Workaholism

Going through the online edition of Gulf News, found the linked article on Workaholism and the reasons / results that this habit brings across. Very valid points, well researched and factual. A big introspective and a reality check question.

Most of the reasons I found were valid. The desire to grow, the drive to compete, the insecurity in the country, your desire to make money as long as you can, the worry of providing for dependents. Incompentancy in people, the fear of going on leave.. I have seen them all.

I also recall the article on Ranjan Das the young CEO of SAP India who passed away (What killed SAP CEO Ranjan Das and lessons for corporate India) and a thought comes across. He did not fit the profile as has been defined, however work still killed him (Who ever said Hard work never killed any one, was lost out on this). He was certainly not incompetent, nor did he have to worry about providing for dependents.. Rat race.. Probably yes, insecurity.. Probably not... So what drove him to outpeform

As a self admitted workaholic, I could not but find similar traits on some of the points listed. There are many of us, who in our quest to prove ourselves and the the fact that we are not happy to sit on past achievements, have reached a point of wanting to better ourselves.. It starts as a simple game, and then lands into an addiction. Where this line of reality and fiction cross, where we believe that work addiction is equal to hard work one never knows. One can never define. It transgresses all our thoughts, and becomes a part of us..

We go to gatherings, we meet people, we talk about every thing, however at the back of your mind, work is still on. You meet an office colleage outside, invariably work comes to the fore.. Is that addiction? People may have this habit of tuning off once they leave the office premises and not wanting to come to that element until they walk in the next day, however it has been extremely difficult to agree to that point of view. While one cannot simply live on work, one cannot also detach himself from work. After all how many of us, do not think about our personal chores at work? Do we leave them behind? So, can we similarly leave work behind once we leave office?

I am not promoting that we carry our work along, however work being a part of home life is a reality. There are people who have a firm line between the two and you find this more towards the West than the East. Of course as the new generations come up, they too have a similar line of divide between personal life and professional life, and people do not belive in mixing the two.. A fair balance, an excellent divide if we can stick to it and promote this across countries, that heathly people mean a better community and better cultures.

Family Gatherings

I have always been a big fan and a believer of family gatherings.. There is nothing that can replace all family members getting together in one house, with kids running all around, every one yelling, shouting, laughing and having a good time.

Every discussion comes to fore.. Sports / Politics / Stock markets / Business / Gossip / People.. The list is endless.. People come, meet for a few hours and all go back to their homes.. Value.. Priceless.

Why have I brought it up? I have just had two of them in 48 hours and of course with the same people, but still the thrill of it is unimaginable. In this day and age, where we are all so busy with our lives, with the rat race that we are all in, with the targets / achievements that we need to reach at, with work pressures, family & personal committments, we tend to be so self centered around ourselves, that we either do not have the time to think for others (since we are so busy), or have the energy to meet people.

I have over the years gone through a similar phenomenon.. Work has taken so much of a priority, that one does not travel at family functions when they take place back home. Why.. Work !!! No time !!!! Simply not possible..!!! No Leave !!! When I think of it in hindsight, simply excuses.. Result, I have missed a life time of opportunities of seeing so many of my relatives and their kids grow, that should I bump into some of the kids, I would not even know them.. Nor would they know me and I would not expect them to. After all, the effort was not there.

We have a tendency to say that God, your kids have grown.. but did we take the trouble to see them grow. For that matter, how much time do we spend to see our kids grow. With nuclear families, both parents working, children either grow up with maids or with the Microwave and Television. It is unfortunate that in our zeal to ape the west, we have even taken their negatives.. One often hears people in the West taking the Asian culture and trying to bring family values, however we tend to move away from them.

I do consider myself lucky for the very fact that I get an opportunity to meet my families at least once a month and I believe this is very necessary. This is not just to see each other, but more so in my view, for our future generations to remain connected with their roots and cultures, as we tend to grow more and more apart. After all, if there is no family, there is nothing.

Another Year Gone by

Amazing, when you think of it simply.. A day ago you were in 2009.. You are in 2010. A decade has gone, you are a year older, a decade wiser, and you think.. Wow that was fast. It just seemed like yesterday that so many things happened.

It was just a month ago, my cousin got married.. Wow one month old. Already a couple of months that two of my cousins delivered.. One's kids are approaching their first birthday. The other's son had his naming ceremony done. My uncle / aunts / sister, all came down for a celebration, we all enjoyed their company and all went back to their lives. It just seems like yesterday.

It also seems like yesterday that people in my organization left. People took over new jobs. We shifted offices. We changed systems. The worst recession in the history of people was witnessed. Dubai launched a Metro. The tallest building in the world got completed. Every single industry in the world crashed. Finacially the biggest disaster in history. Billions / Trillions gone.. All a year old. Take a breather, how many more can I remember? To be honest, not more than 10 - 15 events. Celebrated New Years Eve, had a ball of a time. Weddings, had a blast, rocked myself out. Gone.

But a question remains.. What did I do so great in 2009, that I can remember in 2010? For that matter, how many of us can remember what we did memorable in 2009? I recall an incident from 3 idiots that Amir Khan tells R Madhavan and Sharmaan Joshi.. Machines are his passion.. He does engineering coz that is a passion for him. Dont do some thing that you dont love. We all go through it. We do our jobs, simply coz they are our jobs. Do we do some thing that we really love.

It could be very small things like simply having time for ourselves. Chasing our hobbies. We cultivate them when we are young, we leave them coz they will not bring in the money. In this rat race, where no one remembers who came second, we go year on year doing the same monotonous things that we do, a few enjoyments here and there, and before we know it, a chunk of our life has gone. We plan to improve it the next year, however we again go through the same rigours and another year goes by. Before we know it, we have spent our entire youth running after a life, that we never got to enjoy. By the time we can enjoy, a lot of moments are gone, and we can only rue for those gone by, never to return.

What are we doing about it? Nothing much, is what I can see. Can we commit to improve our life? After all it is in our hands. I can say yes, but one knows that life being what it is, we will never be able to live it the way we would like to do. But what I can resolve is to commit to make 2010 and this coming decade a better one than the one gone by. Even if it means I get one memorable day.

Happy New Year.

An Abra Trip

The last time I did this, was when I was not driving a car in Dubai. No means of transport, buses were not my forte, taxis were too dammned expensive for daily use, and public transport in Dubai was and is shit. How do you commute.. Welcome to the life line of Dubai, the Abra.

I had vague memories of the Abra as I used to come to Dubai, once in probably five years. No one from Bahrain is interested to come in regularly, any ways. So what ever little you did, you either managed to see it or ride in it.

Move to Dubai, and with limited options and looking around for a job, with a need to even go to Deira, how best do you do it.. Ahaa.. You take a bus to a central point, walk up about 10 minutes to the creek, sit in an old boat running on a motor that runs under your seat, and with half your heart clutched in your hand (the other half in your mouth), you proceed. Five minutes, and you are on the other side. Finish your work, and back again the same way.

Get your licence a few weeks later, a car a couple of months later and bye bye Abra..  A mode of transport unique to Dubai, not used, simply because the car is so convenient. Flash forward, before you know it, a decade has passed and you have not set foot on it.

How did I land up there, simply because my nieces were in town, and we decided a unique experience would be the Abra.. Land up in Dubai, walk up to the creek and bang on.. there you are.. The same boats the same motor mechanism and off you go.. But differences exist..  You do not have the old stones any more.. I distinctly remember jumpingover stones nearly slipping on the wet rock, having no idea for the life of me, whether I would make it to the boat, or slip into the cold water.

Many a person has slipped, has fallen, however with time you overcome these obstacles and become a Pro.. After all with hundreds of people using this mode, and the error ratio below 1%, people were doing it right.

A trip down the creek, from Bur Dubai to the Deira stop and then onwards towards the Floating Bridge, underneath the Maktoum Bridge, with lights shimmering down the distance, it was a sight to behold. Memories flashed, the wind blew in the air, a cool breeze running through your hair, the water splashing across the sides of the boat, and seeing the fast lane running by, while we were using a transport mechanism at 1/10th the speed of the current day.. What can you say?

Words cannot express the feelings that one got, the time gone would never come back, however the memories remain. The blast of a time my nieces and my son had, has no price. A day of care free abandon, a day in the creek, feeling you are in the middle of the Sea, with no care in the world... Oh Dear, where did those days go??