Last week, I introduced this miniseries of blog posts in honor of me and my fellow Aries’ birthday season. I hope you’re all ready to continue this reflective journey with me! I wasn’t planning it, but there’s a common theme with the lessons this week. Can you spot it?

Here we go with this week’s installment of advice for my seven-year-old self.

Tip 3: “Everything is free!” (Actually, no, it is not.)

When I left India, I imagined “America” as a land where the streets were paved with gold and in which everything was aplenty. Regrettably, there are embarrassing audio recordings of a nine- and a half-year-old me trying to convince my visiting grandfather that “Everything in America is free” – education, health care, food! Compared to my private school tuition and books in Bombay, my public school and the library books didn’t cost a dime!

But a few months after that conversation, I was walking on a crisp winter night with my parents when my eyes caught the magical light of the golden “M” of McDonald’s. I asked my father to get me a chocolate milkshake – still probably my favorite beverage. He matter-of-factly explained, “The milkshake costs one dollar. If we buy this milkshake now, we won’t have enough to also buy gas and groceries if we don’t budget. We might not be able to buy some other food if we buy this milkshake. Do you still want the milkshake, or could you wait another couple of weeks until we budget for it?”

This was not what I wanted to hear although I knew then and now that he was right. In India, there had never been a palpable shortage of money in our household. As I observed my parents make the hard choices of what to purchase versus what to forego, such as baby formula for my sister, another myth was busted. Yet we found contentment in what was served on our second-hand dining table because we had earned it!

Tip 4: Liberate yourself – You don’t have to sing if you don’t want to.

I must have been four when my mother took me to the house of Indira Bai Kelkar – a feisty Indian music teacher, always clad in a traditional and colorful sari with her graying hair very properly pinned up in a neat bun. She lived in the posh suburbs of Bombay, and in a very crowded city, she had what I recall as a spacious house with lots of people coming in and out. She had a passion for teaching young kids the ragas of classical Hindi music. To this day, I’ve never figured out why my parents thought this was a good hobby for me, but I went diligently to my Hindi music lessons until I left for the U.S. at seven.

Indira Bai took the stage fright right out of me with her imposing voice, demanding that I sing on command without missing a tabla beat or a chord on the harmonium! She herself knew how to play the sitar, harmonium, tabla, and match it all with her singing, which was not comforting even if it was in the right key.

When I was five, Indira Bai and others had organized some sort of performance program in a famed auditorium of Bombay, and in attendance was a notable (and sometimes notorious) Maharashtra politician. Indira Bai readied me to perform solo, and sure enough, I belted out “Jyot se Jyot Jagateh Chalon” (translation: Light one candle with another as you go) on command in front of a full audience.

For once my blindness was an asset; I couldn’t see faces, so I had literally nothing to fear. Indira Bai ate this boldness up like gulab jamun! Unfortunately, the performance set the wrong precedent at home. She can sing, and on command, and she’s good, they thought. So, at the most random times, long after we had left India, my parents – and particularly my father – would just announce that I was going to sing…at the Hot Pot Restaurant in Berkeley, among random invited dinner guests at home, amidst family on visits to Mumbai, literally anywhere!

Recently, we were in California with friends at a Persian restaurant, and my father said, “Now you’re going to give us a song!” And, perhaps for the first time, the weirdness of my life and the cuteness of my father dawned on me.

“No,” I said resolutely.

“No? You’re not going to sing?” he inquired, crestfallen.

“No, I’m not singing, Dad.” And suddenly, almost four decades later, I realized that I had been liberated. Now, I sing for me – in the shower, prancing around my home making up silly songs to annoy my sister, and sometimes in solemnity inspired by my faith. But I sing for me, and for my faith, and for no one else.

Is there something you do for yourself and no one else? Or do you remember a time that you decided against immediate satisfaction to prioritize a long-term benefit? Let me know in the comments and on my social media! I love hearing the stories you have to share.

Next week, we’ll have the final part of this miniseries. Talk to you all then!