Category: Business of Life

The Year That’s Past

I woke one middle of the night a week ago with my shoulders hunched. The saddest things of the year stood out in my mind. The things that I was to achieve but didn’t, the people who had passed on and the friends who were going through setbacks – these things went round and round in my head.

The year couldn’t have been that bad! I decided then to make a list for the year that was past.

Many good. Some harsh. Some not so good, but others have had it worse. This is my list for the year gone.

  • Moved fully out of corporate. Not even part time sitting in offices any more. Considering that I am far more comfortable sitting by myself and writing than interacting and handling the thousand other things that happen in offices, this is one grand achievement for me.
  • Wrote the Nilgai story. Got decent reviews from friends and family.
  • Began rewriting Nilgai story and it sounds far better.
  • Got first cheque from the first freelance client’s client.
  • Trouble for friend from all sides. They are reaching a peak.
  • Got call for another freelance work.
  • Got legally divorced.
  • Learnt the value and warmth of my in-laws once more.
  • In regular touch with niece.
  • Got control over what I eat. I don’t know how it came about, one morning I woke and I no longer wanted to snack at all hours. What relief!
  • More involvement in meditation.
  • Started Reiki again at the very end of the year.
  • Talking to mom and dad and sis and cousins regular.
  • Less irritability. Feels more peaceful.
  • Enjoying driving the car.
  • Did the second freelance work. Vexing, but done.
  • I pick up the courage to ask uncle, if my children story writing future will work. He was categorical. He said it should have happened last year. But go ahead beta he said. Nothing to look back, be it stories, be it money.
  • Uncle has stood by me from the darkest time of my life to the time when the sun is rising again. He’s been a guide to me for a full 10 years. This year he passed on. He’s the one I looked up to for advice, a look into the future and guidance these past years when there didn’t seem to be a road ahead. A lump in the throat even now.
  • My uncle, dad’s brother, who treated us as his own, passed on. We all believed he had a good decade and more. Too early for him. Too painful for us. Heartbreaking for cousins who need him still. Can’t get my head around the fact that he’s not walking in that house any more.
  • At least got the chance to be with him in September.
  • Brother-in-law steps in to support family in his quiet way.
  • Finished a kid’s short story.
  • Publisher wants to see the full manuscript.
  • Ghost writing a book for the first client.
  • Ghost writing offer confirmed from another client.
  • Friend getting married. Whoopee!
  • Got another story idea when thinking of daughter. It’s one I can’t just set aside, a must write story. Can’t wait to begin!

 

Even after making this list, when I sit alone, the first things that come to mind are the difficult ones. But now, I have this list and there are so many things to be grateful for.

When my shoulders hunch, all I have to do is look at this list.

 

Spaces and Walls

When you live your life, do you see the Spaces? Or the Walls?

When I drove my Activa of 6 years, I looked for spaces that allowed me to move along. The rest was just a mass that I had to move past – people crossing the road, dogs dashing across, two-wheelers coming down the wrong way, bikes, cars, buses honking past – none of that mattered.

But when I became a new driver of a car, all I saw was every vehicle, person and animal on the road that was out there to stop me – the Walls. The Spaces disappeared. And I slowed down, sometimes coming to a standstill.

Same road, same traffic. A different me, hesitant and reluctant. It was unfamiliarity that brought on the difference.

It’s true of life too.

The world is the same. We see what we choose to see.

Those of us who see the Spaces, zip past, enjoying the breeze, the morning winter sun on our face and in control, never hesitating over a new direction, a new situation, an unfamiliarity.

Those of us who see the Walls, stop altogether. Or we slow down, too fearful to feel the breeze or the sun. We inch along, worrying ourselves in a new direction – if we move at all.

Yes, there are some basics to master. But the rest is our choice.

So do you see the Spaces? Or the Walls?

As Life Happens

I went through school thinking I was learning for later life
Then I learnt that while a million things kept me busy at school
The real work that happened was about sharpening my brain and dealing with people.

I began going through work and life,
Planning on reaching the next level each day, each year.
But as I reach out, I realise
Life isn’t about reaching the next level.

I learnt that the real work in life is to know myself.
The real me.
The one that is neither good, nor bad.
Neither smart nor dumb.
Not a mother, not a daughter, not a friend – just me.
I am still peeling the layers.

The rest are things that keep me busy as I do the real work.

Veering off the Course

Decisions, sometimes tiny, sometimes large thought out ones, they take you inches off your course day after day until one day you wake up and you wonder where you’re lost, who you are, what you love vs what you must, your values, and if you are a business, where your profits and revenues lie, where your future roadmap’s headed – definitely not where it was meant to. And if there’s a way back.

 

It happens with websites, it happens with product GUIs, it happens with brand extensions and it happens with life.

 

We give away what we love, we give away our low cost structures, our uniqueness and our strengths, and we become lifeless or we stand prematurely old.

 

The change is so vast with neither the beginning nor the end in sight, that to get back to a semblance of where we still want to be takes nothing short of painful, systemic revamp. 

 

It isn’t that you shouldn’t change. Change is a definite part of life.

So is improvisation.

Sometimes they add to a fresh new path – a fresh lease of life, like they do with the ocean currents. The wind, the sun, the continents, island chains, they all conspire to make the moving currents. But it all adds up to life, letting life live, to make earth a hospitable place. But sometimes, they are killing if you are caught in the wrong current at the wrong time.

 

What’s the way in?

Never for a moment lose sight of what you set out to do.

Never lose sight of what you love.

Never lose sight of what gives you a kick.

 

If there’s anything that can hold you to your path, it’s this, bringing you back to it time and again, because now each deviating decision is a conscious decision, marked on a personal road map even if a blurry one, giving you more chances than one. 

 

It’s a little like the smart bombs. Once they lock on to the target, they don’t lose sight. Except in the rare cases where cloud cover or obstacles come in the way.

 

But it isn’t as easy as that.

It still takes a tremendous amount of energy, the ability to withstand uncertainty and of swimming against the tide, there still are hard decisions to take, but then, you will have chances in life – chances to at least have a foot in the loved thing, if not move into it completely – someday.

Every Day of our Lives – We wear our old shoes and set forth to another day

One fine morning if you wake up in the jungle, would you look for your office shoes to go to the non-existent office and the attendant security, looking to sit down at your safe-in-the-hole desk?

An extreme metaphor, but true enough in our lives.

We don’t wake up in the jungle, but we don’t wake up to just another day either. We wake to a different day, a different story, a different project, a different document, a different launch, a different customer.

But most days, we ready ourselves for just another day.

Not a new day, not a new beginning. Just another day.

We carry our old notions, old habits, old learnings – The Old Highways in the Brain – and begin the new day as if it can take us to the next level of experience, exhilaration, growth and yes, income too. But then, we walk where we are – on a treadmill. Going nowhere in our minds, except ratcheting up our heart beats a bit to keep ourselves alive.

Unable to take us out of our own corner.

Unable to place ourselves in new shoes.

Unable to free think our minds.

I truly believe that all of us want to free think. Assuming for the moment that this is true, how do we help ourselves do it? ‘Cause it’s a learning, it’s about finding the door that opens us to the ability to free think. And the door is different for each.

Some I’ve listed, there would be more.

Fear of failure and a related reason – lacking in self-confidence – fear of contending with authority, fear of being laughed at, fear of being called a fool, fear of……… Can we for just a day in our lives set aside the mind numbing fear and let our minds hop, skip and jump?

Pressure that builds up in the confusion of vast amounts of previously unknown information and factors when we set out on a new task – until it all slowly becomes familiar and we just need to hang in there, juggling the balls mentally till they fall into a pattern – till the core, the sticky point reveals itself.

Beginner’s Block – Plenty to do with the reluctance to let go of our safe, known corner and begin anything new.

Arrogance – Every new thing is a place of ignorance to begin with. The inability to shrug off our I-am-Wise badge, go to people and learn from them from scratch and not let this ability diminish with age, time or labels.

Let’s take the first step of recognising our door. The key search can only come after that.