And its very much my own. 🙂 I have never considered myself capable enough of owning anybody else’s.  The general belief has been that somewhere around the time that you reach 10 years of your career life, you begin to question the whole cosmic world of Career.  The question becomes existential, much like the quintessential “Who Am I?” of the spiritual realms.  Well, strangely enough I seem to be hitting that note after completing 4 years of my professional career!  Should I be alarmed?

This is the phase where one starts wondering if they’ve made a substantial growth in terms of money, knowledge, position, status, and what not.  Things are ofcourse quantified and measured accordingly – house, car, position/designations, etc, etc, etc. Many scale up their achievements on this measure and satisfy themselves. Lucky ones, I must say!  And many others, inspite of tremendous accomplishments, wallow in a sense of disintegrated identity.

My crisis, thankfully or rather unfortunately isn’t a victim of such extents (atleast as yet).  Although the plethora of thoughts that has crowded my mind at the moment owe their origins to my nearly 4 hours of journey everyday back and forth from work.  There is a certain pathos that seems to build up in me due to the rush hour traffic both in the morning and evening (that costs me on an average, 1/6th of my day!) Added to this the fact about carrying a 3 Kg laptop on the back, hanging on to the bar for dear life and the pockets for dear money, doesn’t really put a cherry on the top! 😛

This was infact the point of discussion with my friend all the while that I was travelling, a couple of days ago.  The point being that while one earns substantially, compromising on certain aspects of life is inevitable.  Is it a bargain that we end up doing?  That we pawn a certain portion of our lives for a substantial salary, and ironically enough, its the very portion for which we’d wanna live! The irony being that your earnings continue to stay in your bank account, and never materialize into anything memorable that you had dreamt about before earning it!  Surely there are vacations and shopping and what not, but yet the hollow feeling continues to haunt you like a shadow, attached to you, following you, and never vanishing – only hiding and resurfacing when you are least prepared to meet!

I am enjoying my work.  There are times when it challenges me to the core, and times when it seems mundane.  I believe it is the story of everybody’s desk.  Though the initial years were fraught with me forcing myself to like what I was doing, I can now say that I am comfortable and looking forward to what I am doing!  That in itself is a huge change.  But there have been compromises.  In the early years of my career life, I had time for myself, my hobbies and my idiosyncracies.  I had the liberty to take off on a trek and call in sick after returning! I had a limited amount in my pocket which ensured that I spent it on things that were really worth it, and enjoyed the experience of it too –  be it a trip to the forests, or a visit to the chocolate factory on Avinashi Road in Coimbatore!  Now there is an increased responsibility that makes me feel guilty about taking off from work even on legitimate grounds; there is moolah in my pocket and no restrains on spending it, but I find everything nearly tasteless or absolutely worthless to be splurging on.  Am I debilitating? Is this my 3+ decades actually talking? Hormones maybe? I dunno!

I do not believe that work, the lack of it, or even the abundance of it, should impact one’s life so much that they forget to enjoy the small pleasures of living!  And clearly, it’s not only work.  Relationships – new & old, also contribute to the time-sharing.  There is the need to justify your roles both inside and outside of your personal and professional domains.  The point of grouse for me, is related to the singular role everyone has – towards himself.  A role that is outside of the purview of being classified as personal or professional; that exquisite neverland owned by each one of us to which we retreat time and again.  Well, its been a long while since I paid a visit there!  I know that some of them choose to ignore it, and others pamper it to the chagrin of others.  The challenge I have for myself is to find a balance. A happy spot, a vantage point from where I can see that the universe is in equilibrium and I have smiling faces all around me!

Am loving all that I am doing now.  These activities have given me a sense of purpose, a reason of existence and a feeling of being important (atleast to some of them around me).  But I am just not able to shun this growing restlessness inside – to run away!  Take a break and go to a secluded corner of this world or even my room on the terrace of my house.  Switch off the cell phone, disconnect the internet, shut off the blabbering mind and its thoughts and go to sleep – without any worry. 

I own my life.  It’s just that, these days, I have forgotten that I still do.

I have a superman ego! Not that I have the ego of superman, but an ego that has staunchly convinced me of my superhuman abilities, and that too without having to wear my underwear on my pants or ridiculously colored clothes with a long cape to prove it! Although there is one problem to this, in my real world, I am as incompetent as an orangutan balancing a dozen eggs while riding a cycle on a oil spilled floor!

There is always a voice in me that convinces me that I can handle and capably at that, anything that I can take up.  And always under the assumption that all the subsidiary climatic conditions required for the successful execution shall be in place and all I need to do is – just press the button! Alas(s)! Never to be so!  Things are never so straight forward. Be the rising petrol prices, or deploying an environment at work or leaving early from office! There is always an f(x) function that just doesn’t function linearly!

People perennially talk about work-life balance, personal-professional lives see-sawing (in my case more sawing!) and these seemed like jargons for the high society!  But facing the same quagmire, I am left seething with frustration and helplessness.  The changing roles we take up in our personal and professiona lives, brings more and more challenges.  I for one, want to maintain the relationships as they were, while also handle deftly the increased responsibility at work.  Giving time equally and justifiably to all people in my personal and professional sphere, is for me, in my assumption, a do-able proposition.  But with a condition that the f(x)s around me, behave in an orderly and pre-defined format.  My world, I prefer, would govern themselves by the deterministic rules! But unfortunately, not many apples seem to be falling on the heads of people who in other words are these f(x)s.  After having tried talking, convincing, cajoling, fighting with these factors, I am on the brink of giving up.

Not wanting to compromise, I do accept more responsibilities to keep my personal life flourishing, and to avoid the guilt of being negligent, and only end up making a slap-shod work of it, or worse, not doing it!  Well, I know, you’d be quick to point out that all it takes is the art of saying “NO”, without sounding like an ugly belch. But say ‘NO’ to who? and When?!!  For me, its an excruciatingly painful task, to choose.  And when time is a costly commodity to be rationed out, it only makes it all the more nerve-wracking.  To expect others to be considerate of this dilemma and co-operate is to expect the bull to not charge at you, because you are a vegetarian! None gives a damn!

It is a blessed feeling to have people around you demand for your time and attention.  It means that I still matter!  The challenge is to remain so.  My friend, remarked, “I have accepted the fact that you are busy and have stopped expecting you to be present during family occassions and functions.  Infact it has stopped bothering me whether you call or don’t.  I guess its both good and bad”.  It’s when these frank assessments of one’s role is expressed, that the superman in me realizes what a dud he has turned out to be.  My Kryptonite continues to tick unabashedly ignoring my pleas!

It may not be as tough as I am imagining it to be. Maybe there is a simple solution that my grey cells or the lack of it, is just not able to fathom as yet.  But in the meanwhile, the cape has torn and there are tatters covering the superman!  And its just so hard to accept that there is only so much one can do!  When I’ve always believed that I can do so much!  But someday, (sooner than later I wish) I would hit that fine balance, that one key stroke, that would turn this cacophony into a melody.  But honestly, I feel, superman had it easy!!

Eeenyways, am also thinking on revamping this space. I wanna start writing about a few technical things – that would help me retain a lot of what am learning off late.  Some more sections and some more updates.  All in due course of time… (there you go!! Its just so hard to not think that I am superman!!)