Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Postcard
This podcast is my public journal, where I share reflections on leadership, mindfulness, technology and culture.
INTERVIEWER: Welcome back to the How to Live podcast. Today we're sitting down with Kunal Gupta to discuss something we all experience but rarely name—how the extraordinary becomes ordinary, and what it takes to see our lives with fresh eyes again. Kunal, welcome back.
KUNAL: Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
INTERVIEWER: So, you're watching winter sunrises in Lisbon now. That's quite a shift from spending the last two winters in Australia.
KUNAL: Yeah, it really is. You know, being back in Portugal after two years away, it feels like, um, returning to this ritual I'd almost forgotten existed. There's something about waking up before the sun does, when the city is still sleeping, that makes you pay attention differently.
INTERVIEWER: I love how you describe your view—thousands of buildings, the river, the bridge, mountains, but no streets visible at all. That's such an unusual perspective.
KUNAL: It's this peculiar effect of being at the top of a hill. The building itself is actually invisible from below. It's like this secret suspended in the air that only exists if you climb the hill and step inside. And people, they come over and they tell me, 'You live in a postcard.' They mean it as a compliment.
INTERVIEWER: But that's not quite how it feels to you anymore, is it?
KUNAL: No, and that's the thing that gets me. After four years with this view, I forget. I actually forget that this is supposed to be special. I walk these streets that my North American friends find enchanting, and they're just streets to me. The view from my window becomes, like, wallpaper. The postcard stops being a postcard the moment it becomes my everyday reality.
INTERVIEWER: That's such a universal experience, isn't it? We all do this with different parts of our lives.
KUNAL: Exactly. And I've been thinking about why that happens. A postcard only exists in relation to something else. It requires contrast. Without comparison, without the memory of somewhere different or someone else's fresh eyes seeing it for the first time, the extraordinary becomes ordinary.
INTERVIEWER: So contrast is actually essential for appreciation. That's interesting because I think most of us experience contrast as uncomfortable.
KUNAL: Oh, absolutely. Most of the time, difference registers as negative in my body. The hotel bed that isn't mine. Restaurant food that doesn't match what I wanted. My shoulders feeling tighter than usual. I mentally catalog these differences throughout my days, and my first reaction is almost always resistance. This isn't what I'm used to. This isn't what I prefer.
INTERVIEWER: But you're starting to see that discomfort differently now?
KUNAL: Yeah, I'm understanding that difference serves a purpose beyond discomfort. The purpose of difference is actually to remind me of what I have. When something shifts, when the familiar becomes unfamiliar even briefly, I'm given the opportunity to see what was there all along.
INTERVIEWER: So instead of just cataloging what's wrong with the thing that's different, you're asking what the contrast reveals?
KUNAL: Right. The hotel bed reminds me of my own. The restaurant meal points back to the food that nourishes me at home. The tension in my body highlights the moments when it feels easy and fluid. Every difference is a mirror held up to what I've stopped noticing.
INTERVIEWER: That's beautiful. It's like difference becomes a tool for gratitude rather than just a source of complaint. How do you practice that in real life?
KUNAL: Honestly? I like having visitors. They arrive with fresh eyes and see postcards everywhere. They enter our apartment and gasp. They look out the window and pull out their phones. They remind me to look again at what I've learned to overlook.
INTERVIEWER: So other people's wonder becomes a gift to you.
KUNAL: Yeah, and it's a gift they probably don't even know they're giving me. They help me remember I live in a postcard. And this remembering is crucial because without it, I slip into a kind of blindness. I start to believe that this is just how things are.
INTERVIEWER: You write about expectation and how it carries the seed of disappointment. Can you say more about that?
KUNAL: When I expect things to be a certain way, I'm setting up a measurement, a standard against which reality will inevitably fall short sooner or later. Disappointment lives in my body as tension. It deflates me, drains my energy, leaves me feeling smaller. I can feel it in my chest, this collapse inward.
INTERVIEWER: And gratitude does the opposite?
KUNAL: Completely. Appreciation lifts something in me that affects not just my own experience but the space around me. It's infectious in the way disappointment never is. It generates energy rather than depleting it, creates possibility rather than closing it down.
INTERVIEWER: So this isn't really about whether your view is objectively special or not.
KUNAL: No, not at all. My view isn't better or worse than other views. That's not the point, and it never was. The point is learning to see the beauty in what is. Not what could be, not what should be, not what exists somewhere else in someone else's life. Just this, just now, just what's actually here in front of me when I remember to look.
INTERVIEWER: This feels like such an essential practice—inviting people in, borrowing their fresh eyes, letting their wonder remind us of what we have. What would you say to someone who's forgotten to see their own postcard?
KUNAL: I'd say, um, notice the differences. When something feels off or uncomfortable, don't just catalog the complaint. Take it one step further and ask what the contrast is revealing about what you've been taking for granted. And maybe, you know, invite someone over. Let them see your life with fresh eyes. Their wonder might be exactly the gift you need.
INTERVIEWER: That's beautiful, Kunal. Thank you for this conversation and for reminding us all to look again at what's right in front of us.
KUNAL: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
INTERVIEWER: And to our listeners, may you see your own postcards this week. Until next time, take care.