Do you really like corporate life?

Ask this question multiple times to yourself. I wanted to tell you a short story about my life.

Initial Discontent

When I started my life as a fresher in the corporate world, I just really hated it. Because day in and out, even though it gives you the name that I'm from cognizant, corporate people just tend to give their likingness. Oh wow, you are in a corporate world. You are from cognizant. You are in this company. You are in that company. It all sounds so good, but what is it that we do inside the company every day? Go inside at 09:00 come back at 09:00 p.m. or 08:00 p.m. and then still carry the work to your home. And then repeat day in, day out. Your mind is so cluttered, it is so clumsy that at some point in time, you want to come out of this corporate world. It happens to everybody.

Balancing Act: Work and Family

But think of people like ladies. If you have somebody supporting you in your life, you have the chance to take a break. You have the chance to look at your life in a more sustainable manner where you can say I want to take a break for my daughter. I want to take a break for myself. Many ladies have seen this. What about the gentlemen? Are all the gentlemen in the corporate world very efficient or productive in whatever they do, or it is not just about productivity and efficiency? Do you like to do the role that you have been given? Are you the right fit for your role? Are you taking that seriously or is it so serious that you don't? You need a really powerful break, but you are not able to. And the family pressure is something that, that has yielded you to be there.

The Weight of Responsibility

Where are you now? I really would love to quote some stories here. Story number one is my spouse. Story number two, myself. So, story number one, my spouse. I was with corporate for about 18 plus years and it made a really big difference in my life because I liked to be there, I liked challenges, and I liked the person that I was evolving into. However, I was not able to give my time to my daughter, and my family, because even though I had been productive, I had been efficient. Corporate used to suck my entire livelihood into every day, becoming better and better in the sense that you need to keep proving yourself day in and day out. That was corporate life for me. So, my husband, given that I took a break once or twice. And then after that, now on a complete restart of my life into a corporate coach journey where I need, I wanted to give back to the corporate professionals. My husband is even more pressurized to be in the corporate job more, more and more to be there, that there is nobody that he could rely on. Earlier I used to earn 3x times more than him. So, it was very easy to run our lives and it was too much pressure on me, whether I liked it or not, I had to do it. Now I feel I have put that pressure on him, and all our lives are not the same. Right time as a factor has its karma on all of us. Many times, you will feel that your job is so betraying and deceptive and that you don't like to cling on to it. Put yourself as a spouse, okay? Whether it can be your husband or your wife whom you need to support, to run your family, put yourself there and put yourself under the pressure that you have nobody to support at your home, no one to take care of because in India, the life is so different when compared to abroad. In abroad you have some facilities to take care, or you can work from home. But here now, people were very happy during the COVID period and now it is coming to a hybrid. And now I think it will restore the original face-to-face relationship in corporate. So, what happens every day? Going to the office, coming back and doing things, what happens to us? We are pulled between a lot of responsibilities at home and office and the accountability holds very high. And if you are a person who is perfectionist, who wants to try your wits to your max like the person that I was, your energy is drained just in 1 hour of the day.

Moments of Reflection

So now my spouse is under tremendous pressure not just because of the work that he does. Along with that, the pressure of me leaving the job, the pressure of my family adding up to him and so many things. So, whenever I talk to him now, I see that he's not happy and he doesn't have a choice actually to make, even if he wants to take a break. So, when I ask myself, what have I done to him? So, this you can talk about me, my story, right? So, I'm asking myself, what have I done to him? What have I done to my family at the crucial hour? Then I felt that every moment was a crucial hour, right? Every moment was a crucial moment. When I was a fresher, it was crucial when I was a lead, it was crucial when I was a manager, it was crucial when I was a senior manager, crucial when I was a head of operations, and again, crucial when I was a quality head, again, crucial when was in senior leadership, that was also crucial. So, all along, all times were crucial. So, when can we take a step to become something that we want, really want to become? It can be in the corporate world, or it can be outside the corporate world too. So how are we to support each other? Like my goal is to help corporations, my goal is to help leadership, how can it all trigger something in me where I grow and I keep growing and support my husband not to take his corporate life in a very hard manner or the pressure of the family, not on him, but just to be there to happily support the family? How many of us are like that?

The Perpetual Crucial Hour

So, I leave with these questions to you because we need to understand the pressures that we have in our lives. You know, so many days of sleepless nights thinking of what, what is the fear that we have? There are so many people not able to perform well in corporate or with the level of selfish attitude that we see in corporate today. We can't even imagine where the world is going to be. So what are we to help each other with? A lot of startups coming into the picture, a lot of ideations doing this, doing that, but not, but, sorry. And where are we positioning ourselves? You know, after a certain experience, you are so much in your comfort zone. After a certain age, after 40 or 45, you are so much into your comfort zone that you do not want to do something different.

Striving for Growth and Support

So, this write-up is all about making you think and leaving you there to be introspective and observing. What is it that has happened to you over these years? Where are we going to go and what is it that you want to achieve after maybe x years in corporate? What is it you want? An early retirement date for which you are, you know, pushing yourself hard. And there are people, even if they have pushed hard, there are no hikes, there is no good salary that they get, but they are working hard. Some people have worked hard, really, you know, gone to heights. Still, something is missing. So, what is it that corporate life has given to you? Where are we on our ladder, in our journeys? Think of it and ping me back if you think that. If you have a question, why, where I am? What is it that it is going to achieve? Should I focus on it now? Should I focus on the future? So, these are the questions I want to leave you with.