Lifes Like that

It is now 5 years since I passed out of college and started working. Ilove working. I am not a workaholic but I love working. There is a lotof pressure in the work we all do. This era is all about speed.Everything around us moves at the speed of thought. And the wiseguys from the big B-Schools would tell you to be there at the righttime or else you'll loose the next big opportunity. All of us try tosearch for the next big opportunity so that we are not left of out inthis race. We travel from place to place in search for that hiddentreasure, success, happiness or whatever one may like to call it.

I have closely interacted with hundreds of people in these years andone of my favorites activity is studying people and humanbehavior. In the beginning I used to get surprised (sometimes evenlaugh) when I hear a new kid out of college and starting his lifesay that he feels burnt out. But then if you look at it closely, thekid is right. He is burnt out before he even starts because he isalways expected to perform beyond what his mind and body can take.There is always this sense of urgency within all of us that usuallykeeps us unhappy no matter what we achieve.

I too was in this rat race till my mother taught me the most importantlesson of my life and that is about being in the present and enjoyingevery moment of it. Sadly though I had lost my mother by then. I stillremember that day on 18th December 2002 when I was thinking about mymother in the back of my mind but yet I stayed in the office as we had this requirement to get the ISDN up in our office. I was scaredthat if the leased lines goes down we'll not have an alternative. So Isat with the providers and did not listen to my heart. As a result bythe time I went to see my mom it was too late. I wish I had followed myheart instead. That is when I realized that the ISDNconnection had no real significance in my life and yet I gave it anunwanted priority.

Here are some rules I live by now which I hope would help all of you.They say that it is best to learn from others mistakes. 6 basic rulesthat we must all follow to be happy -

Live in the present - Most good books on better living talk about being in the present. You cannotafford to think and live in the past. Neither can you think about thefuture all the time. You do not know what would happen in the future.You do not have control over it. This does not mean that we should notplan. It just means that we do not need to over stress ourselvesthinking about what would happen in the future.
Let me explain with a simple example. You want to go for avacation. You need to plan and buy the tickets in time. But it does notmean that when you are in the train or aircraft you start runninginside it. You'll not reach any faster than all the other passengerswho are traveling with you.
However, do remember that you must learn from your past and improveuponit. The food from Pizza Hut is fattening. This means that it wouldremain the same, unless they do some major changes to the way pizzasare made. So saying that I cannot think about the past and I shouldkeep going over and over again to Pizza Hut does no make sense.
Also another important point is that you must learn to visualize aboutthe future. When I was kid our swimming coach used to talk a lot aboutthe power of visualization. He used to say that if you going for acompetition tomorrow, the previous night one should visualize theentire event. It goes like this - Ifeel light and energetic. The weather is great for swimming. I am goingto get the best place. My start is perfect. I have a perfect dive inthe water. The water is not too hot neither is it too cool. It is justright for me. My breathing is perfect and my strokes are perfect andcoordinated. I am the winner...
Simulate the same situation when you are facing a client or an ISOauditor.

Another aspect I'll like to point out here is that some people get intothe urgency because they feel insecure about the future. They think "IfI die my wife or family would face alot of problems... " In the process they start taking insurancepoliciesleft and right, try to buy a house etc.. In many cases they are notable to keep up with all the liabilities and in that tension many doreally die. One must plan and have a secure future butnever over do anything. Take commitments only when it is possible tolive up to the commitment.

In short it all boils down to one thing. Be happy and live in themoment. Enjoy every moment of it. Because the present will become thepast tomorrow and you need to cherish it then.

Never have any anger - Thereare times we are unhappy because we have anger against somebody. Thatreally does not help. All it does is make us sad. In no way does iteffect the person who has angered you. As in my case I was angry withthe providers for having given us a good for nothing ISDN modem. What Ilost in return was a lot more. It is not possible for us to not getangry because the reason why one gets angry is when things do not workthe way we want it to. When people do not behave the way we want themto. And this would continue to happen. The best we can do is focus onsomething else in such situations. That makes us more relaxed. Also, begrateful for what you have and do not think about what you do not have.There are many in this world who are lessfortunate than we are. Never have an ego -Most of us have a big ego which makes us all worse than what we think we are. Weare nobody to judge another person. We are nobody to justify ouractions on others because of what they did to us. In most cases when wedo something against a person it would due to some false ego we haveinside us. "How could he do this tome. I'll show him who I am".... Like I said a little while ago.I am nobody. If somebody treats you bad it is his fault and there noneed for you to teach him a lesson. He needs to have self realizationabout it. Most of our epics is about teaching a lesson to the otherperson. I remember as a kid watching Mahabharat and Ramayana on TV,most of times somebody would be testing somebody else's ego.

When I do talk about ego, I feel it is necessary to talk about self esteemtoo..Both these are very different. We all must have a level of self esteemand dignity. But we must not allow somebody else to treat us as a doormat. If you do notlike what the other person did to you. Cut off the relation orremove the expectations.

Take pride in who you are-

There are many who have an inferiority complex aboutthemselves. They generally think about the family, school, college orcountry they are from as being inferior. And hence they prefer to bebottled up inside themselves and their complexes. This is one primereason why people make bad decisions in life.

One must always be happy as who they are. Have pride in what you have.I was not born to the Tata family. But then Tata was not born tothe British royal family. Everything in this world is relative. Youcan either see what you do not have and get complex'd or see what youhave and be happy. Once we start loving our past, our family, ournation and people around us, we would generally start loving ourselves.

Learn to tolerate- Many of ushave a hatred because we feel only we are right. We can't tolerateothers. We can't tolerate other's behavior or actions. We generallyfail to respect people for who they are. Rather we would respect themif they become like what we want them to be. Hitler could not toleratethe Jews. The Europeans in the US could not tolerate the AfricanAmericans. The upper caste people could not tolerate the lower castepeople in India. We fail to see the person inside.

We must learn to appreciate others and respect the way they are.

Only reality of life is death -And finally the only reality of life is death. All of us have to dieoneday. Maybe what we can all do is try to visualize what we would like toachieve by the time we are dead. Let us work backwards. Rather thansetting up a goal for 5 years from now, we must set up a goal for whatwe would like to have accomplished by the time we are dead.

I did ask myself these questions about my life sometime back. One of mytargets was to be a goodson. I cannot fully achieve it now as I have lost my mother. For her Ican never be the good son I wanted to be. I can, however, be a good sonfor my father. I can be a good brother to my sisters. I can be a goodhusband to my wife. I can maybe built a team which can compete with thebest in this world, I can maybe in my own small way make this world abetter place. I do not want to loose these wonderful opportunities. Ido believe that if I live every moment of mylife happily I would be a happy man when I die.

Now we may not be able to achieve all what we desire to achieve. But wesure can work towards achieving it.

Amarjyoti Krishnan heads bobcares.com, a tech support company for webhosts and ISPs. He is the co-founder of Poornam Info Vision Ltd., a software and IT services company which specializes in Linux based solutions for Webhosts and ISPs. Poornam Info Vision is an ISO 9001:2000 certified company with a team of over 100 engineers.

Amarjyoti is a Computer Engineer based in India and has over 7 years of experience in the hosting industry. He has spoken and written extensively on the subject. His articles have been published both online as well as in print in magazines.

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