Competition gives us a framework to measure ourselves against others. It tells us where we stand in the world, how far ahead or behind we are from those similar to us. But too much of it is detrimental.

If your wife asks you if she looks overweight, you will utter “no” without flinching, whatever you actually think. On the other hand, all of us consider it morally wrong (under all circumstances) to make sexual advances on children. This fuzziness however creates some interesting dilemma.

The recurring advice for writing any good story: keep the interesting parts, remove everything else. If you watch a good biopic, you wouldn’t want to know about their boring afternoon visit to the doctor unless it contributed to the screenplay of the movie.

There are certain events in life, after which, everything changes irreversibly. There’s no way to get back to the old way of things. For me, it when I got the call from the hospital.