How visiting the Himalayas changed my perception of entrepreneurship

Nihar Sawant is a co-founder at Expojure. This post originally appeared on his Medium blog.

Recently, I was in the Himalayas for two weeks. During those two weeks, I had zero communication with the outside world. Climbing 14,000ft in the dreadful nature left my mind in a complete desolation.

By the time I reached home, my mind was a blank slate like I was reborn. This gave me an opportunity to look back at my life in a new perspective.

In past five years, I introspected a lot and also observed people around me. I realized that most do things which they don’t want to do, own things which they don’t need and most importantly, they don’t think for themselves.

Rather than understanding what their needs are, people buy things which they see in advertisements just to show how ‘modern’ they are. They do not like their work and spend all their weekdays waiting for a weekend or worse tweet about how pathetic their job or boss is.

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Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life – Steve Jobs

I always thought that I am not like ‘these’ people; I am much better, or in other words – superior. Rather than following the trends, I always asked myself – ‘why should I do it?’

I thought I was listening to my own voice rather than the noise around me. I tried to live a simple life instead of filling my life with things which I didn’t want. I believed that I was living my life the way I wanted.

But I was so wrong.

When I came back from the Himalayas, I re-evaluated my life. I saw the people I was following on Twitter, newsletters I subscribed to, blogs which I used to read, events I used to attend and I realized that I was no different than people from whom I claimed to be ‘superior.’

From college days, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. It was not because I loved fixing things, but because I was influenced by people like Paul Graham, Jack Dorsey, Bill Gates, Elon Musk etc.

I wanted to change the world because Steve Jobs said that in a YouTube video. I created a startup because I used to read TechCrunch a lot. Even I was following a trend just like people around me. The only difference is, this trend of entrepreneurship and startups is highly ambitious which can drown people.

What is entrepreneurship about?

After realizing this truth, I hit the reset button of my digital life. I ‘unfriended’ 70 percent of my Facebook Friends (and on the verge of deactivating my Facebook account), emptied ‘read later’ list from Pocket which had more than a thousand unread articles and eventually unsubscribed every possible blog which writes about startups and their valuations.

I was surprised to know how easy it is to let go of your digital life. After being in this absolute desolation for a week, I asked myself ‘Why am I doing this?’ And the answer was crystal clear: Thrill.

The reason why I went to the Himalayas, rode 650 KM in a scorching heat for a week or turned down a high salary job with an opportunity to settle down in North America was same: it made my heart beat the hardest. Entrepreneurship is not about acquisitions or raising million dollars; it is about thrill, unpredictability, living with constraints, pushing yourself to a new high, being innovative and trusting your own guts over stats.

I crave for this and I love every single moment of it. That is why I chose entrepreneurship.

Life is an empty slate and you are free to do anything you want. You want to change the world? Go ahead and do it… but first ask yourself: do you really like disruptions in your own life? Or is it because you found the thought in an autobiography?

When we were born, our mind was nothing but a void and when we will die it will be the same: void. Whatever we do between birth and death has no meaning. Eventually it will be nothing but a void.

If nothingness is the ultimate truth of life, then why not spend the rest of your lifetime doing things which you love doing without any regrets? When you do things which you love, only then you will enjoy life to it’s fullest.

Otherwise you will die in boredom waiting for just another blissful weekend.

Featured images: Shutterstock/My Good Images, Paula Bronstein/Getty Images