Something Big, Yet So Small

One of my greatest wishes - and I believe a lot of people feel the same - is to make a difference. For most of my life I have wanted to be a part of something. Anything.

I moved cities, I changed buildings, I changed schools and inevitably, most of my time was spent trying to simply fit it. When I started working, I continued to be what I call a "changer". I changed 4 jobs in about 5+ years of working. Yes, I had my reasons - career progression, health and personal changes. But, there is always a but. The but here is that it meant that in the 5 years since I began my career, my process of settling has continued and the settlement has never happened.

I was also never really a sports-person - my hobbies are primarily reading and writing -- and hence, the only thing that became a part of, was my own mind and thoughts. Somehow though, I have always wanted to do something beyond. Starting with my graduation years, I would dream of doing some "good" of being a part of an organization with some higher goals. Somewhere this stayed a dream and my higher goals gave way to choices that met expectation goals of others (and somewhere of the conditioning I had). Surprisingly, for me and others, I continued to dream that dream - of making a difference. My MBA yearbook states that I dream of starting my own NGO - as part of a finance batch of an MBA institute - I know that that dream set me apart.

But what happened to my dream - I think somewhere I realized what it really was - it was always a dream to do something that I could give my best to, that allowed me to feel like i belonged to a team and that I could contribute and make a difference.

There are so many identities we hold - we are affiliated to a school, a college, an organization, a family, a group of friends, a country. That sense of belonging goes beyond your presence in that place physically. Patriotism is perhaps the simplest and strongest sense of belonging. I moved away from my country - the place I could call home, and suddenly, I found a place where I belonged. As for making a difference - I will go back some day, work as hard as I can, find work that i enjoy and give it my hundred percent - the difference, will be of one individual times hundred percent.

Hum of the day
To belong is to know that nothing can take that belonging away. To make a difference is to know that somewhere, something, anything, or anyone is better because of you. It really is that simple. I belong and I make a differnce- we all do -- no matter what.

For all the times

Reason, season and lifetime -- an easy and yet complicated classification of people in our lives. When I think about it, its unbelievable how many people have touched my life, and how many of them have somehow become the fabric of my life. One of my favorite lines is that "friends are the family you choose" and well, I think I have been more than blessed with my family - of choice and otherwise.

The beauty of life is that, we can decide to increase the size of what we call a lifetime. Each city, each place, each office, each encounter, it all slowly adds up.

My childhood was in a very friendly building and the two friends I made then were with me at my wedding - one in spirit and one in person. When I left Calcutta, of all my friends, one special person remains one of my oldest and closest friends and one who the fact that I havent met her for over five years, is relativley unimportant when we talk. In Mumbai, I found a home again - friends who became family. But I moved away, and while some of those people become mere reasons and seasons, I have more than a few clear "lifetimes" in my life. In Delhi, I thought I would be just reasons and seasons, and life surprised me by introducing me to lifetimes - friends who I know will be there for me and most importantly, Delhi introduced me to MY lifetime - probably my closest friend and lifepartner - my husband.

I got married more than a year ago and more than two years ago my husband got added to my lifetime, and with him, so did a web of relationships. The concept of lifetime in this relationship is somehow an insufficient explaination of what the relationship is. The security, the ability to just "be" and to know that no matter what, something will always stay the same - becuase you both choose that it will be that way and because beneath it all is an inherent trust and friendship which is what makes any relationship endure a lifetime.

So today, I am just remembering all my lifetimes - my friends (including my husband) and the song I heard today, brought tears to my eyes. Love you all and I cant even say I am missing you -- because somewhere you are all with me, standing by me, just like I am for you



Hum of the day
Reasons and seasons can come and go, the beauty of life is choosing the lifetimes

Remembering My Core....

Last weekend, I came to mom's house for Diwali. Weird but now somehow it's become "Mom's house". Home is someplace else. Anyways, whatever this home in Gurgaon is, this visit has done something to me - or maybe it has undone some damage. It has given me this strange sense of peace, I have been able to gather my thoughts once more, I have de-cluttered my mind and its significantly more free than even before I moved away after marriage. Somehow, coming home as a visitor, has taken me back to a place of peace.

Somewhere, I had got lost in the varied opinions, the new culture, the new perspectives and my new life. I became confused about what matters to me, what should matter and what I want to matter. I no longer knew who I wanted to be, and I could no longer recognize the person that I had become.

This visit has been a gentle reminder of who I really am. Someone held my hand and slowly reminded me of the importance of basic values, of work ethics, of the value of things that last way beyond the high of a large cheque signed in your name. The belief that integrity, strength of charecter and being honest to yourself and your work is what will ensure that at the age of 60, when the corporate career is probably nearing and end or has ended, when you start to look back at your life an evaluate what you have achieved - you can still hold your head high, you can still make one phone call and reach for help, you are still the person people look to for guidance and you get will get that assurance that you have - and always will- command a certain respect that is priceless.

So I have promised myself that I will be the person I know I was brought up to be. I will live by the values that define who I am. I will not let the fact that I live in a materialistic world cloud my judgement of what is appropriate, acceptable and expected. I will be grateful for the fact that I am in a position to not let the principal of maximum material benefit guide my life. I will no longer try to fit into a world where I feel like I am weird because of the values I have.

Life is not easy. But if you keep your rules and priorities in line with basic humane principles, somehow, taking decision and making life choices, really ceases to be optional.

Hum of the day:
I have been given a legacy of values - which makes simultaneously humble and proud. It is now my duty to live a life so that I can pass on the same.