Why me?

So often it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key. Today reminded me of such a life. A life where I thought I believed seeking happiness by changing anything but my own disposition. But it is not so. Not because I thought it's so hard; believe me, it's so hard when I "have" to, and so easy when I "want" to. Now, either you "want" to "by default", or someone/something convinces you that you "want" to. In my case today, neither felt true. But alas, at the end of the day, it's not what they took away from me that counted. It's what I did with what I was left.

The sun will shine and warm and light us tomorrow and we will have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people. The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. Well that's a try for tomorrow. After all both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute. I am not as much of a pessimist, but being an opportunist helps. It is the foundation of courage. Again not that I am not an optimist. But too much of it is cruel. Imagine if an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well, this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me whether I am right-handed or left-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of "Aaaaah! My arm! My arm!". Whatever the case, I'd blame the lord and ask him "why me?".

Leadership!

Once upon a time my guru told me "In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later." I never forgot that. I have a track record in my life; personal as well as business "I've never asked for anything"; even as a group manager, I have always known the difference between a boss and a leader; a boss says "Go!" - a leader says "Let's go!". Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself. Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders. One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you. Also remember that the real leader has no need to lead - he should be content to point the way in the right direction.
But nevertheless as a corollary every leader needs to look back once in a while to make sure he has followers.

You know, when I was in Godrej, one of my mechanics told me "when trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy."... but when the problem is solved; people call that same crazy person a leader. A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.

Finally I also remember the gist of a story that I heard during my school days. This is about two sailors who were given the same task of saving the same ship under the same weather conditions. Both toiled hard. Difference was: one was doing the right thing after planning - the other not. Then the one who saved the day wrote "Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships." You cannot save the day by building ships if all of them are going to crash against the coast in stormy weather; you need one lighthouse instead to save the ones you have. Then build more if required. ....


More to come later when the bug bites....

Time!

Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark-spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It's passing, yet it's a paradoxical feeling that I'm the one who's doing all the moving. Yes, time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires.

It's also an ironical and a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.

Life's become quicker than usual. Very pacy. Very unnerving at times. Very dramatic. Very unforgiving. Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst.

Though it's a good feeling to know that time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.