Help, I can't breathe! Who's driving the bus anyway?
Stop, somebody get me out of here!
I took a nightmare train home last week, a short train due to a technical problem which resulted in 6 carriages of people full to the brim. Commuters baking hot on a sunny London evening heading home from Waterloo after a hard day’s work. Here I am stuck like a sardine slowly realising a girl no more than 16 or 17 is starting to have a panic attack, she has her eyes tightly closed, is breathing deeply and slowly counting her way home. As we encounter each stop more people try to get on and we get more and more squeezed, until you literally can't breathe. I start talking her through the journey counting down the stations until we reach Twickenham where she gets off and heads home thanking me for being kind and caring.
This leads me to think about a few things in life:
Why do we put ourselves through this daily commute?
What is the purpose?
Where am I going?
Is it worth it?
As I lay in bed that night thinking about these things I start reminding myself of my dreams and repeating them over and over. I know why I go to work, I understand who I am and what my reasons are. I have a “BHAG”.
A BHAG is a big hairy audacious goal. My major goal is a combination of dreams and life goals. Knowing these gives me the lift I need every day to make each day count.
There is absolutely no point starting your journey if you don't know where you are going. If you use the travel metaphor it is like getting on a bus without knowing where it is going, you might know which stop you get on and which one you get off at but what is the whole journey you are taking? Where will you end up, who is driving and who is leading?
If you are feeling like a passenger, trapped, unable to breath, grinding through day by day then you need to think about your dreams and your goals and see if they are aligned to the work you are doing every day.
Why
Is the choice you make to go to work every day taking you in the right direction? Know why, have purpose, have meaning and put that first, it is the key to your happiness. The "how you do it" and "what you do" is the part that comes next.
Why > how > what is not the same as what > how > why.
Member of Camara Internacional da Indústria de Transportes (CIT) at The International Transportation Industry Chamber
6 年Great buzz here , my BHAG is helping people in High Tech & Logisitcs for free as a consultant. My commute in any traffic here in Beautiful Savannah never takes more than 15 minutes. Come Visit ??
PMP certified ETL QA Manager
7 年Lovely post. Did you know "Bhag" is a word in Hindi that means "Run"! It is so apt considering that we are running endlessly and aimlessly every day.. searching for that elusive goal.