Tag: #bloggingfundamentals

“Man proposes – God disposes”


We may sometimes wonder as to why things don’t go the way we had planned. Some call it destiny, while others divinity. One may neither believe in destiny nor in divinity but it is true that every time life does not take us where we want to go. It may lead us sometimes to a better destination and sometimes not.  

   When things go well for us, we tend to believe that it is all because of our hard work and so on. But, when things go wrong, we are ready to blame God and even others in our life for making life difficult only for us. In my view, it is either of the extremes, which makes it difficult for us to accept life as it comes to us.  

   I do believe that our hard work would normally take us to where we want to go. Hence, it may be a good idea to work hard and be honest in whatever we do to the best of our ability. But sometimes, God may divert our direction to somewhere we do not want to go but may be good for us. One may call this destiny or luck. It does not matter. I think it is our ability to accept things as they evolve and adapt ourselves to the fortunes of life, which would make it easier for us.  

   I have many incidents in my life where I had planned something and something else happened. For instance, I always had a dream of building my home in Bangalore, where I eventually plan to settle down post retirement from work. My job took me to Bangalore in 2005. I bought a flat in 2007 and I thought I had settled down. In 2011, life took a turn in my career and brought me to Mumbai, which I had never planned. I got an exciting job and moved. I still plan to settle in Bangalore. But, this turn in my career and location made me build a beautiful green home of my dreams in Bangalore. Hence, I believe that whatever happens to us is good for us. I am a born optimist and hence believe in this. Of course, when things do not go our way, we may find it difficult to accept the realities of life. But, in hindsight, if we reflect, it may have been good for us too.

   Another incident in my life which turned my destiny was a denial of a promotion way back in 1988. I was not promoted and it really shattered me. I always believed like all of us that I was the most deserving and had worked hard to earn my promotion. When my junior was promoted ahead of me, I felt God was unkind to me. However, today in hindsight, it may have been the best thing to happen in my life. Six years later, I decided to quit a secure public sector job after working there for 14 years and rose in my career as per my dreams. Today life has taken me to where I have always dreamt to be.  

   Thus all these incidents – good or bad may not be planned but it happens. One may call it fate. I would say – ” Man proposes – God disposes”.

S Ramesh Shankar

“Faces”

All of us have different faces, which we display in different phases of our lives.  We even present ourselves differently even in different parts of the day and to different people.

Let us first start with our family lives.  We are enthuisiastic and energetic faces as kids and grow as rebels when we turn teenagers.  We then become responsible adults and then as we grow into parenthood, we tend to forget the child in us.  So, it is almost a full circle in our lives.

If we next move to the work life.  We are eager learners as individual contributors as we commence our career.  As we get promoted as team leaders, we tend to lose our patience and are impatient for results.  We then grow as manager of mangers and thereby tend to drive looking at the rear view mirrors and are not very keen to learn from others or from the circumstances around us.  Thus the face of the same employee transforms from an energetic and enthuisiastic learner to an impatient manager and finally to a conservative leader.

Of course, it is true that all of us do not change all the above ways in our personal or official lives. Some change for the better and some for the worse.  Some of us learn along the way, while others falter and regress.
I think it is human to display different faces in different phases of our lives.  The transformation of our faces are also normal and evolutionary.  It may be worthwhile to reflect how we can adapt ourselves to the changing demand of the environs around us.

I believe all of us learn by experience.  Some of us learn faster than others.  It is better to display different faces in various roles of our lives and life stages than to be faceless.

I assume that if we learn to look at the mirror regularly we may learn to show a similar face under all circumstances .  It may not be the same face at all times but at least similar ones.  If we cannot look at the mirror ourselves regularly, we could try looking at the mirrors shown to us by our family, friends and colleagues.

Lets figure out where the mirror is and keep it clean so that the reflection helps us learn the best at all times from everyone around us.

S Ramesh Shankar

Generation Gap

  All of us grow up in age. But, do we necessarily grow up in life. May be not. I am reminded of an incident, which happened in my life almost two decades back. In India, we have a tradition that when we visit our family or friends during a festival, we buy gifts for them. I was visiting my sister in Delhi to be with her family for Diwali. I decided to go and buy clothes for my sister’s family. So, I went out to the nearest market with my brother in law and my nephew to buy clothes for them. I finished all the purchases. The only one left was for my nephew, who was a teenager. We went up and down many shops. If I chose a blue striped shirt, my nephew would reject it and if he chose a red shirt, I would reject. This happened a few times and then I and my brother in law got fed up. So, I told my nephew that my budget for his gift was Rs 500 and he could take it and buy it himself later. He politely agreed but turned around wanted to share some thing with me. I nodded. He said, if you don’t mind uncle, why don’t you accept that there is a generation gap between us ( myself and his father) and him. Our interests need not necessarily match with his interests. If blue striped shirt was our choice, he could prefer a bright red one and there was nothing wrong. This hit me hard like a slap on my face. I realised that I did not recognise the gap in our generations and I was steadfastly imposing my views on them.

  This was a turning point in my life. I was used to choose clothes for my kids too. But from then on, I only allocated a budget, which I could afford and then let them decide for themselves. In my view, this a good lesson to grow up in life. It may happen to us at home and at work.

   If I look at the work life, I can share another interesting incident. This time I was learning to respect the wishes and interests of a generation older than me. I was posted in a factory and my room was facing a beautiful garden. I decided to turn my table and put my chair in a such a way that I could admire the greenery of the garden. My seniors ( CEO & CFO) came to my room and personally lifted the table and chair and put it back in its original direction. When I told them that I was keen in admiring the garden, they told me that as per Vaastu( Indian science for architecture) that was not ok. As far as possible managers and leaders should face the north while sitting in office and hence I cannot change the direction of my table and chair since it would face south. I was not a great believer of Vaastu at that stage of my career, but I respected the belief of my seniors and reluctantly accepted their advice. Today, if Ilook back I realize there is science in Vaastu and hence may be they had reasons for their choices.

   My learning from both the above incidents is that we have to respect the views of all generations and have the humility to accept that their view could be different than yours. It could be from a generation younger than you or older than you. That does not matter. What matters is our ability to respect the views of all generations and our magnanimity to accept and adopt it. Of course, we could agree to disagree also.

   It is time to realise that we could learn from all generations and the earlier we realise it the faster we grow up in life.

  S Ramesh Shankar