Looking back and looking ahead #4: Transition

I am late getting to this note. 2023 felt busy and rushed and it remained like that till the end of the year. It was one of those years, where I was still feeling like we just started, just travelled for the summer to meet family in India and suddenly the year was ending. To be fair, for a change, I manage to get some real radio-silence towards the year end with the Christmas and New Year perfectly timed to create a clean break which meant this will spill into new year. The pressure (self-imposed) to continue writing this note, meant that I continued to think about it and reflect on the year gone by. Am back again with a set of unstructured musings, though it seem more personal this time. More about the life playing out vs. suggestions, thoughts for the reader.

It's perhaps the stage of life I find myself in. We're delicately balancing the emotions and events of two distinct generations. On one side, our kids are on the cusp of spreading their wings. The thought of them flying from the nest brings a mix of pride, anticipation, and that undeniable pang of letting go. On the other side, we're stepping into the roles of the elder generation, a transition made even more poignant with the passing of older family members. This year our children hit milestones. The younger one is now a teenager - those tumultuous yet delightful teen years! The elder one is on the verge of driving and college, making us realize just how swiftly time has flown. As we hit latter part of the year, we will be seeing and celebrating the lasts of doing things together as a nuclear family – festivals, events, birthdays and each of those memories will start to become precious. On the other hand, coming back from a lovely trip to India at the end of 2022, when the family went back for the first time, we saw our fears with moves like this precipitate. While this risk of losing a loved one, when you are far, was well known, seeing it play out so quickly was overwhelming. It again made us question our decisions and the distances we've traversed, both geographically and emotionally.

That said, we are in our second cycle of seasons in the new country we call home and beginning to feel a little more in control. So the winters don’t feel as cold, with children complaining about not wanting to wear enough layers when temperatures are in the single digit C / 40s and summers have been nice. We are still waiting for that big snowfall (like many others) and we continue to be excited about the bright hues of green as spring arrives, the spectrum of fall colors, the clear blue in the sky and the picturesque views around the waters.

The process of change continues - we have continued to indulge in new experiences- sports, events, travel; meet new people and make new acquaintances, reconnect with old friends and there is a sense of starting to grow some base here, at the same time, we continue to miss everything from the past, spending time with friends, family and indulging in things which were earlier a norm and now feels like a luxury. The kids are surely moving forward and the novelty of the new country is wearing away and this is becoming the norm, but the excitement of travel, events, new sports (they both took to skiing so naturally) still remains.

Transitions, as we all know, will remain interesting. The draw of the old, the energy required to integrate (esp if that is not a natural style) and the small things one has to keep dealing with on a day-to-day basis keeps the excitement on. At the same time, I sense that progress is visible. Our increasing comfort with new environs, the sense of getting a handle of things, a social network with who we engage often are all the right signs. On the professional side, the natural cycles of business is playing out at its own pace. The external environment has been less benevolent, but the opportunities to connect with people and colleagues meant that the base has continued to expand. This year I started finding myself getting to know a net new set of people. The warmth and positive engagements have been encouraging. This has been a build year and to me it starts with building relationships with people and everything else follows.

This year also was one of the more interesting ones for the business leaders. I heard the phrase “we are seeing a period of change and uncertainty come together at an unprecedented level” in a conversation between a Fortune 50 CEO and a senior colleague. This phrase so elegantly summarized the times we are in! At one end the opportunity emerging from the technology is believed to be transformative at many levels and on the other side we are dealing with a level of uncertainty over the last several years that just keeps getting more and more entropic with new issues popping up. Generative technology was the big excitement. What was unknown in general was unleashed to the common man in late 2022 and in 2023 it became center stage. I recall not a single discussion, including with friends, when this topic did not pop up! The debates have been phenomenal - from the doomsdayers predicting dramatic change (almost catastrophic for the unprepared) to cynics saying that this is just one more of those fads and will be a slow evolution. The spectrum of views is huge. While technology is still evolving and being understood, the world was dealing with a lot driven by things which sometimes sound as crazy as ever. While the post-pandemic issues played out and we saw the banking crisis in US, macro-economic challenges with unprecedented inflation and interest rate tightening, we saw continued geopolitical issues with the wars and as if we did not have enough to deal with, there was more eruptions in the Middle East. It truly is an unprecedented period for business leaders. Conversations with senior leaders were telling of the challenges they were dealing with, even while remaining optimistic about technology as well as the macro over a period of time.

I write this as I stare at the first real snow of the season on my last day of the break. It looks so pristine as the white engulfs the gray of the season making it a pretty setting to pen this down. ?As I look ahead to 2024, I feel hopeful of positive changes across. I hope the world settles down and we find some equilibrium amidst the complex issues underway (we don’t need more wars!) and there is steadiness as the environment stabilizes. At my end, hoping to continue our journey, while continuing to cherish some things of the past. Here's to a year filled with even more growth, understanding, and success.

Cheers to 2024!