The following is an excerpt from a 2023 speech delivered by the author at FEED: Forum for Exchange and Excellence in Design: The Academic Classroom, in Pune, India: 

My recent book on architectural legacies, Architectural Inheritance and Evolution in India, reaffirmed my belief in the interconnectedness of architecture and life. I share here some lessons that life, architecture, and design have taught me through my academic and professional journey. I hope these can be cultivated as tools to develop unique design destinies in both personal and professional contexts.

1.  Curriculums must be treated merely as guidelines. They cannot define the extent of learning that is available through diverse resources. Those with a thirst for genuine knowledge should create their learning boundaries.

2. Grades cannot be the inevitable aim of education. Focus on critical thinking and probing deep into a subject to enrich yourself with knowledge. Pay attention to developing capability, not just competency. 

3. Learning should never be restricted to teachers, books, or search engines. Awareness of one’s environment, absorbing rational ideas, and analysing and challenging ideas that don’t add up are additional learning approaches.

4.  The pandemic made us acknowledge our self-dependency and helped us identify our latent strengths. For students, it was primarily learning by themselves, with their teachers and parents hand-holding them remotely. In architecture, learning is more by doing and discussing than by studying books. Architectural education provides only a platform or environment to script imaginations and ideologies. The rest is how we take the learning forward and implement it. 

5. Educated people can be illiterate, and uneducated ones can be literate. Aim for literacy rather than education. It will empower you to traverse life’s complexities with ease and balance.

6. Embrace the habit of reading. It’s one of the most important life skills to develop. Reading enriches the mind, sends it subliminal messages, and empowers it with knowledge. It opens the mind to diverse perceptions and ways of thinking, analysing, and functioning. Let’s shift the act of reading from a task on our to-do lists to a joyful habit that enriches our lives.

7. Cultivate the habit of carrying a notepad, pen, or pencil and making notes. No digital application or technology can replace the act of physically writing to ensure your mind registers what you hear, read, or see. When we write, we theorise content and allow it to occupy a part of the brain permanently. 

8. Handmade paper, handwritten quotes, and coloured pens move us in a way nothing else can. They remain for eternity, transport us instantly into another world, and make us smile, reviving distinct memories. Try replacing phone applications with them.

9. We often look back and laugh at many of our childhood activities. Look deeper to realise that many have a written script of our lives, to be revealed much later. It’s fascinating to reflect, connect the dots, and recognise how life always offers hints; it’s up to us to be aware, listen and respond to those hints, and take them further in our lives.

10. Circumstances should never define efforts. Effort should come from a spirit of desire and should always be invested, irrespective of the circumstances. In cases where the efforts will not bring any value, learn to say no to value yourself, your time, caliber, commitment, and conscience.

11. Never take hard work for granted. It’s irreplaceable at every stage of life. Even if it does not bring immediate success, it will bestow a clear conscience, which will become our most significant strength in life. 

12. Nothing comes easy. Do not expect instant gratification. Believe in and be clear about yourself, develop a friendship with yourself, work diligently, and invest in the lessons you learn on your journey toward a destination. Let the journey itself be the reward. Own the challenges and heartbreaks as proudly as you own the learning and experiences.

13. No amount of money, fame, or success will bring the respect ethics will. Do not let ethics slip by as a student or a professional; the core of success is always a committed mind. “Integrity is telling myself the truth,” writes American author Spencer Johnson. “And honesty is telling the truth to other people.” Nothing is valuable enough to compromise your integrity.

14. Get over the art of ghosting. Neither a beginner nor an established professional deserves to be ghosted. If you’re not interested in pursuing a collaboration/association, it takes a minute to send an email and even less time to type a phone message. It’s a graceful way of maintaining cordiality and granting potential collaborators respect rather than vanishing into thin air.

15. Focus on winning your own trust and depending on yourself. Take your own decisions and accept responsibility for them. It’s easy to let others decide for you, for it may offer you license to hold them accountable for the repercussions. However, the sense of achievement when you decide for yourself is massive, for it’s then that you take accountability, and it signals growth—to make decisions, dare to stand by them, learn from them, and if required, rectify them. Doing this lays the foundations for a scenic journey, which is never linear but one with ample bends to pause and contemplate. Years later, those pauses and bends make you who you are. You look back and smile at how you grew through what you went through.

16. Never devalue the darkest phases in life, for they offer lifelong lessons and experiences, which good phases often don’t. Spending considerable time waiting for the “good time” to arrive without using the present time productively devalues the potential of the learnings from dark phases. 

17. We are always about the choices we make in life. Whether we create using our minds or generate using technology, it’s our choice, and the need is only to ensure we work hard to make the choice reap benefits. Abstraction in those choices is always beautiful—one that’s not impossible to decipher but invites minds to explore, think, and be stimulated to discover what lies ahead.

18. Life never happens after we plan it; it happens while we plan it. Be observant and aware of what interests you as a career. Embrace a career path you believe will make a difference. Listen to your heart, but let your mind guide it. It’s OK not to become a practising architect; be true to yourself and what you want to do with your knowledge of architecture. Branch out, explore uncharted territories, gauge whether and how they will impact architecture, imbibe their related skills and expertise, and identify mentors whose career paths could guide you. Refrain from following mentors or role models mindlessly. If you get lost while navigating your path, the experience you go through to thrive will be unique.

19. Everyone has a calling. Whatever calling you may have, take it up. Reflect on what excites you. Identify and create your career paths. Seize the opportunities knocking on your door, and if they’re not knocking, step ahead and create them for yourself. Be ready with hope, confidence, and, most important, a smile for everything life has in store.

20. A wise man once said, “You age when your excitement for trying new things drops.” Pledge never to give up trying and exploring new things and avenues in life. Pledge to stay young forever.

Featured image: Street Design by Prasanna Desai Architects, Pune, India. Photo by the author.