In recent times I have been plagued fairly frequently with questions as to what am I? Where am I going and what am I doing and what is its purpose? In a nutshell, I was trying to answer certain questions in order to understand my own identity and purpose in life. In many cases, I dismissed these thoughts as a typical aquarian infliction (probably I got too influenced by Linda Goodman :( )
Lately however the questions have been too many and too frequent to be ignored!!! All these questions, have brought me to think about what I have been doing all these years and how each stage in life has provided the satisfaction / dissatisfaction with it and what are the achievements in all these years.
A foregone conclusion to this question was that in the last few years there has been nothing to be spoken of..neither as a part of the profession or otherwise...this conclusion also brought with it some fundamental questions...a) what could be done which can be termed as an achievement in one's own estimation b) why has there been no sense of any such thing specially in the past few years despite the fact that so much hardwork, stress and strain has gone by...
Answer to the second question is probably easier...and which is - we are increasingly getting drawn into the routine aspects of our lives ('business - as - usual' for the management guys) that we are unable to get out of the routine and do something unusual...its very similar to why organizations seek external advise / help in order to improve their own self...an organization knows itself the best but still they ask for external help because they feel that they are so much into the system that its best to bring someone who can see sitting outside the system...Ditto for our own lives! Ofcourse this is not to say each one of us need an external help...
Coming back to the first question - what could be done so that we ourselves can term it an achievement...Well to put simply do someting which you will be proud of till your last day in life...still better do something which the larger society remembers you even after your life...
When you are studying - lets say getting into the IITs / Harvard or the ilk would definitely be an achievement...In your professional career doing something which brings a significant betterment either within or outside your organization could be an achievement...
Now all this also brings us to other questions such as you should be really talented and should have the right backing and should be lucky and should have so many other things in place to achieve something...And since our lives are so dependent on situations and hence we get an escape route saying things werent in my favor an hence I could not do anything special...
Looking at it from this angle, also tortuously brings me back to the answer of the second question which is we are so tied up to our current situation and daily activities and burden that it is becoming impossible for us to rise above it, think differently and actually make use of the knowledge and experience that we possess...
Fundamentally it is a choice between thinking about oneself as the 'Created' one or the 'Creator'...Being the 'Creator' is definitely not easy and it calls for something which is over and above the huge energy and time that we spend in 'business - as-usual' activities...but it also brings with it that sense of achievement and pride in oneself...Let's therefore begin this new Samvat after Diwali with a passion to create and achieve...And as always its a game of quid pro quo - you create and you get back the fruits of creation together with a sense of achievement! You give some you take some!
P:S: Next time you do a general conversation with anyone and ask people how are things and how is it going? Just try and note how many say "going on" or "as usual" or the likes and how many have a different answer... Happy diwali!
Lately however the questions have been too many and too frequent to be ignored!!! All these questions, have brought me to think about what I have been doing all these years and how each stage in life has provided the satisfaction / dissatisfaction with it and what are the achievements in all these years.
A foregone conclusion to this question was that in the last few years there has been nothing to be spoken of..neither as a part of the profession or otherwise...this conclusion also brought with it some fundamental questions...a) what could be done which can be termed as an achievement in one's own estimation b) why has there been no sense of any such thing specially in the past few years despite the fact that so much hardwork, stress and strain has gone by...
Answer to the second question is probably easier...and which is - we are increasingly getting drawn into the routine aspects of our lives ('business - as - usual' for the management guys) that we are unable to get out of the routine and do something unusual...its very similar to why organizations seek external advise / help in order to improve their own self...an organization knows itself the best but still they ask for external help because they feel that they are so much into the system that its best to bring someone who can see sitting outside the system...Ditto for our own lives! Ofcourse this is not to say each one of us need an external help...
Coming back to the first question - what could be done so that we ourselves can term it an achievement...Well to put simply do someting which you will be proud of till your last day in life...still better do something which the larger society remembers you even after your life...
When you are studying - lets say getting into the IITs / Harvard or the ilk would definitely be an achievement...In your professional career doing something which brings a significant betterment either within or outside your organization could be an achievement...
Now all this also brings us to other questions such as you should be really talented and should have the right backing and should be lucky and should have so many other things in place to achieve something...And since our lives are so dependent on situations and hence we get an escape route saying things werent in my favor an hence I could not do anything special...
Looking at it from this angle, also tortuously brings me back to the answer of the second question which is we are so tied up to our current situation and daily activities and burden that it is becoming impossible for us to rise above it, think differently and actually make use of the knowledge and experience that we possess...
Fundamentally it is a choice between thinking about oneself as the 'Created' one or the 'Creator'...Being the 'Creator' is definitely not easy and it calls for something which is over and above the huge energy and time that we spend in 'business - as-usual' activities...but it also brings with it that sense of achievement and pride in oneself...Let's therefore begin this new Samvat after Diwali with a passion to create and achieve...And as always its a game of quid pro quo - you create and you get back the fruits of creation together with a sense of achievement! You give some you take some!
P:S: Next time you do a general conversation with anyone and ask people how are things and how is it going? Just try and note how many say "going on" or "as usual" or the likes and how many have a different answer... Happy diwali!
