The Conundrums of a Puppeteer Mind

It was a Friday evening. The face that showed up on my mobile screen and the hesitant voice that came through it was one I had shared tons of “balcony time” with, brewing some animated and java-induced thoughts. But this time something sounded different.

This time, I heard a voice that I was almost unable to decipher. It had the right chord of positivity and optimism. It certainly didn't lack the decibel of energy and yet something seemed to echo a variation from the usual energy I was used to. I sensed a different kind of quest. I was being told (by my good friend) rather convincingly that it was time for him to go back to the basics … to where it all had started.

Over the next few minutes, he went on to detail the horrendous experience of the conversations that he has just concluded the previous week with his immediate manager and HR. It was obvious that his skill and ability were being categorized as being far past its “expiry date”! He had very little time to figure out his next steps.

Over the years, I have heard him make the big pitches to customers, sit by the desk near the window overlooking the city skyline, drive that car with those fancy rims and use those extra miles generously for annual vacations with family.  He had seen it all!

But today, very few material things in life appeared to truly matter to him anymore. In the face of a forced downturn, he was rationalizing the need for those materialistic fringes that at one stage, magnified success so well! The same person today was talking about “searching within” for things that really mattered in life; not the materialistic world that he had always gravitated towards.

The “needs” seem to have emerged more clearly and were no more distorted by the many “wants” that once drove his ambition. 

It is not hard to imagine that everything is at stake for those who are at the brink of losing their jobs. Many large Corporations periodically wean those who they claim can’t be “re-skilled”. The wave of recent “performance-induced” lay-offs across industries is no doubts emotionally bruising and undoubtedly debatable.

Truth though is that we have to introspect and assess if we, as professionals, have transformed to be even more competitive in the long-run! We are in an era of metric based “Show and Tell” and unless we can continually showcase what we have done and delivered, the race is over sooner than later.

Which means, we need to shake things up! Not just in the marketplace, but most importantly, inside us!

Our health clock alerts us when we are not physically fit, but we haven’t built the alarm inside to warn us when our skills are not readily aligned to today’s realities!

As I stare at my call log of the previous few weeks, I am reminded of many similar dialogues, from more than half-a-dozen folks who have been key performers in the past. Much sought after. Most wanted at one time. But today their sharp minds are not seen as “hot” and they appear to be steering away from the goal post and I am left wondering, 'How did that happen' !?!

Apprehensions or Alternatives?

Early in our careers, we start with knowing “almost nothing”. We learn, we fall, we learn, we rise again and continue to do so till we shine. We tend to be more adventurous than apprehensive. Also, perhaps at that point, surging ahead seems to be the only alternative. 

Somewhere along the course, the terrain becomes familiar to us and we have a premonition of the possible pitfalls and failure points. We shift to cruise control, expertly navigate the pitfalls and relax at the all-too-familiar wheels. But soon, the dynamics of an ever-changing competitive world overtakes us, steered faster and better by younger and agile minds. That is when we realize that we are starting to skid on familiar turf that seems to have developed new diversions and bumps. Our mind starts showing us the stop sign.

If only our instincts kick in to remind us that we have dirt-tracked before and can do so again! Instead, with age and complacence, we are reminded of the many difficulties of riding up. Our puppeteer mind pulls us down, rationalizes the situation and we slow down in the race, while others hurtle forward.

My view or the world-view?

Popularly known as the "confirmation bias", we tend to see and believe information that resonates with our “self-image”. In the process, we tend to disregard and dismiss factual information that might contradict with “our view of the world”. We surround ourselves with people, information and images that validate our preset belief and as a resultant consequence, take decisions that tend to mislead us. The mind conveniently starts pushing out words, phrases and signs that validate what ‘it’ believes we need at that point and everything else starts to blur. We tend to see only what is exposed to us by our own mind and that is the “tune” that we continue dancing to.

Once again, we allow our mind to play us.

In the meanwhile, my friend’s voice on the other end continues ….

This time in in a reassuring tone, to himself probably rather than to me, that we could live without these “illusionary” forms of happiness and it is time to relinquish the luxuries, cut the chase, drop out of the race and live happily with just the “basics”.

And I hear not his words but the familiar trappings of our puppeteer mind. 

Unless we sever the puppet strings, we would never know if the choices we make are infusing new life within us, giving us new aspirations to learn from or leading us towards a cul-de-sac - a deadlock of sorts.

And unless we have an unbiased view of reality as it exists, we will never know whether to ...

Accept or Decline what’s given to us and what we make of our life.

 Because, very rightly so, as Henry David Thoreau said 

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it”