“Everyone is someone”
It’s the sunny side down for the writer in me today! Maybe my beliefs in the ways of the world stand a little shaken today, maybe I am being over reactive, maybe I am mistaking a part of life as a whole or I may be looking for logical answers or maybe answers that I possibly want to hear……..
Devotion, they say, is a “different level of intelligence”…..probably the kind only a devotee can experience, be it in his academics, work, prayers or life. This is what I learned to believe in the past two years of my life as I witnessed true devotion towards work. Although, typical to my nature I would voice it more than often as an obsession towards work and compromise with family. My constant complain would be “make time, give time, take time out, win time, passing time ” and all of it would eventually melt when I would see the devotion and pride in the work assigned. The constant endeavour to rise above hostility of the land and achieve perfection, the sharp watch on the frontline action, the deadlines and the curving graphs, I have witnessed extraordinary zeal, and unending motivation.
A home away from home was created; peers and colleagues grew to be friends. Difficulties and hardships faced during the day were sorted solved and at times forgotten over scotch and conversation and phone calls from home and family. It is positive flow of energy, when people work together, architect together and laugh together despite challenges that are thrown every morning. Challenges that put to test courage, strength, weakness and faith. It’s a devotion to build an enduring business for a world of constant change.
It’s a regular weekday evening; the children are at their respective desk, the home in an academic atmosphere. My 17year old boy walks up to me,” hey Mom, can you please draft a recommendation letter for Rutgers?” “Of course, son!” is my reply as I pick my lap top and type the first few words, “appreciable intellectual curiosity”…when my 17year old is back. “Mom, please do not go overboard praising me!” He suggested that instead of using phrases like “appreciable intellectual curiosity” I should use milder phrases like “a keen learner.”
Here I have two men at home, with agile minds, unbridled enthusiasm for learning, yet, who want their work to speak for them. The cut throat ways of the world, where although we talk of healthy competition at school level and working for the larger and wider picture at the workplace, is actually far from it. It is a world, where you have to learn to sell your competence, make yourself heard. Perhaps, we grow up in an academic setting that emphasizes critique over admiration. Perhaps, we feel it’s arrogant — unseemly even — to speak of ourselves with the effusive praise and positivity. As I look at them, as I preach this new mantra to the two men at home, there is something that does not stop disturbing me and that’s what I mean, when I say it’s the “sunny side down for me.”
Academics, profession, competition, success, failure are words all inter linked in some way or the other…..the common thread being the man and the mind. Some of them are hardwired introverts and some exuberant extroverts. So how does the world, which is sold to “the voice” to such great extent, appreciate the introvert, who wants his devotion, agility and dutifulness to speak for itself? Conventional wisdom says that to a great extent extroverts get ahead. They tell people what they think, request the resources they need, ask for raise, and don’t take no for an answer. So what are introverts supposed to do? Will we wake up to appreciate the quiet approach? Is life a Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak?
I hope both the men 43 & 17, who cocoon themselves so often, first learn to appreciate their self worth. Reading through an interesting blog on HBR, I came across these appropriate lines, “And for the love of Pete, don’t be modest — highlight your accomplishments. After all, a person’s track record of success (or a company’s, for that matter) is the single most important factor in determining whether or not they get hired. Because when we are deciding who to hire, promote, or do business with, it turns out that we don’t like the Big Thing nearly as much as we like the Next Big Thing…………”
As I sign out, I write to both , “ Hey it’s time again, time watch, time travel, time to begin, time table, time frame, time to go, time that you grew up, time is being lost
And found again…………”
of mothers and sons........ 