Wednesday, July 4, 2012

The dots that make a circle

So I complete a year at my current job today.

And I could say this year has been crazy, unpredictable, turned my life upside down etc. etc. And all of that would be true. But it would be no different from what my life has been for the past 2.5 years to be precise.

Not that my life has ever been easy. Or dull. But the past couple of years seems to be someone’s idea of a bad joke. Or a really maddening amusement park ride.

Let’s push her up, then throw her down, then suspend her mid-way, then swing her around. Until the head starts spinning and you cannot make out the sky from the earth and walking upside down seems normal.

Perhaps that’s why I have been doing things I don’t normally do. Things that go against my character – and who I thought I was. I have at least been pretty solid when it comes to work. Even when my personal life has been behaving like a Rubic’s cube. Yet I seem to be dropping the ball even on that nowadays. Smaller mistakes, then bigger mess-ups degenerating to complete inefficiency – with no answer as to why it’s happening and how do I make it stop.

Yet take control I must. And I am good at doing things without having any clue how to go about it. Of jumping right in and figuring my way out. And dealing with the consequences.

Coincidentally, today, I came across this piece in NYT and this part caught my eye – “Life is, in effect, a non-repeatable experiment with no control. In his novel about marriage, “Light Years,” James Salter writes: “For whatever we do, even whatever we do not do prevents us from doing its opposite. Acts demolish their alternatives, that is the paradox.”

(You can read the piece here )

Think it’s time to look at the alternatives that I am demolishing one by one. Simply by not thinking about anything. And no – again I am not talking about my personal life. Which is on its own crazy ride right now. But one that I wouldn’t change for anything. I am talking about something that even my personal life has always taken a back seat to. My work.

Think it’s time to take control of my life again. To buckle in that seat belt and tie up my hair so that I can see straight. And get down to it. Because I have a sneaky suspicion, that when the lights are out and the rides are cooling off…my work is all I will be left with. And these anniversaries the only ones I will mark in my life.

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