When I imagine becoming a mother someday, I don’t picture perfect mornings or Instagram-ready moments. I imagine the small, human ones - the messy, emotional, sometimes overwhelming realities of raising another person. And I often think not just about the parent I want to be, but the things I hope I never do. These are the intentions I want to hold close.

First, I don’t want a single day to pass where my child doesn’t know that I love them. Not just through words, but through warmth, presence, and the way I show up in their everyday life. Love shouldn’t be something they question; it should be the ground they stand on.

Second, I don’t want to protect them so fiercely that I stunt their growth. Children learn by trying, falling, getting hurt, and trying again. If I shield them from every discomfort, I’d also be shielding them from resilience.

Third, I don’t want to jump to conclusions without hearing their side of the story. I want to remember that children, like adults, deserve to be listened to - not dismissed, judged, or interrupted.

Fourth, I don’t want to smother them with advice. This will probably be the hardest one for me to follow. But I want to let them come to me, not drown them in guidance they never asked for.

Fifth, I don’t want my child to grow up unsure of what love feels like at home. I want our home to be a place where tenderness is normal, where affection isn’t rationed, and where emotional safety is a given.

Sixth, I don’t want laughter to fade from our home. I want kitchen dances, silly songs, and inside jokes that only we understand. A family that forgets how to be playful forgets how to stay close.

Seventh, I don’t want my child to ever feel small for having big emotions. Crying, screaming, melting down - these are all human expressions, not misbehaviors to punish. I want to give them the space to feel without shame.

Eighth, I don’t want to project my unfulfilled dreams onto them. My child shouldn’t exist to complete my story. They should have the freedom to chase their own dreams, even if they look nothing like mine.

Ninth, I don’t want to raise a “good” child - one who simply follows rules, pleases adults, and avoids trouble. I want to raise a kind, curious, courageous human being who knows how to think for themselves and stand for what they believe in.

And finally, I don’t want my child to ever wonder whether I am proud of them. I want them to know - deeply, consistently, quietly - that I am. Not because of their achievements, grades, or milestones, but because they exist.

When I become a mother, I know I will make mistakes. I know I will fall short. But these intentions are my compass. And I hope they guide me toward raising a child who feels loved, seen, and free to become who they truly are.

Anguilla is a small island in the Caribbean, home to just 16,000 people and known for its white sand beaches, turquoise water, and a tourism-driven economy. For years, the island’s financial health rose and fell with the travel seasons. It was peaceful, beautiful, and economically predictable. Until something entirely unexpected changed the island’s fortunes - not a new resort, not a surge in visitors, but two letters: .ai.

Every country in the world is assigned a two-letter internet domain. The United States has .us, India has .in, Germany has .de. Anguilla, by sheer coincidence, drew .ai - a designation that meant little for decades.

Then came 2023. ChatGPT went mainstream. Midjourney and Stable Diffusion took over the internet. Perplexity emerged. Thousands of AI startups appeared almost overnight. Investors poured billions into the sector. And with every new AI idea came the same question:

“What domain should we buy?”

Suddenly, “.ai” wasn’t just a country code. It became a global badge of identity - the perfect digital home for any company working on artificial intelligence. From OpenAI to Runway to two-person teams building prototypes in their bedrooms, everyone wanted a domain ending in “.ai.”

And Anguilla owned all of it.

The impact was immediate and staggering. In 2021, before the AI wave fully hit, Anguilla earned around $7 million from domain registrations - a respectable sum for a small island. By 2024, that number had shot up to nearly $40 million, becoming one of the island’s largest revenue sources. That’s almost a quarter of Anguilla’s entire annual income, coming not from tourists on its beaches but from tech founders thousands of miles away.

Think about the scale of that shift: a tiny Caribbean island suddenly became a silent partner in the global AI revolution, not by building models or raising venture capital, but by simply owning the internet’s hottest two letters.

The beauty of this story lies in its serendipity. Anguilla didn’t plan for the AI boom. It didn’t try to position itself as a tech hub. It didn’t compete in global innovation races. All it did was maintain its assigned domain - something most countries never think twice about - and the world came running.

While Silicon Valley raced to build the future, Anguilla quietly sold them the name tags.

This unexpected windfall has given the island new opportunities: infrastructure investment, improved public services, and economic breathing room that would have taken decades to achieve through tourism alone. It’s a reminder that in a rapidly changing world, value can appear in the most surprising places.

As AI continues to expand, the demand for .ai domains shows no sign of slowing down. And Anguilla, with its perfect mix of timing and luck, will continue benefiting from a global technological movement it had no hand in creating.

The world is chasing AI.
But Anguilla?
It simply sold everyone the name tag.

When I moved back to India in 2023, I expected culture shock. I expected logistical adjustments. I expected to miss certain things about living in the U.S. But I didn’t expect the emotional regression - the strange sensation of being 27 on paper, yet suddenly feeling 17 again.

I left home for the U.S. almost a decade earlier. The last time I lived with my parents, I was a teenager: stubborn, easily frustrated, and always pushing for independence. So when I returned home as an adult, I thought things would be different. I had lived alone, worked, earned, traveled, made decisions, navigated life. But under my parents’ roof again, all of that experience seemed to vanish.

Small disagreements started to fill the house. What I wore. When I came home. How late I stayed up. To me, these seemed like petty, unnecessary conflicts. To them, these were familiar patterns - the same anxieties and expectations they carried when I was younger. We weren’t fighting about the present. We were reenacting the past.

It took me a while to understand that moving back home didn’t create new issues. It simply revealed old ones that were sitting quietly beneath the surface, waiting to be acknowledged. And this time, I wasn’t navigating them as a confused teenager. I had something I didn’t have before: therapy.

One day, during a session, my therapist said something that shifted everything for me. “It’s not that your father doesn’t want to be emotionally available. He just never had the vocabulary for it.”

I sat with that sentence for a long time.

I began to imagine what it must have been like for him to grow up in a generation of Indian men where worth was measured by how much you could provide, not how openly you could express your feelings. A world where you were taught to be strong, even when you were scared. Where crying wasn’t an option. Where silence was the closest thing to vulnerability.

Seeing him through that lens didn’t excuse everything, but it softened the edges. It helped me approach our conflicts differently- not with defensiveness, but with curiosity.

Those nine months at home were not easy. There were moments when I questioned whether I had made a mistake. But gradually, something surprising happened. The conflict that I once avoided became a doorway. A way to understand each other differently. A way to rewrite old patterns, not just repeat them.

I used to think conflict was the opposite of connection. That if you loved people deeply, you avoided hurting them, avoided raising your voice, avoided saying anything that could create distance. But living with my parents again taught me that conflict isn’t the end of love. Often, it’s where deeper connection begins.

So the next time you find yourself fighting with your parents, pause. Stay in the discomfort. Reflect - maybe with a therapist, maybe with a close friend. Because sometimes the most painful conversations are the ones that finally set us free.

Most people imagine homelessness as something that happens to others - people who made poor choices or took the wrong turns. But the truth is often far more complex, and sometimes heartbreaking. Jim’s story is one example of how even those who play life by the book can find themselves without a home.

On paper, Jim lived the kind of life that should have protected him. He went to college, found stable work, and climbed his way up to a well-paying job as a corporate tax manager. He made good money, volunteered in his community, and took responsibility for his aging parents. For years, he did everything society tells us leads to security.

But life doesn’t always reward good behavior.

Ten years later, Jim was homeless.

The spiral began when his father fell seriously ill. Jim made a decision most of us would call noble: he quit his job in Houston and moved back to Colorado to care for him. He assumed that once his father recovered or passed, he could simply re-enter the workforce. But caregiving rarely comes with a predictable timeline.

When his father died, Jim’s mother’s health began to deteriorate. Her vision faded, her memory slipped, and Jim became her full-time caregiver. He spent years doing everything he could to support her - emotionally, physically, and financially. The cost of her care was staggering: nearly $10,000 a month. Slowly, his savings began to drain.

He told himself it was fine. He’d rebuild later. But when she passed away too, later never came.

By the time Jim re-entered the job market, the world had moved on. His employment gap raised questions. His age raised more. The job offers stopped coming. Interviews dried up. Months turned into years, and the financial safety net he once had was gone. Eventually, Jim lost his home - and found himself at a shelter at 53.

He says, “I did everything right. Why am I here?” It’s a question many people in similar situations ask.

But something changed over time. As the shock of his situation softened, Jim found meaning in small acts. He began doing laundry for others in the shelter. He says that giving people clean clothes gives him dignity too. It reminds him he still has something to contribute - that he still matters.

Jim’s story is not an anomaly. It’s a reminder that life can turn quickly and quietly. A medical emergency, a caregiving responsibility, a job loss - any of these can destabilize even the most responsible people.

Many of us know someone who has gone through their own version of this collapse. A friend. A relative. A colleague. And many more are just one crisis away.

Jim’s journey teaches us something simple but profound: be kind. Offer help where you can. And never assume homelessness is the result of personal failure. Sometimes, it’s simply the result of being human in an unpredictable world.