Postcards From J

There's a fine line between joking with someone and targetted harassment. Never forget that.  ~j~

So many things: Desperately need to hire talent. Good Great talent. People who can write... Write well. Without silly mistakes. Grammatically correct sentences. No typos. Relevant punctuation. Find my life's calling. Or have I found it already? Travel. A bit of a distant dream at the moment, but need to plan and figure this out for 2012. Write. Nay, attempt serious writing. About experiences, work, business, social media, my observations. Too unsure about this. Travel *and* write? Get going. Make the time. Take a leap of faith. Get rid of the exhaustion. Meet more people. Learn from them. Look for alternatives. Turn those crazy ideas into actual concrete plans. Words swimming in my head. And these words need to become actions. Strong actions. No apology. No regrets.

"Go for hurried baths, and then forget all about hurrying. Take midnight showers. Turn off the light and stand in the water." These words by Natasha Badhwar in one of her parenting columns keep turning up in my head every now and then. Even though I'm not a parent, I love the way she writes and I can still relate to most things she writes about. Coming back to the quote above, I generally end up taking midnight showers because I get home quite late and I quite like feeling clean before I can nod off to sleep. But tonight was only the second time I switched off the lights while taking a shower. The first time, it felt great, peaceful and relaxing. And last night as well. Except that I had an A-HA moment too where I learnt... 1. The darkness reduced the noise which all that artificial lighting brings. The only light I had was the hazy streetlight outside diffused by the frosted glass strips on the bathroom window. 2. I felt more aware of where things were...

... of being brave. ... of having to tackle so many different things AND being expected to succeed at all of them. ... of expectation.   ... of no expectation. ... of being the go-to girl. ... of the potholes in Aarey that make my back ache. ... of noise, pollution, filth, humans. ... of not being able to run for a train like I used to since three and a half months. ... of feeling too scared to walk quickly, leave alone run. ... of being taken for granted. Every effing time. ... of playing too safe. ... of making travel plans in my head.  ... of dreaming too small. ... of giving. And forgiving. ... of well-meaning "advice" (go to the ortho; get your thyroid checked; lose weight; stop eating junk; don't work so many hours; don't socialise so much; save money; get married). ... of life. Soon. Sent from my iPod Touch

I'm not whining or being philosophical... But trust me, the last few days have only confirmed the fact that corporate life is shit. At the end of the day, what are you going to do with it?  We spend most of our lives in cubicles, behind a desk, in front of a screen. Or attending meetings or getting on a conference call. Throw buzz words around as if they mattered... 'paradigm shift', 'leverage', anyone? Try multitasking sometimes with success and sometimes failing miserably. Juggle Excel and PowerPoint files. Write emails. Receive emails. Copy a zillion people on those emails. Conduct wars virtually. Sometimes, we procrastinate. Either out of boredom or choice. Or lured by other addictions like Facebook and Twitter (ah!). Or check airfares and daydream about that next holiday you were meaning to take. Whatever it is, I've been wondering why the hell am I doing this day in and day out? There are people out there who have managed to change all this for themselv...

About 4-5 days ago, on January 20th to be precise, I accomplished a milestone of sorts: seven years of work experience. And on January 8th, I had completed three years at my current workplace which has been my single longest tenure anywhere.* I'm not a job-hopper, mind you. First job: 1 year, 8 months. Second: 2 years, 3 months, 23 days... That's not so bad, right? But as I completed my third year at Company no. 3, I heard a little voice inside that's asking me to get out and do something. Something new, different, creative, wild even. No, that didn't include looking for another job. But more on the lines of a "sabbatical." Our parents' generation would shudder at the idea of one after "only" seven years of working. They probably don't even know the "s" word exists in the dictionary considering their long-serving stints working at one and the same place. So, am I taking a longggggg break? Hell, no! Not at this stage at least. ...