Remember where life is!

One of an influential leaders at the client place recently retired. In a lot of ways, my career progression has been partly due to him...his vision of utilizing my organization in a strategic way to get accomplishments with lower costs kinds of propelled me to the top with the opportunities being utilized.
I have always been in awe of him, his judgement of character with just a meeting over coffee and talk of totally offbeat topics....a very well read man, mathematically sound, witty and passionate about cars and Diane Lane.
The one thing that will never let me forget Mr. Peter Rubenacker is the quote I last heard from him during his retirement celebration - "Gentlemen, one piece of wisdom I would like to share before we part - always remember, life is not what is in the office but what we do here (in the office) is for the life outside it". Well said!
Imagine how much of life we waste slogging for the organization and how much we continue to do outside too...I mean having a dinner with family and the moment we get a call, we drop everything, step out and complete the conversation. Have we ever thought of saying - "Is this urgent? Can you call me later or I can call you as I am busy right now?". In India, many people consider this talk as a sign of incompetence, especially if that call was from your boss. And true enough, the biggest concern in India is work-life balance!!
How can one who lives in a culture-rich heritage, forget to devote ample attention to that very fact and slog for an organization just cause they they give a salary? Is an IT professional's life in India equivalent to that of emergency services? Is the salary high that the same person has to work 24x7?
Here we are in a path where we have forgotten my hobbies, lost the track of time that will make us miss the growth of our children just cause our lifestyles dictate the need of money? Is it worth it?
Time to make a change and learn to work around the problem by remembering where the life is!!

Why this kolaveri di?

Yesterday, on chat with a colleague of mine, this topic came up, "Brain Dynamics". Being in the state of utter boredom, I asked as to what this meant. The reply I got was that it referred to drive of the person - from the left brain or the right brain.....and of course, with my perky humor, my reaction was - "from your perspective or mine?". The problem with me however is that my left or right brain is in domination depending on my mood and focus.....like when I am relaxed and resting, my right brain plays the major part while at work, its mainly the left.....so analysis for me - screw-up!! But anyway, chatting last night made me more relaxed and raise soul searching questions of what do I want to do? Why do I need to keep working this path? Why is competition so much of an addiction that its larger than life for me and why cannot I learn to enjoy little happiness that just fizzles away so many times in front of me? Why this pressure of wanting to get everything? Its so tiring or I just hit my mid-life crisis where I am looking for alternate source of keeping my mood up as I am not really good at anything..........here is the time to ask life - "Why this kolaveri, kolaveri, kolaveri di?"

Happy New Year 2012

Resolutions, tasks, responsibilities, aches/pains - can we not delete all of these and start from scratch?? Guess that's not going to happen soon.

Anyways, one of the things that I have decided this year is that I need to reduce my reaction of getting high stress when there is an action item pending on me (even if there is time to complete) and immediately jump to getting that closed while dropping everything else I am doing... so much so for reducing my 'passion' for work...I have realized that quality of life at home is getting drastically affected with my crazy reaction which actually gets me no returns at work too...so in effect, goal is 'better work-life management'. I hope that I am able to do this better and also help me in reducing my anxiety that I build up in my head with all the negative planning scenarios. I hope to become a better person going ahead from this year!

Motivational Message

Once of my colleagues has recently taken interest in sending out a "Monday Motivator" email series. Not sure how he compiles them, but the emails are very interesting. In fact, I was more impressed from the part II of the email than anything else.

The first part essentially kind of reflects me (at least as per P) - always looking for the flaw and not acknowledging the good. More of a family trait with my dad also very much the same and a familiar story in many middle-class houses - "why did you lose 1 mark?" when the kid gets 99/100 rather than appreciation of the 99.

The second part however, kind of relates to what I am going through - focusing on the negatives that are impacting me than appreciating the positives that is keeping the balance. And so much that life feels negative! My troubles at work keep me from appreciating the pace at which V is growing, so much that I might miss everything before I realize it. I realize that I do not take time out from my work for my family or even me......so at the end of it, was the work worth it? And if I continue this way, will my work keep me motivated or is it actually the other way around? I seriously have to nip this energy squeezing habit and learn to enjoy everything around me in equal appreciation and I swear that I will try to do this starting now.

Welcome Back

I kind of came back to this even though I know that I might not get time to post a lot. However, the lack of sharing a my thoughts to all visitors (if there are any!) makes me just kind of sad. That and of course the fact that 4-year and 6-year olds are blogging articles interestingly detailing the evolution of curiosity leading to discovery of every small thing that is taken for granted in adult life!

Lots changed since the summer of 2010...I have moved back to the US - first to Atlanta and now to San Diego, in a journey where I am still trying to understand where I stand and where I want to go. Growth is burning desire inside me and other than weight gain, nothing is happening. I feel that I am on a plateau in my career deciding between whether to jump off the edge or continue to trek along towards a likely 'mirage' of an oasis ahead or just not worry about this walk and focus on all the little things that were thrown to the side due to my focus on this trek.

A decision between responsibility, selfishness and sustenance with all three having a weightage!

Meanwhile, happy to announce the likely addition of a new member to the family - a pleasant surprise and might make me think, plan and focus better.

Raajneeti

Sunny Sunday afternoon in Atlanta where the wind takes away the heat, near full theater and tickets in hand - perfect setting for watching Raajneeti....the only thing missing was P not being by my side. So, as soon as the movie got over, I decided that I have to watch it with her.

I loved the movie (obviously for a person who loves to read epics like Pillars of the Earth and World without end to name a couple), but just hoped that it would have played out longer. It had a good amount of characters, an obvious plot, some good acting and cinematography and would have loved more drama to add to the one there.

But here is the twist - the best part for me was the romance (obviously influenced by the Bhopali girl played by Katrina Kaif). The romance so subtle, but still strong as steel which was an under current in the entire movie, right from scene 1. Indu so madly in love with Samar, gets rejected to end up married to Prithvi, the older brother of Samar (after walking though the mirage of a hopeful marriage with Samar) and learns to love Prithvi after learning the hard way (meeting Sarah whom Samar loves). A twist sees Samar and Indu loosing their partners and then a strong emotion getting them back together though not as lovers but 2 individuals who care for each other. While Katrina Kaif looks great in this movie, her character was a strong typical girl from Bhopal, who has nerves of steel and despite being used in the political game, ends up as the one who can still control life - very strong, independent and yet fragile person in private.

This is one movie that I think I will watch again with P when I get back (that's whenever the airline gods from Air France will confirm my booking) and definitely will get the DVD. BTW, this is the first movie I watched of Katrina on the big screen and after this, I am sure I will watch more of her on the big screen irrespective of the movie :)

Boring Friday

Can you believe that this was the day I was waiting for the most in this entire visit to Atlanta - was nervous, hopeful and full of expectations of success? And now I am just bored. Yes, the reason for the wait seems to have materialized, but not providing the enthusiasm enough to take me through the rest of the day. What would I like to be doing now? Sitting with P in my ancestral home, watching the rain drops fall into the 'nadu-mitam' with V playing. Add a cup of hot tea to it and it is bliss! Guess this travel has revived a lot of old memories and increased my wish-list of things that I never did or considered important and now all that is coming back at me.

Started facebook-ing and have got connected back to a lot of friends and classmates from school. That's another missing link. Someone asked this question - why will you add your classmates, lost friends/colleagues on your list in a social website when you really did not keep in touch with them over all these years? Well for one, there has to be a way to make amends to that issue of not keeping in touch with them (like my case). It's such a wonderful feeling of having to explore their worlds after such a long time. There was a time when you thought that life was inseparable and now when you connect, you find yourselves worlds apart but still intriguing.

The other one is that I really want to watch Raajneeti. It's got a collection of good actors (I really appreciate the acting of Ranbir Kapoor), an impressive director/story-writer and of course Katrina Kaif!! What can I tell about her, V and I love watching her on the screen!! Still not a comparison to Meenakshi Sheshadri or Simran, but then an avid interest none-the-less. Will definitely buy the DVD if anything close to good!!

Guess will wait for Srini to get done so that I can leave today as I need to get ready for the next week. Happy weekend all!!