The Pause

After parting ways with Story, I flew back to India with no plans, no commitments, and no idea what was next. First, I went down south with friends — just to breathe. Then I stumbled on a 10-day silent meditation retreat in the Himalayan foothills. No talking. No internet. No building. I figured this was the one window in my life where I could just disappear for 10 days and nothing would change. Part of me treated it as a challenge. But honestly, I needed to stop spiraling on a new idea every morning and just... slow down.

The retreat was beautiful. Surrounded by trees, perfect weather, sunshine pouring into the garden each morning. There were monkeys roaming around, four or five dogs that became everyone's best friends, and about ninety people all committed to the same thing: not talking. The first two days I was hyped. Days three through seven, I settled in. Buddhist teachings, simple Tibetan-Indian meals, a calm I hadn't felt in years. Then days eight and nine hit different. After a week away from tech, cut off from everything, the founder energy started clawing its way back. I wanted to build something — anything. But the whole point was that I couldn't. And that turned out to be the real lesson: learning to keep the energy low when you don't need to use it.

I walked out of that retreat and the founder energy came flooding back. I went straight into building mode. But then I caught myself. I'd just spent ten days learning to slow down — why was I sprinting again? So I made a choice: travel more while I still can. Over the next few months, I ended up traveling for almost three months out of five. It wasn't a vacation from work — I was still tinkering with FeedMatters during this time. But it was a reminder that there's more to life than shipping code at 2 AM. That's actually where the FeedMatters tagline came from: "I want to enjoy my 20s while I still can." It didn't come from the product. It came from standing in the mountains and realizing my 20s won't wait for me.