Saturday, April 30, 2005

The top of the hill

Let me introduce myself in one sentence. I am one of that breed which seems to proliferate out of the IITs - a 22 year old engineering graduate with no idea what to do with the rest of his life. In the last 6 months, over numerous sessions of introspection and conversations with friends, I have figured just one thing - that, for most of us, the grass is always greener on the other side. There are so many of us out there, running about, like headless chickens, trying to figure out what part of the world we want to re-shape - please note the sarcasm. It is only human, I guess. But just as I had resigned myself to being a headless chicken, a boss at work said something which made sense.

We were talking about the professional goals people have for themselves and he likened the situation to that of a man on a river trying to cross over to get to the other side - that raise, that next promotion. But once he crosses the river, he realises that there is another river to cross and so on. He said that his boss once told him to forget about the river and imagine the person on the top of the hill at the end of all those rivers whom he wants to be. Imagine the life that person has lead, the experiences he has, the different characteristics he possesses. Imagine it all in excruciating detail and work backwards from there. Somehow it made a lot of sense.Its been a week since and I am still trying to imagine my person on top of the hill but that is another story.

On a somewhat related note, I asked a friend of mine why he didn't blog. And he said that he didn't have enough to whine about. :) I read my post and boy!! Udit, I now know what you mean.

Monday, April 18, 2005

"Wisdom"

When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I have looked Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange -- my youth.

-- Sara Teasdale

Growing up has been a recurrent theme in conversations lately. Be it juniors passing out of college or batchmates experiencing (at the risk of sounding cliched) the real world.

Life has been interesting recently. Bunch of things happening. Most good, some not so. But amidst it all, there is this one thing I cling to, the will to keep walking.

K