Savepoints

There are moments in life when everything seems uncertain and confusing. It can feel like every decision we make is the wrong one, especially when past mistakes continue to haunt us. In some ways, life is like a video game, with checkpoints and save points that serve as reminders of where we started and who we were with.

During these times, it's important to visit our save points, even if it's been years since we were last there. While the place may have changed, it can still offer us a sense of familiarity and comfort. However, it's also important to remember that change is constant, and our lives will inevitably evolve over time. It's up to us to decide whether that change will be for the better or for worse, based on how we handle situations and the choices we make.

I visited a place recently after almost a decade, and the change I saw there reminded me of this. The transformation I witnessed probably pales in comparison to the changes that have occurred in my own life, but it also made me realize that change is an ongoing process. The people we choose to keep in our lives and the decisions we make all play a crucial role in shaping our path.

Sometimes, revisiting a familiar place can help clear our minds and provide answers to questions we didn't even know we had. But it can also bring up new questions and leave us feeling nostalgically longing for the memories we've shared there, no matter how brief.

Suicides, etc.

Is it morally correct to be able to choose one's own death? Suicide in almost all cases is wrong and illegal too. I know, because I have gone through it. Have felt the pain left behind as well. Not to a very big extent, but not very mild too.

But is it ALWAYS wrong? Yes, for me it always was. How can one decide to take their own life? Only cowards or selfish people do it. Do they not think of their loved ones? The people who will mourn their untimely death once they are gone? Is it not an easy way out of life? Braving whatever life throws at us is the biggest lesson we are thought, and so this act of running away always seemed very spineless.

Life was very black and white for me. Then I came across a case of a teacher who jumped from her building terrace. She had some form of a spinal condition which caused incessant pains and she had to withdraw from social life due to it. It was also going to be getting worse from then on for her. In her last note, she said that she just cannot bear the pain any longer and that death is the only medicine for her. That was like a slap on my face! I had never, even in my imagination thought of this perspective!

Now I was a skeptic of my own beliefs!

And just the other day, I read about a certain someone, who after finding out that they were terminal, went ahead and planned their own suicide. Or to be more specific, "Assisted Suicide"! Right from the moment he was diagnosed to the very last day of his life(which he himself chose), he penned his thoughts and his condition on a blog. After reading about him, I went ahead and read his blog entries too. 

He lived a 105 days post his diagnosis, and the blog posts were not daily, sometimes lengthy though. I sat there reading through them with a very weird feeling. The guy wanted to die, dignified and on his own terms, not at the hands of the "scourge" as he would call it. And for this he had to fight tooth and nail, and then get a greenlight in a country far far away! 

 

He did not want to die a sudden and malformed death. Suffer and let his close ones see suffer more by watching him go through it. On a logical level, his thoughts were resonating with me, but on a moral level it was still a mighty struggle for me. And these conflicting thoughts were making it a very very uncomfortable read. One one hand I wanted to know more, and on the other, it felt like a big mistake.

Just by thinking of it, gives me the jitters. I am more befuddled than ever! Confounded as well, as to how someone can be so clam and clear in the head, on the very last day of their choosing! Then why am I writing this? Well, in one of his entries, he specifically mentions it to the readers to think and write about "Assisted Suicide". So that more people become aware of it, and there is a conversation over it. So that people like him, can find their end a bit more easily than he got.

I don't know if I can ever truly relate or agree to his thought process fully. But in my own little way, what I can do is, write this, and put it up on my blog for however small audience. To read about, ruminate and talk about it in their own groups. This much I feel I owe it to him!

Note to Self

Hey man, I know I could've written before and warned you of things to come, but after pondering over this for sometime, I thought otherwise. I'm writing to you at this point because this is where we shape our future! You have already fucked up the engineering entrance and are looking for a way out! Don't worry, you won't do too bad! I'm writing to you now because I think you'd understand things a bit better now. 

Make sure to get in touch with people you stopped talking to recently. Yes you got the person whom I'm talking about! And yes I know it sounds weird, it wasn't even our mistake in the first place but believe me, if you don't do it right now, this will be one of our biggest regrets in life! So pick that phone and drop a message.

Eighteen is a wonderful age though! You'll be getting into your first relation, falling in love with your future wife, making new friends for life and leaving behind a few who you never imagined! You're gonna feel fucked up quite a lot. You won't even be able to help it. Many times you won't even know why! You are a difficult person, that's what you must be feeling right now, but believe me it gets worse!! So better buckle up. In the next decade you're gonna let down every single person you know. One of those mistakes will make you give up on everything, even your life. Nothing will feel the same. So when you're about to do it, do give it a better thought. Though we come out of it, the scars will run deep. And you would end up changing a lot of things in your life because of it. The only upside, it becomes a learning lesson of a lifetime! So I hope you make better choices than what I made.

Whenever in doubt, Write! It will give you the solace nothing else would. I know we have started writing a year or so back, but we will move on from writing poems and songs to things that depict our deepest feelings. Don't be afraid to let it out. I've been too cautious in putting my feelings to pen due to the fear of our shell being broken. But I think you should let that go. Writing will take you places within you that you are too afraid to go. It will liberate your mind and give you perspectives of things that nothing else ever will. 

More than anything, be confident in whatever you do. You need to inspire people around you to be the better versions of themselves. And for that you'll need to be the best version of yourself! When shit hits the ceiling, and you're beat down to the ground, don't fret, stand up and face it. 

There'll be a shit load of things you'll be giving up for various reasons. Make sure you remember everything. Because we're gonna get it done one day! A decade plus down from where you are, we are not in the place you thought we will be in back then. I am sorry for that. A lot of it wasn't in my hands and I hope you can forgive me for that. So you grab every opportunity you can like there's no tomorrow. I know you'd wanna know more about the things I spoke of but I think dealing with them is what made us who we are right now. And personally, I would let them be surprises as they come along! There are plenty of wars you'll be fighting in your head. And you'll need this experience to deal with them! 

Best of luck!

Ties that bind

They say you don’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. Well, sometimes, you do not even choose your friends, they simply happen to find their way into your life and then stay put forever. Distances in such cases matter as much as a grain of sand on a beach. And time matters as much as a fleeting moment of existence of a moth to the existence of the cosmos.

There are certain moments in life when you truly sit back and reflect on such relations. With happiness and sometimes sadness. When and how did this tiny seedling, grow into such an amazing and humongous tree, bustling with life and energy? It is a marvel how often we don’t even talk to these friends but when we do, it feels like not a moment has passed since we last connected. Connected here being a keyword. Because in today’s day and time, it’s a word used very lightly – “connecting for a call over Zoom/WhatsApp/Teams/etc.”, “connected through Instagram, Twitter and, Snapchat.” But how many times do we really connect with someone?

More oft than not, most of our interactions are synthetic and superficial. Even when we have the whole wide world to connect to on the palm of our hands! We be our truest selves with these few people, whom we haven’t even chosen ourselves and who have found a way in out lives and hearts just by their existence. Also, too often, we try to forge such bonds consciously. Just because we need something like that in our lives. But that’s the issue here; such relations cannot be formed out of conscious efforts no matter how hard you try and no matter how many books or quotes you read on it that it can be done. Because we aren’t talking about friendships which are mortal here, we’re talking about something that transcends the normal logic, a tree that stands tall on the face of mightiest of storms and blooms in the harshest of droughts!

Because this tree not only requires bright sunlight to grow, but also needs a healthy share of torrential rains, thunderstorms, and droughts! Only by the amalgamation of both the good and bad does this tree thrive and flourish! The best part is, one doesn’t need to be very careful around it either. You don’t have to worry about it withering away, because once the roots take hold, the tree stays alive so long as the people who had germinated it are alive.

Such a relation is golden and once found, should be prized with all of one’s might!

Leading the way!

In the corporate world, we see that managers are now called leaders. But what does it mean to be a leader or even a lead(team)? We see several workshops being conducted, numerous YouTube videos and self-help books on how to be a leader. Do they really help? Has one ever become a true leader by reading things and doing workshops?

Sometime back, I found myself leading a team as well. A totally new experience for me and one which I was very apprehensive about. The first thought that came to me was that now I was not only responsible for my own work but also of the work of my team. A very nerve-wracking thought for someone who constantly thought that things were going to go south!

Slowly I got the grips of it, and I learned that not only am I responsible for my team’s work, but also for their growth. This was the turning point for me. Having one-on-one sessions with each of them. Understanding their strengths and weaknesses. I will strive away from talking about the leads I had in my professional life, but I knew I wanted to have my own identity as a lead and not follow someone else’s template.

Working with each team member individually to set the expectations from them, their goals and they were going to achieve them. Watching them reach for those goals and then actually achieving them were the happiest moments of my professional life till then. Even more than cracking my first interview or joining a Big4.

Moving on from that setup was really saddening but that’s how life is, isn’t it!

The next team I became a part of was where I understood the real meaning of being pragmatic consciously! The situations were completely different and this time I had a very huge control over the decisions of my team’s career growth! Nerve-wracking moment revisited!  And this time it stayed for a longer time too.

I had to completely revisit my own way of working too. It took time. To help them on the path of achieving what each of them wanted. It was challenging as hell. A lot of “pravachan” sessions later, I would like to believe I have left them in a better place.

I look back to the last 18 odd months and feel I did a fairly decent job. I figured the best way to extract the best out of anyone is trust. You trust them to do the right thing and in the right way. Nudge them just a little if you see they are steering away from the planned path. This will develop not just a professional but a personal rapport which will help not just them but the whole team. Be available to them to offer your insights to any doubts they have. Never ever solve anything for them. Let them make their mistakes, learn from it, and develop further. Every person is different, and like I mentioned before, this is never going to be one template fits all. As a lead, one needs to be pragmatic enough to understand when something doesn’t work with someone and switch to a different way to handle the situation.

For better or for worse, but it seems I’m on my way to become a lead I always wanted to have!