Dilemmas of a corporate professional #2

Reaching the equilibrium- Is it our new challenge?

Phew! I had a long day yesterday. Our new CEO was joining and we had been planning his induction for last 15 days. To the extent that I was on concalls during my 15th August long weekend Goa trip. Finally the D-day was here and all plans were executed well, exactly as planned :) And so the day was followed by customary dinner & drinks! However, by the time I reached home to share the day long story with my husband and daughter, they had already gone off to sleep :(

Since I had slept late yesterday night, so I woke up a little late too… then rushed for my daughter's Saturday swimming class. While sitting by the pool, I was going through all forms of social media- from LinkedIn to Facebook to Whatsapp. After deleting various family group messages that had a narrow range of topics like husband-wife jokes, God’s blessings on “Handa/Jain” parivar and variety of good morning jpegs, I landed on my school Whatsapp group. I was wondering what’s gone wrong with this set of middle-aged corporate professionals as early morning I had some 50 unread messages. I started reading these messages and my eyes popped out and my heart missed a beat. The chatting thread was unexpected demise of a school buddy (further addressed as “good soul”). Though I had not been in touch with the good soul for over 10 years, messages suggested that some of the others were quite close and in-touch still! Not to mention that the good soul was sub-40 and as I recounted school days’ memories a well-behaved and hardworking student.

I saw lot of miss-u messages, recount of school days, sharing of school photographs wherein we all were having a ball of a time- the innocent and the unaware us! At the same time, I witnessed lot of remorse on the group. In the last 6-9 months, the good soul had reached out to a few of us wanting to spend quality time together, some face-to face time. He felt the need to connect in the physical space as a telephonic call may not do justice to what he wanted to share. Most of those called would make a genuine attempt at making time for him. They couldn’t empathize with the need for a deeper physical connect (and I don’t want to judge anyone as I would have displayed the same behavior) and kept delaying this catch-up (due to paucity of time, traveling out of station, project submission timelines etc.).

Now as we join the dots together, we realize that the good soul had fallen prey to the devilish depression. In the process, he gave in to the pleasures of alcohol. It all got over once and he doesn't have to go through the pain day-in-day-out. Rest-in-peace good soul!

This incident conjures up various thoughts in my mind. Are we taking our personal life for granted? Corporate life is teaching us to stay connected with our professional network to build a successful career. But in that process are we unable to make time for socio-physical connectedness? I personally go through this dilemma of managing limited time between corporate networking and socio-physical connectedness! Will one come at the cost of the other? Which one is more important? Today, all of my class-mates, including me, go through this remorse of what if?

• What if i had met the good soul well in time?
• What if I had given the good soul a listening ear?
• What if I had made the good soul feel more wanted?
• What if…etc…etc.?
• And maybe another unsaid what if is “What if I make time for all my friends and family and be more socio-physical connected, do I fall behind in the rat race?”

As I think deeper about this, I am convinced that it is about rejecting the “tyranny of or” and embracing the “genius of and”.

We are teaching our kids to balance between work and play, science and arts, healthy and unhealthy, relatives and friends etc., it is time we practice what we preach. Then we will witness best of both the worlds. So, going forward, my success will not be defined by "either-or" but by "and" which means I will take up a larger role and still see daylight every evening when I leave office; I will get promoted but still not miss my kid’s sports day; I will get an unexpected salary raise for quality of my work and still visit chandni chowk with my parents when they want to buy bedsheets in bulk to save some money; I will travel 5 consecutive days and then work from home next 2 days and make time for my domestic help’s son to teach Maths to him before his exams.

At the age of 60, sitting on a rocking chair, reminiscing some moments of life, I would hate to have another remorse wondering why I dint make time for my growing girl, attention-seeking parents or a depressed friend! I want to make time for all that “WAS” valuable to me in my growing-up years, all that I have lost touch with for a desire to win the corporate race. I want to embrace this “genius of and”. How about you?