Something to ponder about!!!

Spetember 2005, I had started my professional journey. I was wary of the jungle that awaited me. Though I'd be cocooned for about 6 months due to training, it won't last forever would it?? In those impressionable times, I came across someone, who became my idol in little or no time. Some casual conversations and other interactions made me revere this person like I had never done before. Was able to observe him for a few months more before he moved on.

Today while going through my mail archives, I chanced upon his parting mail and it made me think. I'll qoute his words for you:

"A person goes through many associations in his/her professional life. Most of these associations are meant to be and treated as temporary; some are proven to be significant and cared for, for a much longer duration than the preceding category. A few, however, stay on for ever in the cosiest corner of one's heart. With passage of time, one's fondness for these only increases.

My association with ****** falls in this last category and now that I am disengaging myself from the organisation for the second time, I know that I am going to yearn for this assocation's continuation in my life. To tell you the truth, I value this as much as I value some of my very personal associations.

At such time of parting, people write mails to their erstwhile colleagues and friends. More often than not, such mails tend to be either a lachrymose huddle of words, or collection of cut and dried, inanimate sentences thanking ex-colleagues or, in some cases, even disaffected musings about how one's life outside the organisation would not be the same again! My mails in the past, in similar situations were not very different, I have to admit. In fact, most of the times, such mails are too predictable in their tone and in their contents to elicit a caring read from the intended recipients.

Hence, I have decided not to write a mail to tell you all about my fondness for ******, and my fascination for its environment and people. Instead, let me just say that through my 14+ years of struggle to survive in this unpredictable, demanding but thoroughly enjoyable industry, I have come to understand that life is much bigger than all these. To excel in work, one needs to have passion, demonstrate perseverance, exercise resilience and learn and unlearn things in a frenetic speed. But to be successful in life, one probably needs these and much more, the most important being the ability to look beyond our immediate work environment. A career gives a lot, but demands a lot in return. But, a close relation or a close friend gives a lot too, but not necessarily demand a lot in return, if anything. We all need to wriggle out of this all-consuming clutch of a race in professional life - a race which has a beginning but no seeming end - and being to look at life in its entirety. That is where the best of the human attributes like love, affection,kindness and friendship, flourish. They define the completeness of us as human beings.

Therefore, I would end this the mail with a honest request to you all (as well as myself) to begin to segregate between work and life, to look beyond the fantasy land that an IT job creates, to begin to appreciate precious softer sides of life that spring forth around us everyday, to reach out to family and friends for whom we usually keep the bottom-most of the ToDo list, aside."

Doesn't that make you stop and think about what you've been doing all this while??

When, I read this mail, I simply stopped working. I couldn't write a single line of code. As I sat back and wondered, I realised how much I have been running after my career or rather what I believe I'm qualified enough to do. I'm losing out on the personal front so much. I'm losing touch with most of my friends. Where is this going to take me? A deep lying thought probably planted by my idol years ago, again shook itself out of its slumber and made me look around and question my motives for working and what is it I am paying in kind with to get that cash?? And I go back to a favourite line of mine:

"Never be so busy, that cannot stop by and smell the flowers!!"

Work, but as a free man/woman not as a slave!!! Enjoy life..... you gotta play at times too... be impulsive.... be yourself!!!! :)