Mail#1
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I have a rhetoric question for all of us here. Take a minute, think abt it, and write a few words in return if you can.
- Are you happy with leading the life as you are? As in going to work, working for someone else, spending the well-earned money on frivolous things and deriving great happiness out of small things, etc, etc.
- What are your dreams? What do u want to do with life?
I for one, though happy with my life, still feel there is something else out there. For instance, i want to take up gardening and tarot reading very seriously. for some reason, everywhere i turn, i stumble upon gardens. So I am planning to take up a horitculture course sometime soonn if things go well :) Who knows, maybe i will quit work, hire a vacant land, and start a nursery some day :) And thats the most impossible thing that can happen in my life. I would be delighted i think if such a thing happens. So unfathomable a change. yet so delightful to me - even in thought :) Can you think of something life that? which is so un fathomable but yet a slim possibility for that exists - which will definitely make you happy........
Write back guys :)
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Mail#2 - Reply from Mr.X
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Before I answer ur question, ponder over this question….. (Actually I hate whatever I have written…but this is what my alter-ego asks me all the time )
Assume in a year or two, you quit your job, buy a nursery and start gardening and also become an expert tarot reader. Lets say all your family is extremely supportive and happy about ur decision and also there are no financial or emotional issues due to your change in track.
Now after all this, after a couple of years, lets say you start realizing that gardening or tarot reading is NOT what you wanted to do…..you get bored of doing it….and you also see all your friends and colleagues as managers leading big teams, doing highly complex work and travelling places and you realize leading a dynamic team, facing and solving complex issues and working under pressure is what you really wanted…that is what actually gave you an adrenaline kick and fulfillment which gardening or tarot never gave you…… Then what would you do?
“The Alchemist” says that the real discovery of the treasure was the journey itself, and the knowledge and findings acquired during the journey. The man finally realized that the treasure was right in his backyard and he finally comes back to acquire the treasure…..
But in your case, even after all the gardening and tarot reading (being the journey to find happiness) you finally realize that the “treasure” you really wanted was to lead people in a big organization and be on top of the ladder, would you be able to come back to the treasure????….if you take a break from your work for 2-3 years, would the company you work for ever take you back at a level to make you lead people? And even if you do join back, wont the people working with you now, be working above you when you come back? Wouldn’t that give a feeling that the treasure is lost forever?
They say "Treasure lies where your heart belongs"…..but the important question is “Would we ever know for sure where our heart belong?”
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Mail#3 - Reply to reply
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I'm glad you brought up that question. Thank you for trying to play the devil's advocate.
Now here's my reply.
I've got two answers to your question. The first answer is the most simple one and is something that the general janta will find easier to digest – perhaps thinking "ha! Finally! She gets off her high horse!" And the second answer is what my ego will force me to write shortly. Without further ado….
The simple answer:
I will regret what I did – that is leaving my current occupation and going after a fancy. There are two possibilities – I would either return back to the grind mill, plead and beg without appearing to, to dumb bosses to bring me up to the level, and try to get a semblance of what I had previously. Yes, every day I will dream of the colleagues, who were working as my equals but who are superior to me now, dying in mysterious accidents or getting involved in tragic incidents, rendered unable to return to work. Voila, I step up to fill their shoes. Justice restored. Or I will toil extra hard till I reach at least a level (which naturally would have come down!) I feel that befits me. I will write off the two years of gardening/tarot to experience – no one to blame. I will die happy, knowing that I had the courage to return back after my mistakes, and I will ask my daughter to pass on the proud story of her mom to all the future generations.
The other possibility of course is a sad one. My ego wouldn't let me return to the familiar world at such a disadvantaged position. My ego will cry, "life is unfair" and I will continue to brood all my life. I will tire of gardening and one fine day, I will write you all a mail posing the same rhetoric question – only this time, the gardening might become…any wild guesses? Yep, writing! I will tell you all that I knew all along that writing was my true calling but that gardening was something I just had to try. I will try to forget I ever liked the grind mill….. I will try my hands at a hundred million things including writing and will keep posing rhetoric question to all the souls within shouting distance, with an evil hidden intention of bringing the same unease into their life. I will ask them, "Are you really doing what you want to do?" and I will be satisfied even if they spare a minute thinking of an answer. I will blame myself my entire life and die totally unsatisfied that I failed to follow my dream.
Now, for the other answer – which my ego shall write. Apologies if I offend anyone here.
Mr.X, how conveniently you have sidestepped my question. Applauses!
Though admittedly your retort does make me squirm uncomfortably for a minute or so, it essentially lacks one main ingredient – the insight into my brain and complete life experiences– the knowledge of what makes me tick and what makes me mad; the knowledge of my strong desires and even stronger denials, the entire works…
So for the benefit of all, I shall reveal something that you may all not have really cared to know about – but I insist – and you are forced to read - that I never ever return to my past. It is not a matter of ego. No sir, it is just the way my personality is. And I do not regret. If I had given up anything midway in my life, I firmly stand by the decision of my past self and believe that she did what she did for the good. And I shall forever forgo that particular treasure in my back yard. No regrets whatsoever. And I have all those people and circumstances that make up my past to thank for – for making me what I am today.
That brings me to the next blip in the smooth screen you have painted. Your email seems to portray that everyone has access to only ONE treasure. One true calling. And that there is only one place your heart can belong. According to my beliefs, that is absolutely not correct. Your fundamental assumption that there is only one treasure makes the entire scenario oh so two dimensional. Where is the third, fourth or the other million possible dimensions? What of them? Or at least what of their concept? Ya, I forgo one particularly beautiful treasure through my action but I am so sure that there are millions more equivalent such treasures out there in my back yard or why back yard, out there anywhere in the world. And when I realize that I have forever destroyed that one particular treasure in my backyard when I was ploughing the ground to create my garden, I shall stand still for a moment in my life surrounded by absolute silence, and regret for just one heavy moment. I will cry, I will weep, I will mourn and I will grieve. Then I will come out of that silence. I shall stand tall again and I will become oh so happy. My experiences, and my mistakes, have made me better today than what I was yesterday and I will be glad of them. I shall cheerfully carry along, with no regrets whatsoever, and no thought spared on the treasure lost, and go in search of the other treasures. Maybe, I will forgo all but the millionth treasure but I will have hope that there is still one left. I go on. Life goes on.
Would we ever know for sure where our heart belong? No, we won't. We can only live for the moment and hope idiots like me and you stop asking questions that cause but the most minutest blips in this vast universe. We just carry on. And for entertainment, we restore to drafting emails as long as this one that makes the ego go "ummmmmmmmm".
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