More of What?

18 hours a day are no more enough

You wish you had twenty eight.

Two hands seem like a limitation.

 

For consecutive years of growth

And comfort beyond your 22 year old dreams

At 40 is a mere stepping stone 

To bigger things

 

More?

Of the same?

That could take care of 15 of you and never needs to?

 

Or of time?

And of sane lives and happy faces around you.

That you might have not caused, but did not disrupt either?

 

Of little important things

That make your live your debt to the future a little

Not just in preparation of securing it against unknown yet terrible fears?

 

Of unimportant meetings

Of unproductive investments into unfocused relationships with random people

That in the end count not because they work out for you

But because they happened.

 

Maybe you have a meaning, or a purpose

Maybe you don't

 

But just the chasing of 

The next adjective, noun that starts to own you and the meaning

Because it appreared on the horizon

And took complete control of you

 

Is that it?

Priorities

A pal of mine in a very senior position recently decided that work was sucking too much out of him, and decided to (at least) take a sabbatical and spent time with the family. He put in his papers last week.

 

Guess what the reaction of his boss - the guy who heads the company was?

 

1. Instill fear - "How will you manage your cashflows after a couple of months?"
2. I don't know how to put this - "You can at most spend 5-10 minutes with the family. What'll you do for the rest of the day?"

 

Questions about one's own health, interests, growth as a human being etc never entered the conversation.

 

My friend works at a staffing/outsourced HR outfit. And his boss used to head HR at an MNC earlier!!

 

There is a lot of sickness in what we call our "workplace". Its certainly not a healthy place anymore. There's too much money, too much greed, and too much emphasis on grabbing more and fear of not being able to.

 

Thankfully, the conversation hammered home this truth in my friend's head. "The whole 'quality time' crap is a corporate invention, Sameer", he says. "Bulls**t, you just need to spend time - yes - quantity - with your family, near and dear ones, friends."

 

True. Which do we do for which?

Time. And Money.

For a while now, I've been mentioning to people that for the next raise/job change, they could ask for the hike/ compensation partly in time. After all, we all repeat sooo often that age old adage - time is money - that its time we put some money where our time is :)

(Image Credit)

Here's a good one I read in the context of some very very compelling reasons to take up cycling :

"...why spend loads of time working to pay for the car to get to work to pay for the car"

What you choose to do with that time is then the next question. It could be spent on places you've wanted to go to, books you wanted to read, or relearning how to play the guitar, or even just spending more time with your kids (at least till such time that they tolerate your company :) ) You could finally start executing on those amazing ideas you've had. You could go back to school to acquire some additional skills!

How ? A few hours a day ? An extra day a week ? A few months a year ? Different jobs will suit different plans. And it also depends on what you want to do - you can hardly do that trans-Himalayan-unsupported-trek a few hours a week.

The really really tough one is to have a somewhat clear understanding of your financial situation, and the discipline to arrive at an appropriate tradeoff between Time and Money, the two parts to that whole equation. You'll need to fund the "time-off", plus the thing you want to do during that time. But usually, we can, and just go overboard on the "need more" front. More often than not, we're not too clear on how much of the latter we need/want/can use, and end up overstocking on, at the cost of the former. Its just a way of playing safe.

But safe isn't fun, is it ?

Update:

Right after the post - read this. Slightly unrelated, but appropriate :) Cannot say this has not crossed my mind! Oh, the strength....

Update #2:

Just saw this (recvd thru a tweet). Can't agree more. And for all of those - you need to invest - time!