Your time ahead will eventually be Worthy

When we buy a new gadget or upgrade to the next version, all we want to do is simplify the existing process. For instance, you upgrade from ordinary mobile phones to hand held PDA’s to simplify your work life. Advancement in any front is only to better the existing condition. But have you noticed how we have advanced from age 1 to where we are now but have not bettered our condition? In fact worsened it? I wonder how this could alone be contradicting with the Law of Nature!  From Standard 1 to Standard 10, we got better at Science; From PC’s to Laptops, we got better at computers; From some small village to a metropolitan, we bettered our life style; But from Birth to this point!!! God damn it, we have screwed up the whole system!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe analysing things from the smallest and commonest details possible to find solutions for a complex problem. So let me take a simple instance (rather silly (for now)), and try to extrapolate to find a solution for this contradiction.

I remember using Windows 98 in my class 6. That is when I actually knew what an OS was. When computer itself was a big fantasy back then, not so lucrative GUI and response time delays did not seem a factor at all. I was awe struck when I could type ABCD, draw circles, watch videos, listen to music and do all this exactly where I was sitting and in exactly one small box right in front of me!!! It was awesome! But sooner complaints started pouring in, all the other schools had something called Windows 2000 but we are still with the same old system. People who were earlier mesmerized by what this ’98 did were suddenly gobbing at it. Even I felt my school was way beyond in technology. As days went by, there was a sudden buzz around the school of OS being upgraded to Windows 2000. I feared my practical exams, as I have prepared well in the existing OS and the new one could prove a nightmare for me. A friend of mine who just joined me at class 10 did not seem to be too disturbed by this switch over. When I asked him he said, “I am going to see a computer for the first time in my life, so it does not make a big difference”. Gosh, the fact that I was exposed to computers is going to kill me!! And the fact that he was not is going to save him! It was very paradoxical. When I sat for my first practical hour in front of the Windows 2000, as the system was booting my heart was thumping as if the screen is going to throw a monster at me. To my surprise, it was same old login box, same old start button and the screens kept popping up which were so much familiar to me. Not to mention, yes it was a bit more colourful and I was able to handle things easier than I used to (Back then, did not understand that it was the improved user friendliness that let me do it). Just then the thought of this friend of mine sprouted out, I turned back and saw him being tutored by my teacher as to how things had to be done.

Might look a silly story, but let’s take the insights from it and see if it is still silly. Foremost, when we get to a higher position in life, if we had mastered our previous situations and have got ready for the advancement, we would not feel the transition so painful. When we are not ready to carry ourselves, if we marry and accept to carry another soul, then it is real problems. Next, appreciate what you have rather than mourning over it. All that is happening at the present is only for my good and I am learning each second through what I am doing. It is not always the big things that are important, smaller details might not weigh more, but matter most. Then, do not fear anything out of your premonitions. 99% of the time what you fear is the surest thing not to happen. For that 1% probability we lose 100% of ourselves and fail to enjoy the time in-between. Saying this, I recall this quote “Never borrow from the future. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and if does not happen, you have worried in vain. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice.”

Before vying for any new improvements let us learn to enjoy the present and live it with an attitude of learning as much as we can. If the improvement we expect is not happening, it means we are not prepared, as much as we should we have, to accommodate the new level. Yes, we all want to become Managers as soon as possible and struggling for it, we are not living the grade we are at now; we are chasing it to reach there. When you become a manager, you will chase it for becoming the General Manager. Never can you live like that, but end up only wasting it on wanting to live, just as we chased our school life to get into a college as soon as possible. Touch your heart and see how much it longs for those dead and buried school days. We can never get back even a day of it; same applies to your day today. And when the improvement is finally happening, let us be confident enough to handle it, only the enjoyment of our previous experiences will give us that. Your time right now is worth living and so your time ahead will eventually be worthy.

And the most important lesson – No story is silly ;-) There is a lot to analyse, learn, retrospect and communicate; no matter what.