Be A Little Bad.

Happy Dussehra!

Today, good triumphs over evil.

As it should.

But before the effigies burn, I have a small objection to file with the Department of Good Behaviour.

Very neat arrangement. Especially for anyone who benefits from you wanting less.

We love a clean division. Good people over here. Bad people over there. Preferably with ten heads, so there’s no confusion.

Then we start applying the same sorting system to ourselves.

Anger? Bad.
Ambition? Dangerous.
Pride? Absolutely not.
Desire? Please lower your voice.

And slowly, being “good” becomes an elaborate exercise in self-erasure.

So this Dussehra, let’s examine 10 alleged sins you may need to commit to build your Strategic Presence.

1. Vanity. Be deliberate about being seen.

Wear the thing. Put your face in the photograph. Care about how you enter a room.

Your appearance is one of the ways you express yourself. You’re allowed to participate in that expression consciously.

“Oh, this old thing?”

Please. You chose it beautifully. Accept the compliment.

2. Pride. Stop shrinking the introduction.

You’ve lived, learned, built, survived, changed.

Yet someone asks about you and suddenly your vocabulary consists of “just,” “only,” and “nothing much.”

Tell the fuller truth.

You don’t need to turn every introduction into an awards ceremony. But you could stop delivering it like an apology.

3. Greed. Admit that you want more.

More depth. More beauty. More influence. More money. More adventure. More from the one life you actually have.

Wanting more doesn’t automatically make you ungrateful for what you have.

Name your desires precisely. It’s difficult to build a presence that feels like you when you keep disowning what moves you.

4. Lust. Have an appetite for your life.

For ideas. For people. For experiences that make you sit up a little straighter.

What fascinates you? What can you talk about without checking the time?

Let some of that show.

A carefully respectable personality with no visible appetite is a very expensive way to be forgettable.

5. Envy. Inspect the feeling before you sanctify yourself out of it.

Someone’s freedom irritates you. Someone’s confidence gets under your skin. Someone’s visibility feels “a bit much.”

Interesting.

What have they allowed themselves that you keep refusing yourself?

Envy can reveal a desire you haven’t had the courage to admit. Get curious before you get superior.

6. Anger. Let your displeasure have a vocabulary.

“I didn’t like that.”

“That doesn’t work for me.”

“Don’t speak to me that way.”

You can say these things without delivering a courtroom defence of your right to be upset.

Your presence becomes clearer when people can recognise your limits alongside your warmth.

7. Selfishness. Give yourself a vote.

Your preferences cannot keep coming last in a life that has your name on it.

Choose the restaurant sometimes. Protect the hour. Decline the invitation. Make a decision without conducting a referendum.

You are one of the people your choices need to consider.

A fairly significant one, actually.

8. Disobedience. Retire a rule you never choose.

Don’t be too loud. Don’t be too direct. Don’t draw attention. Don’t change so much.

Says who?

Some rules protect something valuable. Others have simply enjoyed a long, unchallenged career.

Examine what you’re obeying — and what that obedience is costing you.

9. Arrogance. Risk being mistaken for it.

The first time you stop cushioning every opinion, someone may think you’ve become too confident.

You don’t need to become dismissive or pretend you know everything.

But you may need to survive being misread while people adjust to a version of you who no longer asks permission to have a point of view.

Let them take a minute.

10. Betrayal. Disappoint an outdated version of yourself.

The version who always agreed. Who never wanted attention. Who could be counted on to need very little.

You may have been loved for being that person.

Changing can still be necessary.

Allow your presence to reflect who you are becoming, even when your introduction to the world needs an update.

Yes, Ram wins.

Cruelty, arrogance, and the abuse of power deserve to fall.

But we should be more discerning about what we place beside them on the pyre.

Your confidence is not cruelty. Your desire is not entitlement. Your self-respect is not a threat that needs defeating.

That gets difficult when half your energy goes into appearing harmless enough for universal approval.

This Dussehra, let goodness keep its courage, compassion, and integrity.

It can survive losing the compulsory people-pleasing.

Which “sin” are you finally giving yourself permission to commit?

Until next week,​
​Gurnoor