The Past, The Present and The Future

The other day I was getting all sentimental about my days in Infosys, Chennai when I lived with college buddies.

Life seemed so good and uncomplicated when even the smallest things could give you happiness!

In contrast today, am I happier?

The problem with life is that we never understand what is fun and what is not. The future and the past both look great but the present always sucks.

I remember very clearly it was one of those typical hot, sticky and humid days of the Chennai summer. And as usual me and my friends were sprawled in our flat cribbing about life. The discussion was on the lines of – all we do is go to office, eat some sad breakfast, work for some shit head project leader, come home in one of those shitty buses and sleep. Life seemed to be at the verge of frustration. And our collective opinion at that point of time was that we must be in a position where we do some “intelligent” work, where we don’t work under empty headed managers.

Everybody agreed that we ought to work towards something better.

In a way all of us are in a process of achieving just that. In a few months I will be a manager with the power to actual affect the lives of a couple of hundred people with just one decision of mine. My friends who are still in IT will be leading project teams back home or onsite and similarly for other people.

But life is not going to be easy, I am going to feel the heat and sweat under the pressure of unrealistic sales targets, my friends in IT will put in entire nights to meet impossible delivery schedules.

Success will claim it’s price. Each of these responsibilities will be soak the life blood out of us.

When I say all this, the life of a fresh software programmer sounds great, just code your piece of shit and go home, no tensions in life whatsoever. At home I am free to crib about my project / module leader and then I can go to my favorite pub (Shastri Nagar Sharks used to our favorite pub!) and have a drink without a care of what is going to happen to my project. All I am answerable for is a missed delivery tomorrow – and in the bigger scheme of things, who cares a crap!

Drink, blabber, watch late night movies shows and crash with a relaxed brain.

Indeed that was THE life, simple, sweet and contained.

No shortage of friends, pals.

But life goes on.

Also maybe the simple life is no good – the fact is that man is never satisfied.

And as Douglas Adams puts it:

‘The other Sheltenack’s jupleberry shrub is always a more mauvey shade of pinky russet’

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I know I am going wrong somewhere here. This is not the way it's supposed to be. There is more to life! It's not all self defeating as I have made it out to be :-(

There is much more to life than our f****d up boss. We were wrong and misguided in Chennai because we all thought that our lives were what our jobs are – which is all balls – you cannot live one happy moment if we think like that.

If we start with the thought that the present sucks – then obviously the past and the future will look promising!

But if we start with the premise that the present is fun and glorious, then the past automatically becomes fun and if you are an optimist, the future looks great too!

We need to find surrogates for happiness – such as friends, family, marriage, Kingfisher draught, emails, phone calls and movies!

The 3 Fs that you need to be happy: Fun, Friends and Family!

I think if we assume that work is the be all and end all of our existence – then life is screwed big time.

Moral of the Story:

1. As a bachelor, try and live with someone who does not work in the same company / sector as you. Living with people with similar jobs is the surest ways of making work a part of your life!

2. Always have a friend circle that is beyond people with the same background as you.

This way nothing can come between you and what you enjoy and love – family, friends and fun.
Otherwise your boss becomes important in life and he overrides me, your spouse and KF.