Reshu Kumar

Writing has always been my go-to way of letting things out. It helps clear my mind and say things I couldn’t speak out loud, mainly because I’m not the best at talking, that’s for sure. But if there’s one thing I’m really good at, it’s overthinking. I think about the past, the present, and even stuff that hasn’t happened yet. I also wonder if things could have gone differently—sometimes better, sometimes worse. It’s been months since I last wrote in my journal, and I wasn’t planning on doing it today either. I was in bed, way past my bedtime, just waiting to fall asleep. But sleep didn’t come. My mind had other plans. Out of the blue, I started thinking about my time on the ship—sailing across the world with 17 people I’d never met before and probably would never see again. Yet, I remember every single one of them. I remember their names, their faces, and how I felt around them. Each of them had their own stories, their dreams, and things they were committed to. Most of the time, we we...

  Introduction: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was established by King Abd Al-Aziz Abdulrahman Al-Saud also known as Ibn-Saud in 1932 after a 30-year campaign for the consolidation of the Arabian Peninsula into four traditional regions- Hejaz, Asir, Najd & Al-Hasa, the empire has since been a monarchy; located in the Middle East (West Asia), Saudi Arabia is surrounded by the Red Sea on the western side & by the Persian Gulf on the eastern side; Jordan, Iraq & Kuwait borders it to the north while Qatar & UAE borders it to the eastern front and Oman & Yemen borders it to the south. It is the 5 th largest country in Asia & 12 th largest in the world with an area of about 21,49,690 sq. km. and an estimated population of 33.1 million. (1) The geographical terrain of Saudi Arabia is mostly comprised of deserts, highlands, and steppe landscapes with no perennial rivers. The local communities (58.4% of the Saudi population) comprise mostly Sunni Muslims ...

The evening felt like a beautiful canvas to me yesterday. I hurried to the top to capture some Insta-worthy pictures, but after snapping just one, I tucked my phone in my pocket and looked at the horizon until the magnificent show of lights ended and the sky dwelled into darkness. That single photo might not make it to my Instagram gallery, but it made me realize something profound about how our behaviour has changed with the deeper integration of technology into our daily lives. I’m not here to criticize technology, As it has brought countless positive advancements to the world but everything has its price, doesn’t it? One of the most noticeable costs is the restlessness we all seem to carry and the diminishing attention spans we experience. In this fast-paced hustle culture, I concluded that I needed to carve out some time for myself to do absolutely nothing. And by nothing, I mean truly nothing. 😄 It may not sound like a big deal, but trust me, it’s not as easy as it seems. Try s...

“The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect. — Brene Brown.” First of all, accepting yourself doesn’t mean settling down or becoming a pessimist; You can’t say, “Oh, I live an unhealthy lifestyle, but that’s the way I’m!”. That isn’t accepting yourself, that’s just being lazy. Accepting yourself is accepting the way you are, your weaknesses and your strengths, what makes you unique, what drives your passion, and what gives you satisfaction and happiness. No one is built the same, and I’m not talking about the physical structure but about your brain and your thought process. Someone might be an introvert who enjoys their own company rather than being surrounded by lots of people while the other may be completely opposite, and there is no problem in either, the actual problem start...

Have you watched the movie “In Time”, a 2011 Sci-fi Action-packed movie starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried along with Cillian Murphy and many others, if you haven’t, you should. In brief, it is about a future where people stop ageing after 25 and in order to stay alive, they have to buy time as a currency, in such a world the rich are almost immortal while the poor barely manage to buy time either through working for it or by borrowing or stealing it. It also shows the stark difference in societies in which the rich lived when the character Will (played by Justin) enters New Greenwich (the richest time zone) while on the run after being accused of murder and is suspected of not belonging there because of his rushed behaviour, and the story goes on. But if we think about it and remove all the science fiction parts, there won’t be much difference between our current society and the one portrayed in that movie. One must ask why you feel like that? Well, I’ll come to that after...

It was a normal day at work, I was working as a cadet onboard a cargo vessel and my chief officer was accompanying me on my scheduled navigational watch, we were in the middle of the ocean and the weather was good, there wasn’t much work at the time so we were just keeping our watch and enjoying the temporary calm weather; suddenly a thought struck my head and I asked my chief officer if he would like his kids to work at sea? To which he replied, “Well I won’t push them for this life... it should be their decision to do whatever they want to do in their life.” I don’t know why I asked that question out of nowhere but after pondering upon my question, I guess he understood my dilemma and that I was indirectly trying to ask him if he considered his life good and worth it. And so, he continued, “I know this life is difficult and honestly, I hate this ship and I hate being away from my children, my family and friends, but I do respect my job. I know when I’m here, I’m responsible for this ...

The alarm rings off your phone, the partially alive you completely submerged in the oceanic comfort of sleep, struggling to push that snooze button to silence that annoying little thing from disturbing your comforting state, somehow managing to shut it off saying, “Just 5 more minutes” and waking up after an hour. More or less our mornings begin like that only until n unless the day comes when the burden of responsibility becomes heavier than the comfort of our bed. Waking up early seems like such an easy task, isn’t it? why then, do we struggle for it every morning? We can come up with a range of answers or excuses. Let’s take another example of “I would reduce my junk food intake and I’ll regularly exercise starting from tomorrow!” and somehow that tomorrow never comes or comes as a weekend. We dwell back on our previous habits with another set of brand-new excuses. So, what is the common problem in all of such issues in our day-to-day lives? One can say it’s the lack of determinatio...

This goes back to 2021, I was lying on my bed in my small cabin onboard a bulk carrier vessel in the middle of the mighty Atlantic Ocean, I’d been away at sea for more than 11 months straight and the time for me to disembark the vessel and to go home was near; Lying on my bed I was reflecting upon my life choices until now, the choice to choose this career in the merchant navy, the choice to leave my home, my family, my friends and live away at sea for months and months. The only question that used to repeatedly come to my mind was if this was really what I wanted to do, or most importantly if this was the most that I could do with my life? I wasn’t quite clear on the answer at that time, it was true I wasn’t thrilled and satisfied with what I was doing and all I wanted at that moment was to get back home and be with my family and do something else.. something that could mean something for me and make me feel that I’ve some purpose in life. Today I’m doing my masters in development, an...

(Note: there is nothing motivational about this post, it's more of an honest conversation.) Sometimes I wonder about a time before the internet boom happened, a time when phones were dumb, and humans were well... almost the same as they're today.  A time when YouTube didn't exist, a time when motivational videos were delivered live at the beginning of our classroom lecture by our beloved teacher, A time when they used to share their life story with the whole class & tell us about the struggles they faced and how they overcame all of it fiercely, while we as kids used to get transported into that "wow" state while listening to them. Nowadays a short, a reel or a video can also provide us with a dose of motivation in the click of a button but there's a catch in this scenario; back in the day in our classroom after receiving that motivational dose we used to go back to our studies energetically & usually paid more attention in that particular class becaus...