ADULTHOOD

When I was a little kid, I used to watch other kids fight for chocolates and toys.

Now, almost two and a half decades later, I see grown-ups fight….this time, not for chocolates or any goodies….but for power, position, ego and money.

How does the desire for chocolates transform into hunger for power? Why does the satisfaction of egos of adulthood taste sweeter than the chocolates of childhood? Does money act as toys for the adults?

May be every adult is a child sans the innocence…

AMBITION OR GREED???

In this city….you can feel it….difficult to define it precisely…but you can definitely feel it. It’s probably a mix of ambition and greed…greed being the dominant ingredient. The city provides ample opportunities to further nurture this mix…

Today I met X. X owns an apartment in this locality. He had bought the apartment 4 years back. He was ambitious and prudent and knows that investing in real estate is definitely a good bet, and more so in this city. Today X is facing a big dilemma in life….His property is worth five times it’s original value. X wants to sell it and realize the net profits and make a killing out of it….But, at the same time he wants to retain the property….he feels he will be a loser if he sells it as property prices can rise further.

Nobody can accurately predict the course the real estate market is likely to chart from here…..and this further creates problem in X’s decision making process. He cannot sell his property peacefully….nor can he retain it with content….Ambition is there…but it tends more towards greed. Greed rules this city…through every person who has the potential to be greedy.

CHOICES

We always have the choice to take a different path and move away from the difficulties of the current state. In the event, we don’t exercise this choice, does that mean that our net subconscious satisfaction level in our current state is positive? Somewhere within, we are satisfied…happy with the ways things are moving? Probably yes….

(With reference to living a life in Mumbai…..)

CHAPTERS

Inadvertently, the cursor key of my laptop got clicked on the “latest” icon of my gmail account... 2005….it was…when I had migrated to the user friendly gmail. I saw some mails which were more than five years old. Interesting fragments from my past….each one of them easily fitting into their respective chapters of my past.

One chapter of life ends so quickly and unnoticeably that you never know you are in the next chapter without realizing that you will never experience the bygone chapter. And every chapter, in itself is happening enough to preclude any deliberate efforts to read some pages from the lost chapters.

How systematically these chapters seem to have arranged themselves….one experience after another…a subtler look allows one to appreciate the fact of how bits and pieces merge together to create the perfect smoothness that is visible only in hindsight. This smoothness has evolved out of the effects of a series of few connecting and almost coincidental events, which are instrumental in defining the linkage between the chapters and in guiding the chapters towards exchanging borderlines.

COMMUNICATION

What is the most sought after skill in life?

My views on this have been changing with time. When I was a student I was given to the understanding that being academically brilliant is the most important skill in life. When I joined job, industry veterans informed me that academic brilliance has very little to do with industry. According to them (not sure how many of them really mean it), infinite capacity to work hard is the most sought after skill in life. A closer look convinced me that while hard work is important, it need not be a skill. Now, as I am 29 years into life, I realize the importance of one particular skill i.e.“being able to communicate”.

Be it workplace or be it home, be it with family or be it with clients and colleagues, one skill stands out and that is ability to communicate. By communication, I don’t mean garrulousness or talkativeness. Communication is more into conveying our thoughts and understanding of an issue to another person. It can be as silent as a nod, it can be as warm as a hug, it can be as sweet as a smile. It can be anything which gives us a genuine chance to connect with another person and vice versa. Communication is not a unidirectional flow. It’s about understanding and being understood.

It’s not easy to communicate effectively. It demands patience, experience, mutual respect and more importantly regular self training.