Beyond 'earning a living', make time for living!

Why do we do precious little to nurture, develop, grow and protect all those things that come free in Life while ending up working 60+-hour weeks ‘earning a living’ and trying to cling on to, protect stuff, that in the end are impermanent, dispensible, unimportant, forgettable and replaceable?

Accept your Life for what it is – and simply go on living

Does it really matter if there is such a thing as fate or destiny? If whatever will happen, will happen, then why analyze it, why agonize over it?  

In a conversation we had with a friend yesterday, we ended up discussing destiny and free will. My friend held the view that trying to understand how destiny works or blaming it for everything is simply futile. “Can your belief in or knowledge of fate, destiny, karma – whatever name you give it – really help in undoing, or changing, your Life’s course,” he asked.

And I agree with him.

What are we going to do by knowing that our lives are preordained? That really doesn’t change anything. Instead, the simpler way to look at Life – and respond to it – is to know that while you can’t do anything about what’s happening to you, you can at least act in a given situation diligently, with full commitment to living! People call this opportunity free will. I call it living. Just be, just live. Or, to further simplify, while you can’t do anything about what happens to you, do whatever you can in any given situation to make it better. And the best way to live through, endure, any painful situation, is to immerse yourself in the moment and to live it fully.

So, don’t dwell on whether your Life is preordained or not. It’s meaningless, it’s futile to do so. The fact is that you have this Life, a gift called this lifetime. You have no control over what happens to you. But you can and must do whatever is possible by you to live your every moment fully. You have that option, and no one can deny it to you, so use it fully.  

Osho, the Master, calls the fate-destiny-karma logic defeatist and escapist. He says when we try something and don’t get what we want, we conveniently blame fate. “What can I do, I am trying but my fate is such” is a common refrain we all hear or even use at times. Osho urges us to stop this blame game! He says don’t dump the responsibility of your Life on fate. Some people also dub fate as “God’s will”. So they dump the cause of their Life’s course – and their attendant miseries – on this, unknown, unseen, God. Osho asks, “You know why you blame God for all the things that happen to you that you don’t want happening? You do it because it is so convenient. God doesn’t talk back, you see. God doesn’t ask you how dare you blame me for your Life? So, you go on dumping your Life on God and you wallow in the comfortable cesspool of ‘my-fate-is-such’ thinking.”

Osho makes a powerful, unputdownable, point. Blaming Life or karma or God is of no use. Your Life – and mine – will unfold, go on, happen, in spite of you - or me. No matter what. This is the nature of Life. The only way to live this Life therefore is to accept it for what it is, the way it is, and simply go on living…!  

Stop becoming and start being

What have we done to our lives?

We have become so mechanized. So robotic. We are trying to constantly ensure our incomes go up, our families are provided for and yet we are not even bothered if we are happy? In fact, our unhappiness has become so much a part of us that we have stopped knowing that we are unhappy. We imagine that running the household, driving the kids to school and back, preparing reports and presentations, taking the annual vacation, IS Life! Is that really so?

Step off this treadmill. For a second. Take a brief moment. Focus on a flower in your neighborhood, in your garden, in a vase in your home. Just find a flower this morning. Look at it intently. Examine every aspect of its creation __ the color, the shape, the texture. Feel its pollen with your fingertips. Smell it. And ask yourself, how often have you stopped, even paused, to look in the direction of this flower? How you have chosen to ignore this flower represents the way you live your Life. You are doing everything else except living, my friend. When you are in front of the mirror, getting ready to rush to work, you have time to examine that pimple on your forehead, the dark circles beneath the eyes, or to certify the quality of your shave. But you don’t have time to look into your own eyes and ask yourself how are you?

As people we are becoming more and more efficient. There’s an App, an application, for everything on our smart-phones. From music to medical tests to running our schedules to buying stuff. Our phones can get us anything and everything we want. Despite all this efficiency, why are we still so lost? What are we searching for? What are we trying to complete in us?  Ask anyone__yourself to begin with__as to what will make them happy, and you would hear people express it differently of course, but most will say that they would like to live a different Life from what they are leading currently. Then why is it that nobody is willing to make that change in the way they live?

Remember: to go back to being who you are really are, you must stop becoming something. Our entire efficiency race is about becoming: successful, rich and, eventually, happy__as if it were some destination. How would your Life be, if you just focus on being happy, being rich, being the way you are __ with WHATEVER you have? Have you ever tried that? To find your Self, you must stop running this rat race, and make the journey within. Pause. And dive within. Listen to what, Osho, the Master has to tell you this morning: “Constantly remember that you are not here in Life to become a commodity; you are not here to become an utility, that is below dignity; you are not here just to become more and more efficient — you are here to be more and more alive; you are here to be more and more intelligent; you are here to be more and more happy, ecstatically happy.”

 

And that you will surely be, my friend, when you stop becoming and start being! 

You can’t enjoy a sunrise if you think about your nightmares

Don’t avoid worry. Understand it.

In the time that you spend worrying, you are missing living! You cannot do both at the same time. You can either live. Or you can worry. If you are worrying, be sure, you may be alive, breathing, seeing and doing, but you are not living! The nature of the human mind is that it will keep churning thoughts incessantly and most of them will be about your worries. If you want to stop worrying, then that want may now become a new worry!

Instead understand why you worry in the first place. You worry about things, people, events, money, health, relationships, jobs, because you want them in your control or you want to know more about them or both. And when you are unable to do any of that, you worry. You say that you want a job. Is that a worry? Hardly. Will you get that job? Now, that’s a worry: because you want to control the outcome of your want and you want information about the future. My wife has gone to meet a friend. Is that a worry? Not really. But who is that friend? It is this greed for the detail, for that information, that will spawn a worry. And then the issue is no longer about the wife meeting the friend, it is about the gender of the friend and then it morphs into another, new, horrific worry: Is my wife cheating on me?

How do you contain this human urge to want to control what’s going on and/or keep seeking information on what’s going on? The simple truth is, you can’t. So, wanting to stop worrying is an improbable vision to begin with. What you can do, however, is to attempt living. When you are filling out your job application, for instance, why do you worry about the outcome of the effort? Focus on the application you are preparing. Pour your heart into it. Don’t let your mind wander. Bring it to attend on the only, supremely important, singular task at that moment in your Life, the job application. You will never enjoy a sunrise if you keep thinking about your nightmares. Even if you are at the most beautiful resort in the Pacific, you will not even see the sun rise if you are not present in that moment.

The cure to worrying is like the cure to diabetes. Once a diabetic, always a diabetic. At best, you can astutely manage your diabetes with your strict diet and exercise regimen. Even a day’s, or even a meal’s complacency or indulgence, can spike your sugar levels. So it is with worrying. You cannot stop worrying. Period. But you can always start living. When you live, in the present, no worry can plague you! Will you please live, worry-free, today, a day that has been crafted exquisitely for you? 

Learn to trust Life and go follow your bliss!

Don’t postpone living – go do what you love doing and Life will take care of your bills and responsibilities!  

Yesterday, our neighbor visited us and we spent a good hour chatting about Life. His family has been going through a lot of challenges. His wife has been bed-ridden for over two years now. She’s had several orthopedic challenges with respect to her lower limbs. She’s already been through four surgeries and the prognosis is that she can walk with support only in a few more months. Meanwhile, my neighbor too was felled by a rare disease that paralyzed his muscles, and he had to spend over a month in hospital and six months recovering at home. Now that he’s much better, my neighbor, who’s in his late 50s, told us, “I want to spend the rest of my Life doing what I love doing. This experience has taught us that we must live our lives fully and enjoy every moment. In fact, thanks to my stay at the hospital, I have learned to even love my physical limitations and challenges.”

My neighbor makes a very valid point. Most of us postpone living, hoping that we can “some day” live the Life that we want. The moot question is when is that “some day” going to arrive? The truth is that if you expect that day to arrive in the future it never will – because when you reach a milestone you have set for yourself, a new one will entice you. For instance, if at 20 you decide that you will make a million dollars, by the time you are 30, to secure your finances and then go to do what you love doing, chances are you will either make that million or you won’t. If you don’t, you will want to continue to keep trying and so you will push your “do-what-I-love-doing” deadline to 40. And if you do, you will want to make some more money, to feel more secure – because more the money, more the insecurity! Or finally when you are ready, your family responsibilities will weigh you down – either your parents need looking after or your spouse needs support or your kids need financial assistance. Or simply, after you turn 50, after over 30 years of running the rat race, earning a living, raising a family, meeting targets and working hard, you are just exhausted. You don’t want to take “any risks”. And this is how, sadly, Life gets postponed.

There is no better day than today to start living the Life you want. You can either postpone living and keep suffering work and Life situations that you abhor or you can simply take the plunge and live the Life you want to – doing what you love doing. I talk from experience. Though I decided at age 29 that I will follow my bliss, it wasn’t until I turned 36 that I discovered what gave me joy. But over the last 11 years I have stood my ground – despite the gravity of my financial challenges – choosing to do only what I love doing and where I can create value. In this time, while money has been virtually non-existent, Life has taken care of all that I need. So, from the Life I have and what I have seen, I will always champion that when you know what gives you joy – just go do it. Don’t worry or feel insecure. Know that if you have been created, you will be taken care of and provided for. Learn to trust Life and go follow your bliss!

Life is a limited period offer. The Buddha has famously said: “The trouble is you think you have time”. This is so true. Which is why we naively keep postponing living. It is important that we pause and reflect on our lives from time to time. And no better time to do it than today – this Monday, now! Ask yourself – What  am I running around for? What do I really love doing? And what am I doing about it? Hopefully, your answers will awaken you to a Life of joy and you will go do what you want to do in the time that you still have left. When you let go, and live your Life without postponing it, Life will take care of you in ways in which you can’t even fathom!

Stop whining, start living!

The amount of time we spend complaining about Life can actually be spent living it fully, spiritedly!

Justin Vijay Yesudas
Picture Courtesy: The New Indian Express

I read an inspiring story in this morning’s New Indian Express (NIE). Archita Suryanarayanan profiles 34-year-old Justin Vijay Yesudas who has recently won three gold medals at the National Paralympic Swimming Championship at Indore. An accident in 2004 left Justin paralyzed. Save his shoulder and elbow, Justin cannot feel or move any other part of his body below his neck. Yet he took to swimming and has managed to get this far. He tells NIE’s Archita that he’s now ready to aim for the Asian championships. Justin is not just a swimmer. He also has a corporate job as a Deputy General Manager at Cognizant Technology Solutions. He accepts his special condition as part of his Life’s design. He does not complain about it. In fact, he keeps a tight schedule daily – swimming, weight training and his regular corporate work. I simply loved this quote that he gave NIE: “Everyone tries to walk, but I know that I can’t. So, I continue doing what I used to (before the accident) instead of trying what I can’t. I see many able people who find excuses not to do things. What I do is find reasons to do things, Life can be beautiful even after paralysis.”

Reading this and seeing his million watt smile in the paper today lit up my morning! I just thought to myself – Isn’t it a shame that we, well-endowed folks, succumb to negativity and depression so often? Don’t we always end up complaining about what we don’t have? And aren’t we quick to cite constraints for not being able to do several things in Life? People like Justin invite us to re-examine our attitude to living and encourage us to live more spirited lives!

If you reflect on the way you approach your Life, you will find that complaining about what you don’t have comes naturally. To complain about lack of resources, lack of time, lack of money or lack of understanding is comfortable. You don’t have to do anything to complain. You just have to state what isn’t there and sit back and pine for it. We miss the whole point of intelligent living this way. We don’t realize that it is part of our Life’s work to work around constraints – whatever they may be. When we complain the lack of something in Life and feel deprived, we are actually beginning to suffer. Over time, this suffering holds us hostage and keeps us depressed. That’s really how you lose the yen to live and be happy. But if you work around your constraints – either by getting what you don’t have or by learning to live without what you don’t have – you may surely feel the pain, but you will not suffer. Justin surely feels the pain of being paralyzed. He will feel it all his Life. But clearly he is not suffering.

It is only when you end your suffering that you can actually live fully and spiritedly. That’s when you feel inner peace and happiness. But it all begins first with stopping to complain. Inject yourself with Justin’s spirit today – stop whining, start living! 

Be smart: Live fully, than just ‘earn a living’!

Above all else, prioritize “quality time” with your family! Nothing will count more in the evening of your Life than the memories you have of the time you spent with your family – especially with your spouse and children.

I read a very interesting, heart-warming syndicated story in today’s Times of India. It talked about how a high-profile, globe-trotting finance executive, Mohamed El-Erian, 56, quit his $100m++ job at the California-based PIMCO Investment Fund last year because his daughter complained that he had never been with her for what she thought were important events in her Life. The list of 22 events El-Erian missed included the child’s first day at school, her first football match and a Halloween parade. El-Erian told The Independent’s Cahal Milmo: “I felt awful and got defensive. I had a good excuse for each missed event! Travel, important meetings, an urgent phone call, sudden to-dos. But it dawned on me that I was missing an infinitely more important point. As much as I could rationalize it ... my work-Life balance had gotten way out of whack, and the imbalance was hurting my relationship with my daughter. I was not making nearly enough time for her.”

Well, El-Erian was lucky that he heard the “wake up call” and actually “woke up”. There are many, many, many people out there who are too busy building their businesses and their careers at the cost of their families.

I too “woke up” to a “wake up call”. But I woke up only on the day that my son, then 18, took a flight out to Chicago, to join undergrad school. Until that day, back in September 2008, I too, like El-Erian was obsessed with work. The business came first. And business came second. Family, if at all, was treated by me as something that I had to merely “provide” for. But that day, at Chennai International Airport, when my son bid goodbye to all of us, who had gone with him to see him off, and took the escalator to the departure gates, it suddenly dawned on me that we were not just sending him to college, we were actually letting him be independent in this big, huge world. The bird had flown from the nest. That night when I fixed myself a drink and sat thinking of my son, I realized from here on…he would graduate, get himself a job, raise a family and be pretty much on his own. It struck me that he would never be home the way he had been with us for the past 18 years. And it dawned on me then that I had missed much of those 18 years – in fact, I had missed watching him grow. It wasn’t as if I was a reckless and irresponsible father. My son and I always bonded well – and we still are great friends. But that night I felt I could have done better being with him for some more of his birthdays and several more of his events in school and in his theatre group.

My awakening led me to conclude that it is only because we crave and “search” for work-Life balance that we never really find it. I have realized that we have to stop seeing work as different from Life. The truth is that there is just one Life that we all have. And our family is an important part of that Life. As important as work – as in a professional career or a business – is. We cannot claim that we are toiling for the family and kid ourselves that sometime, when we have saved enough for the family, we will enjoy, or invest in, quality time with them. It is because we kid ourselves with this flawed logic that we don’t ever find work-Life balance. Actually, living a well-balanced Life is indeed possible. What is required is that we define for ourselves what’s most important to us in Life. And invest our waking hours prudently among these few areas. It is important that we write for ourselves a list of “never miss” family events – which includes two week-long vacations annually – and stick to fulfilling this list at any cost. On an average, including vacation time, you may require 30 days of family time a year. Of course, this is doable. Especially if you consider the 80~100 work weeks that you end up clocking – often mindlessly – in any case!

As you grow in your career, and as your family grows too, you will do well to remember that no one is getting any younger. Each milestone of your career and family will just be a memory in some more years. There’s no point in arriving in the future to discover that you have no, or far too few, family-related memories because you were busy working your butt off earning a living! Living your Life fully, while earning, is what smart people do. Surely, you are smart. And like El-Erian, will “wake up” too!

How not to agonize over a Life that you don’t want

Don’t waste your time trying to make meaning out of Life. You simply can’t. Any effort in that direction will only frustrate you.

When your Life doesn’t go the way you want it to, your mind will throw up some seemingly relevant questions that also appear to be critical: “What’s the point in me living a Life that I don’t want?”, “Why should I go through experiences that make me suffer?”, “What is the purpose of Life?”. There can be more questions – it depends on how frustrated or disturbed you are with your Life. But none of these questions will be answered by your merely asking them. When you understand what Life is, these questions may not even arise and even if they do, they won’t matter.

The first point to internalize is that you, me, each of us is having a Life that we never asked for. You didn’t ask to be born, did you? So, the argument that you don’t want to live a Life that you don’t want is absurd. You have been created. And you must live as long as your Life lasts. Since you did not have a say in your creation, in your birth, don’t seek to have a say in your death. Let death happen on its own. It is inevitable as it is – so let it come when it must. You or I need not and must not be even thinking of death just because we don’t get some things that we want from Life. Instead invest the time you spend brooding in living. Life has not promised you a painless tenure on this planet. In fact, Life promises you nothing. So when you experience pain, which is natural and likely to happen several times in your lifetime, don’t resist it. Resisting is pointless. It is the resisting that causes suffering. Pain is just pain. Suffering arises when you wish that there is no pain. Drop that wish and bingo, all your suffering vanishes! Instantaneously, just like that! So, at one level, since your birth is choice-less and since you have no control over what happens to you in Life, it may appear that there really is no purpose to your creation. But if you look beyond just yourself, you will see how purposeful your Life can actually be. If you can share what you have with people around you – with those who need your love, your compassion, your understanding, your time, your knowledge, your talent or perhaps your money – you can make a difference to their lives. And that way your Life becomes useful. But even if you don’t want to touch another Life and just want to live all by yourself, Life’s beautiful when you stop imposing conditions on your Life and drop all expectations.

Life is beautiful as it is. The way it is. To see its beauty, to experience Life’s magic, you must let go of your urge to intellectualize it. You cannot make any meaning out of Life by applying reason and logic to it. It is an experience. And an experience is gone through, it is felt, it cannot be explained or understood. Every experience that you go through, whether you want it or not, teaches you something new about Life. And through your learning, consistently and continuously, you appreciate Life better.

In the face of Life’s trials and challenges, don’t think of death as an option. It is not. The important thing to remember is that very often, what you don’t want will arrive in your Life. You can’t get rid of it by wishing it weren’t there. The more you wish that way, the more you will suffer. But you can avoid suffering, if you simply accept Life for what it is. If possible, and if you are up to it, make a difference to another Life. In a choice-less Life, this is the only choice you have. And when you exercise it, not only do you encounter inner peace, you also prevent your mind from imagining absurd, morbid perspectives!

Pause to celebrate the presence of those who make your each day count

Life is an opportunity to love and be loved. That’s what makes living so special!

N.Ramachandran (extreme left) at Sochi
Picture Courtesy: The Hindu/Internet

Yesterday I was at an Awards function. One of the awardees was the newly-elected President of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) N.Ramachandran. He was feted with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Indian sports (other than cricket) including introducing Triathlon events in India, building Squash as a sport in India and helping India regain its official status at the Olympics. Ramachandran’s election as IOA’s President led to the Indian Tricolor being unfurled at the closing ceremony of the Sochi Olympics. But it was not Ramachandran, the sports administrator that I admired last evening. It was Ramchandran the man, the father who touched my heart. In his acceptance speech, Ramachandran thanked his family, his wife, his son and his daughter, without whose support, he said, he would not have been able to do all that he did. He said his son and daughter-in-law were not able to make it to the event. Then he called out to his daughter.

“Bubbles, are you there,” he asked.

“Ya….,” came the reply. We all turned in the direction from where the reply had come from. And there she was – a young lady, specially-abled, cheering lustily for her dad. She was truly overjoyed that her father was given the award and equally delighted that she had been called out by him in his speech. It was a poignant moment. An achiever, a busy industrialist, pauses to thank his family and then celebrates the presence of his special child in the audience and thanks her for her support in his Life. I have not known too many people to be able to do that – which is to include members in their family who are special in the mainstream of their social Life.

That moment was a lesson in humility, love and living. We all get so obsessed with the rush of our daily lives that we sometimes don’t consider the contributions of so many people that make each day count for us. As we grow in our careers and, often times, encounter success and fame, we may get carried away that it’s all been caused a lot by our own intentions and efforts. But if we care to pause and reflect, there would be so much support that has come to us from those who have backed us silently – sometimes with just their presence. That presence is love. And recognizing and celebrating that presence is what Life is all about!

Stop Complaining. Start Living!

Be eternally grateful for this Life and this experience! Life is a mixed bag. You often will get what you don’t want. And you will also often get what you didn’t expect. Every which way though the best you can do to be anchored in peace is to be grateful for whatever happens to you, for whatever you get!

Zen practitioners advise using this mantra in all contexts: “Thank you for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever!” This may not appeal to most people instantaneously because when you are caught in the throes of your everyday challenges, the last thing on your mind is gratitude. And this Zen practice seems almost escapist – as if you are choosing to deny what is, to deny reality! But if you examine Life closely, you will appreciate that there is no other way to respond to Life than with gratitude. Being thankful is the only way to live peacefully. And if you live without being grateful, for everything that’s given to you in each moment, you will never be in peace.

The human mind always craves for what is not there. And rarely appreciates what is there. Look at you: don’t you bemoan scarcity all the time, rarely celebrating the abundance in your Life? Years of living like this have conditioned you to miss the opportunity in gratitude. To break free from this self-defeating attitude, do a simple exercise. Make a list of all, absolutely ALL, the things that you are grateful for in Life. And make another list of what’s not there, what you miss, in your Life. Now, do a dispassionate assessment asking yourself: Do you really think what you miss outweighs what you have?  What you will discover through this exercise is the power in the Zen mantra we discussed above.

You will then conclude that the best way to live is to simple be thankful for everything that Life’s given you. And you too will stop complaining and start living!  

The only part of Life worth living is … LIVING!

Throw yourself into the game and don’t worry about the outcome. If it is ordained for you, it will happen the way you visualize it. If it is not, you will not get what you want. Either way, immerse yourself in the game of Life and banish all thoughts on what may be, what will be, what would be and what could be.

Almost all the time, all of us miss the joy of living. We have been conditioned to think that an integral part of Life is winning. The truth is the only part of Life worth living is LIVING! Because what happens to or with us__to you, to me__is not in our hands. But what we do when whatever happens to us is surely in our hands.

Why then do we struggle with living?

Simple: because our entire upbringing and our whole education system is focused on winning. Now, when you focus on winning, it is a foregone conclusion that ONLY one person will win. That leaves the rest of the competition whining. There’s no teacher, no school, no system that ensures that the one who tries to compete, the one who plays the game, the one who makes an effort to win, is celebrated. If you take a country like India, our traffic sense will tell you what we are as a nation. Everyone is in the business of getting ahead of the others. There is no decorum on the road, nobody has any sensitivity and at the end of this mindless charade, people, the ones who manage to get ahead, actually feel they have ‘arrived’, while those who have been edged past feel they have been at a game they did not play or did not want to play. So it is with the way we live. Which is why we struggle.

Vijay Natesan

I met a young mridangam (a percussion instrument we play in south India) artist Vijay Natesan recently. I had seen him play on stage a few times. Last November, I had seen him play with the 80-year-old maestro T V Gopalakrishnan (TVG) at the Music Academy in Chennai. That performance has stayed in my mind because I found that TVG and a posse of mridangam artists were not behaving as if they were performing to a packed auditorium. They were playing their instruments as if they were in a living room and jamming with each other. So, when I met Natesan last week, I asked him how is it that they managed to have so much fun while playing in the professional circuit? He replied: “Sir, we play because we are having fun! We never play to impress. This has been our training.” This, said Natesan, was the first and the biggest learning, his guru, TVG, had imparted in him. “TVG Sir would say, when on stage, simply freak out. Don’t worry. Don’t think. Just play. Enjoy yourself. If you enjoy yourself, you can be assured that the audience is enjoying your performance. If you worry or wonder if the audience is enjoying, you will make a hash of it. So, just play your guts out every time you play.”

Please note the nuance in Natesan’s recollection of his guru’s advice. Play your guts out every time you play. TVG did not use the word ‘perform’. Both times he said ‘play’. This is our key learning.

Are you living or are you making a show of living? If you are making a show of living, you are sure to be disappointed, because you are not living for yourself. You are living for audience approval. And as long as you live for someone else’s approval (big difference from living for others’ – subject of another thought altogether) you will find that it is unlikely you will be able to satisfy everyone in the audience. Someone, somewhere will always be upset with you. And you will spend a lifetime trying to please that someone. Instead, just live your Life. Enjoy the game. Of living. Live fully. Because, unlike in Natesan’s case, you will NOT get a second chance at playing (living) the game!

No experience is ever wasted!

No trial, pain or experience is ever a waste of your time or effort!

As we grow in Life it is our experiences that make us who we are. Many a time we are having to involve ourselves in doing things that seemingly have little or no meaning or relevance then. After all pain happens only when something you don’t want presents itself in your Life! So when we endure pain, we wonder why it had to be happening to us in the first place? We therefore resist that ‘uninvited’ experience. Our resistance plunges us into sorrow and depression. But if you look back at your Life so far, all that you have been through is what has made you who you are. Your real education happened in Life, and continues to happen now too, ONLY through the myriad experiences you have had.

I learnt this lesson the hard way too.

Almost two decades ago, I worked as the Executive Assistant to India’s pioneering telecom entrepreneur. This person prides himself to be the richest Tamilian in the world. I had quit a fairly successful media career to join him as his EA in Singapore. An EA’s role is actually one that involves a lot of planning, strategizing, reporting and number-crunching, while leading projects and, often, crisis management efforts. In the normal course, good EAs, to great Chairmen or organizational leaders, in about a decade, graduate to running those organizations themselves. After all, the EA would have learned so much about leadership and management, at the feet of the leader!

I had such a vision for myself as I took up my position at Singapore. I was barely 27 then.

But I was in for a shock. The man turned out to be brute at work. He paid me well, no doubt. But flogged me to work for 20 hours a day. I had to travel with him around the world. Living out of a suitcase. He was both impulsive and abusive. So, we would have barely landed in a country, a new city and checked into a hotel. But he would want the next morning’s flight out. He was never organized. And I was just the opposite. I liked, and still do, to have a daily list of tasks, maintain schedules and preferred quiet periods where I could sit and work on minutes of meetings, whet contractual documentation and create value for my boss and our organization. We were at that point working on two projects that would__and eventually did__revolutionize India. One was the introduction of cellular telephony and the other was introduction of Direct To Home TV broadcasting __ both through new legislations in India’s Parliament. My boss was a maverick, deal maker. He was not an institution builder. He liked to get businesses off the ground, often corrupting powers that be in the process, and then sell them to larger business houses for a profit.

Initially, I suffered the grueling schedule, the inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies believing it to be a learning experience. Traveling different time zones each week, managing a non-stop 20-hour day, daily, for over 18 months, non-stop, was indeed a learning experience.

But slowly I began to hate my work. Because it made no sense to be on tenter-hooks at the time. I lived by the edge literally. I had to always be around my boss. Despite all my preparation, I would fail. Because he had this knack of asking for the one thing I had not thought of or prepared for! He had, in addition to my responsibilities as his EA, also loaded me with responsibilities that normally have to be handled by a personal assistant. So, here I was, in one moment sitting in meetings with satellite manufacturers, or equity funds or global telecom players, and at another moment rushing to get his tickets confirmed or buying him coffee or Aspirin. Since he maintained no laptop, or email or papers himself, I had to make sure our documentation was perfect. And where was the time to do any documentation when you spend 20 hours on your feet each day? My boss invested in stocks heavily across the world. So, he slept for one hour spells during the day or night, depending on which stock market he was tracking that day. But never beyond an hour at a time. That hour, I could not sleep. I used that golden hour of peace and quiet to complete documentation, struggle with sending mails (email was so new at that time: Hotmail was not yet born!) and faxes. And I had no help.

I could notice that my efficiency was clearly suffering. I was losing hair and gaining weight. I tried broaching the subject of working in a more organized manner with my boss. But he would only get more abusive. He would shout expletives at me. It was very embarrassing. And it affected my self-esteem gravely. So, I started fearing speaking to him. Soon, I became a robot, just executing orders. Within me, I was grieving though. It was humiliating and frustrating.

One day, I walked into a meeting at Singapore, that I had coordinated, at the Ritz Carton Hotel’s Presidential Suite (where my boss was staying). I lived in the mini suite opposite to his. The meeting was between my boss and the Chairman of one of the largest business houses in India. My boss asked me for a set of papers which were not part of the agenda being discussed. In fact, they were completely unconnected with this business group we were meeting. I explained to him that I had had no time to prepare them and intended to get them ready shortly.

He shouted at me, in front of our visitors: “Punnakku! Thevidiya Payan. You are both stupid and foolish!” 'Punnakku' means ‘cow fodder’ and ‘Thevidiya Payan’ means ‘son of a whore’ in Tamizh. Both the Chairman of the business group visiting us and his CFO, who was part of the meeting too, knew Tamizh very well.

I felt like a worm. I quit that day. And took a flight back home. It took two months of sleeping entire days and much caring by my loving wife to recuperate from that traumatic experience. In the months that followed, even as my boss tried making peace with me and tried wooing me back, I wondered what a horrible waste of time this whole stint had been. I did not see any reason why I should have been paid so highly and treated so poorly. I did not understand why despite my integrity and ethics-based value systems I had to go through what I went through. I grieved struggling to make sense of the whole experience.

To be sure, at that time, I couldn’t understand it at all.

But over the years, with newer experiences coming in my way, I can see how that stint with the man, those 24 months,  had prepared me to deal with Life better.

1.   His temperamental and abusive nature have made me stronger. I have learned to face 

      and deal with any amount of irrational, unreasonable criticism.

2.  The 20-hour work days, not knowing what will hit you from where, have made me prepare meticulously. Sometimes, people around me think I am very paranoid. I am not really paranoid as much as I am usually well prepared.

3. The grief and the trauma I went through, when I was socked and beaten up, metaphorically, each day, have made me, despite all my preparation, to accept the bizarre turns Life can take at times. So, nothing really surprises or shocks me anymore!

4.   And being his EA and PA have made me, hopefully, a very adept crisis manager.

5.  All that crazy international travel have made me a road warrior. I can survive in any condition, in any airport, anywhere in the world! And I have learned to love travel and make my hotel rooms my home where I find peace and sleep the moment I hit the pillow!

I am claiming all of this with all humility. Because I am still learning each day from each new experience. But, without doubt, without that experience I wouldn’t be half as tough a person that I am today.

I met my former boss, many years later, in the lobby of the Mumbai Taj, at the Gateway of India. I held his hand and thanked him profusely for the experience. I said, “Without you, I wouldn’t be the AVIS I am today.” He was startled, but gave me a hug and invited me to stay in touch!

So, don’t resist what you are going through. Everything happens for a reason. If we knew the reason before hand, we would end up intellectualizing the experience. Like the way we intellectualize our academic syllabi through school or college. Life is a hard teacher, as someone said. Because she always gives the test first and the lesson later. Simply, accept and love whatever you are going through. Because it is preparing you for what you will have to live through! With each new experience, you can only get better with living this Life better!