The Art of Spotting Discontent

Part 2 of my unscripted connection with Arvind Swamy!

When actor and entrepreneur Arvind Swamy visited my workplace recently, he spoke about something surprisingly simple yet powerful: how discovering the reason for his discontent helped him correct course and become more self-aware.

Sounds easy, right? Like, “Oh, I’m annoyed because I skipped breakfast — problem solved.” But in reality, most of us don’t even pause long enough to name what’s bothering us. We just carry it around like invisible extra luggage.

I’ve been guilty of this myself. A few weeks ago, I was in an inexplicably bad mood during a meeting. I snapped at my laptop screen (as if it could hear me) and sighed so loudly my house help asked if I got some bad news . Later I realized — it wasn’t the project, it wasn’t the team — it was just that I hadn’t had coffee all morning. Discontent, mystery solved.

And then there was my son, who spent an entire summer sulking because I forced him to stop wearing socks in Chennai’s hot, humid weather. He hated it. Why? Not because of the heat — but because he was painfully conscious of his dry ankles. Every time someone asked him about it, he felt exposed, and his solution was to cling to those socks like armor. Once we uncovered the real discontent, it wasn’t about socks at all. It was about him wanting to feel comfortable in his own skin. Lotion and reassurance worked better than arguing about humidity levels. (Parenting tip: sometimes the battle isn’t socks vs. no socks — it’s self-esteem vs. sweaty ankles.)

The funny thing is, once you spot the reason, the solution is often embarrassingly simple. Hungry? Eat. Tired? Nap. Overcommitted? Say no (harder than it sounds, I know). It’s like those moments when your phone isn’t working, and after 20 minutes of troubleshooting, you realize — oh — you never turned the Wi-Fi on.

Arvind’s point landed because it’s not just about coffee or Wi-Fi. It’s about asking ourselves:

What’s really driving this irritation, this burnout, this slump?

Is it the work, or is it how we’re approaching it?

Is it the people, or is it our expectations of them?

Sometimes it’s not a dramatic answer, just a tiny correction. But those tiny corrections add up to more self-awareness — and less chance of scaring your poor laptop.

~Ashmita, still misplacing my Wi-Fi button in life, but getting better at noticing it before rebooting the entire system.

#SelfAwareness #SmallCorrectionsBigImpact #UnscriptedConnections #WorkplaceHumor #FindingTheWhy #AshmitaWrites #DaryenTeaches

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This post was previously published on medium.com.