First step towards change

I read somewhere that the first step to success is to change. Repeating the same routine, going through the same motions day after day cannot achieve anything. “Every day is exactly the same” by Nine Inch Nails has echoed through my mind for the past year. I just did exactly what I had been told and lacked the will to change my schedule. I simply waited for a miracle to happen.

Well a year on that miracle has yet to happen. And today I just can’t get myself to listen to that song anymore. I hate the lyrics and know that I need to initiate the change. At work I have become more organized and that’s helped me to get more done. But work isn’t the end of my lives and I refuse to let the change be limited to that. The next steps in my life need to address other aspects. There are a lot of nice “To-Do” items that I have wanted to get around to. My problems are procrastination and ADD. I just can’t seem to focus on anything long enough to get it done. Well hopefully that changes today.

My list of “To-Do” items will now have a priority and time line by which they must finish. Once I get One Note access at work, I will also keep tabs on how the progress of each is coming along. Wish me luck.

Eureka - Does it happen

Disclaimer: It’s the middle of the night (3:09 AM to be precise). I cannot be held responsible for writing something that makes no sense.

When do we reach our limits? Does one have a eureka moment of enlightenment?

Back in the day I decided that I would be better than the rest. That I would not participate in the rat race but would rather excel and chart my path. Somewhere along that journey I got lost. Not only did I lose directions but I also lost my destination.

There is only hope today. Hope of finding my way back. The problem – Hope is not a plan.

The following questions need an answer

- What

- Why

- How

When is not an issue. Once I know the what and how, the why will dictate the when automatically.

Future holds a lot of things for us. Sadness I hope plan is not one of them. Tomorrow brings a new day, a new light. Sounds cliché doesn’t it. The first reaction of anyone hearing that would be tomorrow will be no different. Stop kidding yourself. Things won’t change in a day just because you want them to.

[This is the part of the article where I would write something profound to shut those pessimists up. But I don’t care to. I write this because I want to and not because someone needs to read]

Tomorrow will bring a change for me. Simply because I choose so. Before EOD tomorrow, I will have a plan for the next week. The what and the how will be decided. I can’t decide why as yet because the what needs to be significant enough to decide the why. For now this will have to do.

What should we chase?

It's been a while since I wrote. These are just some random thoughts

What is important enough to us to chase?

Financial Security -
As I look at my life, I am well settled for a 25 year old. Having a reasonably well paying secured job, I have the luxury to spend money if I want to. Not that I can buy a Lexus tomorrow, but I don’t need to rethink my finances if I spend $1,000 on something I want. The problem – I don’t think is a significant achievement. There seems to be more to life than making ends meet. May be it’s just the fact that I have never experienced financial hardships, but to me life is more than just worrying about what is the source of your next pay check.

Dreams -
During this trip back to India, I met two friends who chased their dreams in two different ways. L was working in a call center and decided to make the most of his dreams there. When I had known him, he was working as the floor operation manager at one of the Mumbai call centers. 5 years on, he is now the VP of a call center (I don’t know if it’s at the same call center). He is only a couple of years elder to me, and though working in an industry traditional looked down upon, nobody can deny his achievements. And he is happy.
The second case is T. He is working as a freelancer for a media graphics start up. His life lacks everything that mine has. He lives in literally in a slum in Bandra in an area that I didn’t know existed (he lives close to where I lived during my engineering, but I never knew there was a slum there). Honestly saying, I don’t know if I could struggle through those conditions to achieve my dreams. But he is.

Prestige –
All of us want to feel important. We want to believe that our existence makes a difference. I believe I have reached that position at my current employer. I am the SME (subject matter expert) for my part of the application and regularly help others. But look beyond the small world of my employer and I don’t exist. If I look to what I think I want to do in life, my current work is not contributing to me being able to make that transition. If I were to search for job profiles of what I want, I do not make the requirements.
It may be a mix of these. I don’t think an individual can be happy unless he chases his dreams. Getting up each morning, you should feel like you want to go to work. The sad part, most of us don’t. Though my sample set is a small one (only my friends), over 90% of them don’t like what they are doing. They do so only to make ends meet or because society expects them to do so.
I still think I want to risk it. At the risk of ending up in the financial position of T, I want to reach the mark that L is at (my friends).