Live through each day gracefully, enjoying each moment, even
if it is not the one that you ordered or wanted, but yet received. So receive your
day, as it unfolds before you, with immense gratitude and live it fully!
If you are reading this on Monday, you must be wondering if
this is just some armchair philosophy being dished out by someone who is both
unaware of how Mondays are and who is just preaching without any practical
insight.
Let me share my learnings that have brought me to this point
in Life, thanks to which I can assure you that this is indeed the most
intelligent way to live.
There was a time when I was globe-trotting. Breakfast in
Singapore, lunch in LA and dinner in Rome. Traveling nine months in a year,
living out of hotel rooms 21 days in a month. I loved that Life. I had heard of
intelligent living then. And had assumed that it was all about applying your
intellect in Life to make fame and fortune. So, I invested my every waking hour
in working. Family was important but saw my role primarily as a provider who ‘scheduled’
to ensure presence at home to mark anniversaries and birthdays. I always felt
being at my kids’ school annual days and Parent Teacher interactions as a waste
of time. Those meetings didn’t add value to my Life. If I could pack in an
additional meeting either with my clients or with my team, we would be better
off as a Firm, was my irrefutable logic. And on the odd weekends I spent at
home, I would pore over CEO reports, filed by each member of my 40-strong team.
They would tell me what was wrong in the way we were running our Firm or
delivering value to our clients. I would make copious notes and initiate steps
and Programs each week to get our house and processes back in order.
I saw work as an investment for a future where I would be happy,
as would my family, and our Firm would run on auto-pilot turning in dividends,
enriching our lives.
I don’t think this line of logic is wrong per se. Except
that it can neither be guaranteed that Life will happen the way you want it to nor
that living can be postponed while you earn a living.
In the years that followed, despite my purposeful intent and
my hands-on, paranoid leadership, my Firm went bust and the same team members,
for whom I worked overtime, drifted away. Rightly so. Whoever wants to be on a
sinking ship? My children grew up. And
suddenly, one fine day, although it was always on the cards, our son flew away
to pursue an undergrad Program in Economics at the University of Chicago. The
night he left for Chicago, we came back home to a half-empty nest. That sense
of emptiness took months to get used to. I particularly felt I could have spent
far more time with him in his growing up years. Initially, I grieved a lot. And
even held myself responsible for missing out on such a never-before opportunity
of living engaged with the growing up years of our son!
Life’s a hard teacher. She gives the test first and lesson
later. And that’s how I failed the test and still learned the lessons!
I made amends with our daughter. I decided, and have been
reasonably successful with it, to get involved with every aspect of her Life,
alongside my wife. And what I couldn’t provide for our son on the ground, I
made up with regular phone and Skype calls during his college years. I also
forgave myself. And decided to not resist the manner in which my Life and
business has slowed down. I decided to celebrate it. And so, now I see work as
prayer, a form of expression of my inner Self, a joy. Result, we do take up only
work that we love and prefer to rejoice each opportunity to live as one in
which we can invoke soul, provoke thought and inspire action!
Now I can modestly claim I understand intelligent living
better. I have learned that it only means living. The intelligent part is to
choose living __ in the moment, mindfully, loving each moment __ over
everything else. So, this Monday, what do you want to do? Maybe you can’t do
everything that you want to either. But you can do one thing for sure __
appreciate the value of each moment and journey through the day gracefully,
enjoying its beauty and celebrating its uniqueness, its “never-again-ness”. Do
this knowing that maybe there’s a companion, a child, a parent, a sibling, a
colleage __ someone who you are taking for granted, waiting for you to pause and
engage with her or him. Know surely that it’s a blessing if you can indeed do
it. And be eternally grateful for that opportunity!
Live celebrating your Monday’s magnificence today!
So, let go of your worries, drop all your guilt – be free.
Live in the moment, however painful it may be at times, and experience Life
fully. Your agony comes from your expectation that Life must be a bed of roses,
a cakewalk – that Life must happen the way you want it to. Know for sure that
your expectations may, well, never be met. Life’s intrinsic nature is to be
unpredictable, inscrutable. So, as long as you are alive, and you know it, live each moment – by being fully present
in it! 
