Life at 30

Is it really important or even worthwhile to reflect on your life? What would one possibly gain by looking at the rear view mirror – only the path traversed would be visible. It doesn’t take me a few seconds to decide that retrospection of the path traversed and hurdles overcome is very important in these ways: (1) Since history almost always repeats itself, the past gives us a glance of what could present itself in the future (2) By your past actions you understand yourself better and knowing oneself is the sole purpose of life, according to a central thought in philosophy.

 I guess the best way to analyze the 2 points above would be to look at main events of one’s life. The attempt here is to get a ‘theme’ out of one’s life. Of course I am not going to outline events in my life for reasons or privacy but here are some lessons learnt:

(1)   Don’t carry any burden of restrictions, clutter and expectations on your head. Instead, think them out and flush out the ones that are there occupying space and thus lowering visibility. Somewhat like the Japanese Wabi-Sabi. (Another Japanese principle of ‘Kaizen’ is important to continually improve oneself)

(2)   Procrastination is bad. This comes from the fact that time is the biggest treasure and should not be wasted. When Socrates was asked by his pupils not to consume the poison, he said that he is still better off than people living extravagant and meaningless lives because they are merely delaying their death, they might as well die today

(3)   This one could be controversial. The world is ruthless. This comes from the fact that the basic human nature is to occupy and own as much as possible (Nietzsche). There is no ‘higher power’ that will rescue you from circumstances. So stop blaming thin air or other people for your misery and start taking responsibility in your thoughts and then actions

(4)   A healthy, clean and orderly body is a prerequisite for worthwhile living. But at the same time, people come in all shapes and behaviors. It is futile to try and change them or to be one of them. We need to have the courage to be ourselves while dealing with all this noise around us. A seemingly ‘bad’ guy may have an interesting usefulness to your life

(5)   We need to find a foothold here – a passion to live for and have the courage to be responsible for actions that result from this passion. We need to identify changing trends and act accordingly. Inaction is verily death

(6)   When I went to Durgapur, I believed it to be a great Indian center that will make me an engineer in everything electronics. Instead, I waited for 4 years in a dungeon that protected its essence from the sun, as if a mother hanging on to carcass of her child that was long ago dead from the great Bengal famine. I came across the true Indian there. The ugliness I still fail to completely comprehend – the rudeness, the dirt, the alienations, the lethargy, the assassination of my college dreams. In my stubbornness, I refused to adapt and so wasted time. A man should be ever ready to face changes. ‘Hedge’ your risks wherever possible

(7)   Always have a duality of purpose. Always keep the bigger picture in mind while working on details with absolute focus. Focused rays of the sun burn paper where sunlight fails (Robin Sharma)

To leave you with a case study, US (and soon, every other country) is a habitat of contrasts. I loved Pennsylvania. Beautiful hills and forests in Wilkes Barre, beautiful girl at the grocery store there. She asked me if I liked Vin Diesel. I said ‘ya’ and she smiled but there was a burly guy standing right behind me; I had to go. And some 80 miles away you’ve got New York. Outwardly warm but inherently hostile. I saw her, then her friend and then someone else. It was boring office work and then games on the net. Sometimes the gym. American dream was being misinterpreted. You can only live for a dream here, you cannot have a life. There are bills waiting on your ass every week, busy faces everywhere, fuck buddies, meat markets, hypocrites, cops.