What are you doing today?

"What are you doing today?", a former colleague had asked me over the telephone a few months back, "Well, I have a lunch invite and then I have a ticket for a show at 5 pm at the 'Prithvi Theatre'

"Wow", that's cool man, it must be the day off from work for you?" he quizzed me jealousy 

"And why do you think it is that way"? I asked 

"Because it's Tuesday Man"!

Isn't it a rhetoric when people ask you, "Hey what are you doing today?", or "What do you do?" What they actually want to ask you is "Hey. are you going to office today"? or "What's your profession, where do you work?"

When people ask us, "What do you do"?, what's our normal reaction, we say "I am a sailor. or I am an engineer, or a management graduate or a CEO, or I have my own business"

Hardly any of us say, "I am into music, or am preparing for the next Mumbai Marathon, or that, “I am with my son preparing him for his maths test” (even if we ARE, we don't say it do we?)

This question. "What do you do"? is faced by us all at some point or the other in our lives. However, our answers are often made to please the other one and to stick to perception rather than saying the right things. To do - means to work, to earn a living, to sustain a family, to be doing something worthwhile in the eyes of society

And then again, during the weekends the same questions take another meaning. Perceptions change. “How was your weekend”? This is supposed to actually mean, “Which weekend resort did you go to?” or, “How was your binge drinking party with your old school pals?”

Why is it that we reserve all the fun for the week ends and the holidays? Life is about living it fully each day isn’t it? Even though we cannot take a long drive out during the week days, most of us really stop living during these days and wait till the week ends.

But look at what is happening to our lives today. Life has taken a full turn for us all.

Today, as we are all locked down inside our homes because of the deadly virus, we are slowly understanding that life and work can go hand in hand. Instead of work-like balance which most of us are used to addressing, today we are have a beautiful work-life-blend. We are learning to co-work with work and fun. We are watching our favourite show on the TV and doing our office work side by side. When someone calls us as asks, “What are you doing?”, you don’t have to think twice while replying “I am standing in my balcony looking at the deserted streets and wondering how beautiful our world is and what we have made it out to be”. We are understanding the true essence of our lives today as we live every moment as if it was our last. We are all working from home. This virus is scary but it is changing the world. It is giving us the lessons which we could not learn otherwise. It is giving us the opportunity to look back at ourselves and learn from our mistakes. It is giving us a change for redemption. Perhaps we shall never ever get another. Let’s love life as it is and let’s keep on loving it always and making the most of it – whether it is a week end or otherwise.

So now when people call and ask me, “Hey what are you doing”? instead of saying, “I am working”, I say. “I am living my life”

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Capt. Shoukat Mukherjee is an International award winning business leader, trainer and public speaker. He is the author of the best selling book 'Mind Over Water', maritime industry's first book on Leadership development and Team Building.

To connect with Shoukat or to book him for a lecture of training workshop please write to him at '[email protected]'

for more details and gallery view, please visit www.captainshoukatmukherjee.com