For years, I was the person others came to when they were stuck — and I was good at it. I could see their situation clearly, help them find a way through, and genuinely make a difference.
What didn't come easily was my own life. Specifically — people. I had learned to work hard, stay detached from outcomes, and not let fear drive my decisions in my career. But in my relationships, something kept not working. There was an awkwardness I couldn't resolve. And that left me exhausted.
It took me years to see what was actually happening. I had spent so long making myself comfortable for others — being agreeable, avoiding friction, shrinking where I needed to stand — that I had started to quietly lose myself in the process.
I wasn't being Me, so that others could be Themselves.
And the cost of that was confusion, exhaustion, and the creeping feeling of being a victim of circumstances I had actually created. And this was all the more difficult because I was good at finding solutions — but only once the emotional charge had settled. In the thick of it, it used to feel too much to handle.
I kept trying nevertheless. And eventually, things started to shift. I found techniques that actually work — ranging from 2-minute resets in acute moments to longer, slower shifts in how I relate to myself and others. I became a completely different version of myself. Not because I changed who I am — but because I stopped abandoning my true self.
Once I included myself into the equation of my efforts, everything changed.
Not only the way I used to live, but also how life unfolded for me.
On the name — Swacchanda
A few years ago I spent a few days in silence. No phone, no technology, nothing to read or watch. Just me. I was sitting in front of my window one morning — there was a big tree outside, birds hopping around from one branch to another — and out of nowhere a question came up: who am I?
I didn't try to answer it. Just let it be there.
A couple of days later, I was sitting in front of the same window, in the mindless zone — a word came. Swacchanda. It was similar to a word from a Hindi poem I had studied as a kid, where it was used to describe the open, limitless sky. But the word itself goes deeper — from Sanskrit, sva and chhand — your own rhythm. Unrestrained. Moving at will.
It felt like an answer to "What am I?" rather than "Who am I?". As if it was describing my true nature. Since that day, that word became my new identity — the name that I resonate most with now.
That question — what is your own rhythm, your own nature, the signature that is uniquely yours — also makes the heart of what I do here. Because the only way to live life on easy mode is to align ourselves with our unique signature.
If something here feels natural to you, that's a beginning.
Amateur Buddha is a movement in the making.
It started with one fellow traveller.
One day, it will be many.