is sitting across you is not the polished one you see on their social media. They're slightly tired with unwashed hair, speaking unstructured sentences, and switching topics mid-way only to come back to the original train of thought seconds later. Stay with that person.
3. If your parents are in the room, they are the priority.
Cut the phone call from work. In fact, keep the phone away. Sit with him for an hour doing nothing for a week. Even if you have to work, at least sit beside him. Observe his aging body, listen to him telling the same story for the 50th time.
4. Your hand is supposed to be empty sometimes
The empty hand is the resting hand. It's supposed to rest. Phones trained hands to not be empty. Hold your partner's hand or your parents' hands. Even a book would do.
5. Eating is one activity
I remember, we used to sit cross-legged with food plates on the floor. We'd sit in circular formation. My father, mother, sister, and me would eat with the dishes in their cooking pots at the centre of our circle. I don't remember what we used to chat about back then during the entirety of eating.
I, however, have a vivid memory of running around with a drumstick in my mouth chewing it for about 10-15 mins. I love drumsticks; especially my mother's recipe. It's possible that I grew fond of ingredients and food because we grew up just eating without any distractions.
Today, food is just something we do while we're at something else. To just address hunger. In a meeting, while on a Zoom call, or during a 1-1. It's normalised. Even at home, I'm guilty of having food with something playing on the TV. Till date, I see my parents having lunch or dinner just by themselves at the dining table without any TV. Just with each other.
This is a tough one to break. But I've still written it down for some day.
6. Be the slow person
I've started to believe that the slowest person in a given room is usually the wisest. A recent encounter with a 25+ years of experienced professional made me feel that. This was not true in 2018. But I feel it's true today. The slow person has had time to think and knows things the fast people are still rushing past. Sit next to them at the wedding or eat with them at the office canteen. They are more valuable and they just don't know it yet.
7. Observe your feet
Philosophically, and even for a quick mental framing, the feet are an instrument for finding yourself, you know! Notice your shoes, or the floor they're standing on, or even the absence of shoes. They are always telling the truth about location and where your presence should be.
These are small, daily micro-rejections of the pace the year is running at. Maybe, by 2028, "presence" will be a hireable skill. There will be people in offices whose job is, effectively, to be present, because the rest of the office cannot be. They will be paid more than the people who manage the schedule. I'm just making these up because they don't cost anything.
The irritating things I see at the airport bookstores are books by some productivity guru who has begun selling "deep work for the AI age" with prompts and templates. Deep work is not a template. Deep work is your feet on the floor and one chair and one hour.
Today, before you sleep, do this. Walk from one room of your house to another, slowly, without the phone. Pay attention to the floor. Notice the soles of your feet. Notice the temperature. Notice the small sound the door makes.
Be where your feet are. There is nowhere else to be. There has never been anywhere else to be. We just forgot, briefly, for about ten years.