Rat Race

A couple of years back, I read a book titled "Escaping The Rat Race". It was one of the books that I bought and actually read.
As I am well known for buying books and not reading them and is often criticized for it, but for a change, I read this one. So I felt proud of myself.

I managed to read the book because it was thin. But more importantly, i read it because during that phase of my life,I was trying hard to become a successful entrepreneur.

I never wanted to do a JOB which for me in those days meant,
Just Obey Your Boss.

However as fate would have it, i could not succeed in that endeavor and ended up taking a job, but that is a different story altogether.

Now getting back to this minuscule yet huge endeavor of writing this article, the idea and the thought is a somewhat deep and a little less air-headed.

We all live in a competitive world where every one is running as if running in a 400m relay.

This is the race of life, or as I call itThe Rat Race.

All throughout our school lives we are told(forced in my case) to study hard, so we can get good marks, better courses in the best of colleges.

During college we slug it out for better grades in order to grab the best jobs on offer.

Once a part of the corporate world we kiss and kick ass, rub our noses and dance on the tunes of the corporate world to earn a bigger pay-check, a nice incentive get a big raise or may be just a raise(recession time you know).

You all do this so that we can buy that fast bike, that shiny new car, that spacious house that you've yearned for. And through all the effort that you put in school, in college, working all those late nights in office, working throughout weekends, one day you do purchase that shining red car, that 18carat ring which you knew would look good on her finger, that multi-storeyed flat that you always wanted to call...
HOME SWEET HOME.

Job well done it seems.


And then comes a new day, when you are driving down to work in your Honda and a Camry cruises by. You stop at the next red-light and a Mercedes crosses right in front of your eyes.
And then you begin to think. What if I worked harder? Should i change my job? May be invest in that Mutual Fund? And you do that. But you forget that after a C-class, there would be a BMW, a Porsche, a Bentley. The list is endless.

The point that i want to put forward is, no matter how far you go, no matter how much you earn or what you drive or where ever you live, there is always something bigger, better and beautiful.

Now I am not suggesting that one should give up all the materialistic desires and become a saint.
No No No, i am not MOM.

But between all this struggle or "Rat Race" as i like to call it, aren't we missing out on something? After years of slugging, when we'd be sitting proudly on the manager's chair , earning that fat pay check month after month, would we be doing, what thought we would, when we were teenagers sitting in the college canteen feasting on those samosas, patties in my case.

Would we still be living that college dream. Its been more than 3 yrs since we left college. I remember saying, we would LIVE LIFE KING SIZE and that "we would always be friends".

Now we are still friends, best of friends and I am proud of the fact that we still have each other. So feel proud. But about kingfisher's tagline, it didn't came true completely.

Are we doing what we love doing or what we thought we'd do? Are we living our lives the way we thought we would?

I am not sure about you, but I love to write. And when I do, it feels good. I feel alive. Now you all know that I love Alcohol right?

I just hope that after reaching those heights in the professional life, I am still able to write and drink. I don't want to be choosy but, I am thinking, may be writing a book, on a beach, sitting in the Sun while sipping a Margarita.

We'll see about that...



P.S- Stay tuned, more to come.


PRK

The second opinion from an infoscian

The second opinion

I always wonder whether the doctors ever go to see a doctor when they fall ill. Or do the beauty parlor ladies go to another parlor to get their hair and eyebrows done. Or do the psychiatrists take a second opinion when they start hallucinating.

It’s kind of intriguing to think from the psychiatrist’s point of view. Imagine that he knows everything about human psychology, has everything that it takes to be what he is. He is able to listen to and give unprejudiced suggestions to his patients. But I always wonder whether he would be able to do that if one day he starts hallucinating or starts experiencing the games of the psyche. I am not sure whether he would be able to convince himself that he does need a psychiatric treatment.

The point that I am trying to drive at is it becomes difficult to reach or ask for help when you are more learned. For eg the psychiatrist would understand from a doctor’s point of view that he is mentally unfit but at the end of the day he is a normal human being and suffering from a mental illness. In his sane minutes he would understand all the logic but once the insane mind takes over…will he able to put all his advice to cure himself???

And even in his sane mind, if he is fully convinced that he needs help will it be possible for him to go to another psychiatrist and seek help?? I don’t think so…..

Sometimes I feel that reading books and becoming wiser doesn’t help all that much. When I see people fight over trivial matters I often think why people cannot understand a simple fact of life that no two people can have the same way of thinking and there is bound to be a difference of opinion. Trying to convince other people of what you think to be right is, in my dictionary, an absolutely ridiculous idea. That is unless your life depends on it!!!!!!!!!! JJ

But the point is, having understood that myself, I haven’t gained much happiness or less misery!!!! Because although I understand it, the people around me don’t. And since I don’t believe in coaxing them to understand my point, so most of the times my side of the story is left unheard. And at the end of the day people around me make me feel like I am at fault and I, knowing fully well that I wasn’t even given a fair chance, do feel guilty conscious of hurting them. And because of knowing and understanding everything, i.e. both the sides of the coin, it is difficult to discuss your problems because I know what is the next piece of advice coming –“try and understand their point of view also”. So it’s kind of frustrating because I am in that situation because of understanding the other side. Otherwise even I would have fought and either ‘won’ or ‘lost’ the argument and as well would have enjoyed or sulked about it.

Sometimes being a little ignorant also makes your life a little simpler and a little bit happier. You can blurt your heart out as well as not worry about any crap advice (or the “Second opinion”) coming from other people because you don’t already know it and so it doesn’t sound all that clichéd and more importantly….does not push you off the edge!!!!!