(KP-22) Living a Full Life is More Important Than Leading a Happy Life

How a startup is helping avoid food wastage | Perspective on living in mountains | Susan Sontag on persistence

Life Lesson

This week's life lesson is more of a realization.

Everyone will die with some regrets in their life. Some will regret not spending enough time with their family, some will regret not working on their dream project and rather settling for a comfy life, and so on.

Dying with many regrets haunts me the most. I do not want to die with more than 3 major regrets in life. And my biggest regret would be not having lived a full life.

Yes, most people are spending so much time and money to ultimately lead a happy life. Whatever we do or buy is done with the anticipation of getting happiness in return. We want to remain eternally happy.

But that is neither possible nor meaningful even if it gets somehow possible.

Life is like a wave, ups will definitely be followed by downs, mountains will definitely be followed by valleys, and days will always be followed by nights.

So, rather than aspiring to live an eternally happy life I am learning to live a full life. Embrace the lows, accept the setbacks, adore the valleys, and enjoy the night as well. They have their own purpose in life. Relish them.

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Positive Feel-Good Story

This week, I am going to share an inspiring story of an engineer turned entrepreneur Milind who decided to tackle the problem of waste in the supply chain of the FMCG sector.

An astonishing 69 million tonnes of food find their way to landfills every year, a problem rooted in supply chain mismanagement, he says.

So, this is how the supply chain works:

Brands→Distributors→Retailers→Consumers

Now Milind says, “Every retailer has stringent rules when it comes to the shelf life of the product. They are clear that non-food products have to have a shelf life of 50 percent at the time of procuring from the distributor. For instance, if the total shelf life of the product is two years when the retailer purchases it from us, it should have a remaining shelf life of one year at least. In the case of food products, the figure is 60 percent.”

If the criterion is not met then the products are rejected, like this.

Just one warehouse out of thousands.

Millions of tonnes of food go to waste and millions of people go to sleep hungry. This hurt Milind badly.

So, he decided to found a startup Gauraa where he would sell near-expiry products/minor defective products at discounted rates.

Screenshot from gauraa.in

There is an ‘Expiring Soon’ section where products are offered at discounts

Screenshot from gauraa.in

But the primary challenge with this platform will be to change people’s mindset that the quality of the products is not compromised, only the appearance of the product is dented.

What do you say people: Will you give this platform a try? Let me know in the comments below.

And if you like the concept of this startup, give it a share

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Book/Podcast/Video Suggestion

“Mountains are calling and I must go”

Many youngsters these days are leaving their well-paid jobs to search and live a slow, meaningful life in the mountains. Having lived in the mountains for more than two and a half years myself I can attest that their decision makes sense.

But mountain life is not an easy life. Vacationing in the mountains for a few days is completely different from living there for a few years.

Today, I am going to share with you this lovely video about living in the mountains and co-existing with other living beings in the mountains. Maybe it will change your perspective of mountain life.

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Quote/Poem

Writer Susan Sontag on persistence:

It never occurred to me that I couldn’t live the life I wanted to lead. It never occurred to me that I could be stopped...

I had this very simple view: that the reason people who start out with ideals or aspirations don’t do what they dream of doing when they’re young is because they quit. I thought, well, I won’t quit.