First Deserve, Then Desire—Or Just Gaslight Myself Into Success

I don’t know this feeling—I haven’t felt it in a long time. My mind is foggy, my thoughts racing at the speed of light, colliding into each other, creating a noise I can’t think over. But beneath the chaos, I feel an urge. An urge to create. To create anything—a framework, a poem, a script, a sketch, a song, an essay. I don’t know. I just need to make something.

But my mind is so clouded, I can barely think. And there’s work to do—so much work. Yet I can’t seem to prioritize. I can’t decide what’s important. And it’s definitely not from a lack of rest—I’ve had plenty of that. Maybe too much. Maybe it’s inertia. I always struggle to move on the days that follow a lazy one.

Momentum. That’s it. That’s what’s missing.

An object at rest will stay at rest. And a mind in chaos will stay in chaos—unless some idiot does something about it. Funny. Those are the exact words I wrote in my video yesterday. Good stuff. But it didn’t work.

I don’t think I’m working hard enough. Then why am I expecting great things to happen to me? Why do I expect at all? First deserve, then desire.

I remember hearing that in my school assembly. It made me laugh when I was seven—probably because of the alliteration. I’ve always loved alliterations. But recently, I heard myself say it again, only this time, more slowly. Not in an assembly, but in isolation. In my small Hyderabad room. That room has seen my worst—and my best.

That was momentum.

The year 2023 was one of the hardest I’ve worked, and it showed. But I didn’t carry that momentum into 2024—not as well as I’d hoped. And now, with 25% of 2025 already gone to the dogs, I need to work twice as hard in 37.5% of the time.

Does the math add up? I don’t know. Does it? I was never good at math. I always preferred to wing it. When I say, “Don’t tell me the odds,” it’s not because I don’t want to hear them—it’s because I can’t really comprehend what they mean. But regardless of the odds, I can push.

Create momentum.

I bob my head in a figure-eight motion, shifting my weight with every turn of the hip. Building up for a barrage of punches. Building momentum.

Breaking inertia.

Breaking free from myself—or maybe running free toward who I’m supposed to be.