Neha Lohia

When you don’t have a fallback option, you don’t give up.

No Plan B.
No Fallback.
Just the story you choose to write.

Sitting in that hall at IIT Delhi yesterday, I didn’t expect to walk out this fired up.

Shradha Sharma took the stage- not just as a founder, but as someone who had lived every word she spoke.

The energy? Insane.
The zeal? Unmatched.

She built YourStory Media when “content” wasn’t a buzzword, when “startups” weren’t mainstream and when no one saw the value in amplifying unheard voices. But she did.

And then, she applauded my LinkedIn numbers. Yayy!!
The OG of the storytelling powerhouse recognizing my work in the content space. Insane.

Because that’s the thing about stories.

They stack up.
They open doors.
They make people notice.

So,
No fallback.
No Plan B.

Just Build. It’s your own story.

Somedays,

You'll oversleep and be late to a class or work,

You'll look like an absolute mess,

You'll fail the biggest exam of the year,

You'll drop your phone in a puddle outside,

You'll say wrong things at the absolute wrong time,

You'll loose the person you thought was the love of your life,

You'll cry your eyes out and feel completely hopeless because everything seems off track.

But even on those days,

You'll have some people who love you.

And somedays, that's all that matters.

It’s 2024 and here we are again, mourning yet another daughter of India, while our laws remain toothless.

How many more daughters must we lose before we see a real change?

The trauma of all these cases since decades should have been a tipping point, a wake up call to overhaul our laws to protect our women.

But nothing really changed? Did it?

We still wake up to the same news.
The same stories.
The same heartbreak.

But for her, we should all speak.
For all women whose lives and bodies are stolen, for them, we should all speak.

I’ve been staring at a blank screen trying to type out how I feel but it’s just so heartbreaking and scary.

What she might have been battling in her final moments? When her pulse came to a painful stop. We can’t even imagine. It wrenches my heart.

And what was her fault you ask?
Being a woman in this country.

Every fibre of my being screams.
It fears.
It’s scared.

Oh and this,
‘What was the doctor doing in a seminar hall alone if she was on 36 hours duty’.

Forget even the horrible inhumanity of this response, people are raised to think of women as inherently guilty, and have been raised to expect so little of men that the idea of men as savage beings without any control is somehow acceptable.

Culture doesn’t make people.
People make culture.
And it’s in fact very true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, but we must make it.

The daughters of this country deserve nothing less.

And, we all should not stop talking about this anytime soon.

If you’re a man, make sure women around you are safe and feel safe.

And if you’re a woman,
I’m sorry that the society and this system has failed you.

At 17, I left home, with most uncertainty of what life would look like.

Fresh out of school, in the country's top college. I was the first 'kid' in my family to take that step.

Yes, 'kid'.
Because we never be an 'adult' until that moment.

Trying to create a mark in a different city, pivoting from the comfort of family to all strangers in a distant land.

Yes, there were ups and downs and sometimes more lows than high.

Managing food, travel, expenses- basically 'life' on your own all of a sudden.

A few things I realised,

🌻 Make friends. Take the first step. It will take time but surround yourself with people who love you and hold a mirror in front of you when you need it. They make life easy.

🌻 You never get to understand yourself truly, until you live all by yourself.

🌻 Cliche, but you realise the value of family, every second.

🌻 What you don't have will always look more fascinating. This never really goes away- unless you start living in your present.

🌻 There's either doing it or giving up. When things don't work out, your mind will find a thousand ways to ditch the uncomfortable but, trust yourself in the process.

It's never easy.

It's never going to be.

But things fall into place.

Eventually.

I quit my 6 figure income job to pursue UPSC.

A lot of us make difficult decisions in life.

You might have left a job to start your own venture, or switched career streams just because you felt it right, or maybe took some time to rebuild yourself.

But, the most important part in all this is, You're not answerable to anyone.

It's not your job to answer the world's opinions about you and your decisions.

A part of the world is always going to mock you.

There will always be different sets of people, who won't be happy with what you do, who would question you, or compare you with their journeys,

or their children's journeys, or their grandchildren's journeys, there's no end to it.

But you're not accountable to anyone, except you and your parents.

The “others“ weren't there to support you in your journey, they weren't there to cheer you on your small wins or struggles.

And, there are high chances you might have never met them, not even know them,

and most importantly, they'll not pay your bills.

So, chuck them and these thoughts of what the world would think,

It won't,
Nobody has the energy honestly.
And even if they do,
It just doesn't and shouldn't matter.

Take your decisions, the tough ones too.

Remember,
All of us are neither going to make it, nor fail it, but all of us are putting efforts for our dreams, so let's celebrate that!

#celebrateefforts #celebratedecisions