Nope , the lengthy title of this post has nothing to do with my previous rant about length of the blog posts. It is inspired by this one:
On a more serious note , I have grown to resent milestones , anniversaries (just the work ones I promise 😏) and long vacations. I think that is a side effect of the tumultuous 30s. You know why? Because when one is so enagaged with the daily work , you do not tend to think about how to break out of the rut. It is like having blinders on , you just do not have peripheral vision. But these milestones and vacations tend to exactly do that - give you time and space for retrospection. You start thinking about the past , what you wanted to be a decade back and the unsettling feeling that this is what life is pretty much about to be in the future. When you are in the 20s , you seem to have infinite ideas, options , energy and hope. As you grow older , you see constricting spaces. Ideas , options, energy and hope all tend to become finite. It seems there is only this many things one could do from now on. Some doors seem closed forever , others seem to be closing soon. I call this a mid life crisis because it starts getting scary that you are going to be stuck with seemingly fewer paths to go in life. Life seems to be converge and kind of demands you commit to the present form of it - good or bad. You tend to resent it , kind of run into a commitment phobia. I want to keep options open , doesn't matter even if fewer are available. Just do not want to settle for the current version of life. Not yet.
As you get older , probably when you transition from your 20s to 30s , one of the purposes of your life is to stabilize. One probably doesn't explicitly plan for that but that always runs on the back of your mind. At least as part of the Indian DNA. You want to get your life into a pattern , you want to actually settle down. But once you settle down , you tend to break the shackles. It is crazy sinusoidal. Maybe that is what drives life. The alternate cycles of settling down and not settling down (for lack of a better phrase) both inspire and challenge you. Whatever.
Note: Getting back to my initial note , I seriously think work anniversaries are harmful for retention. When one completes 5 or 10 years and there is a commemoration , one starts to feel you have completed a circle and need to try something else. If you are a HR , go ahead and make a case study on ill effects of such recognitions and celebrations. If you a people manager , do not give employees long enough vacations for them to start ruminating :). Either way , remember to give me credit for the tip.
On a more serious note , I have grown to resent milestones , anniversaries (just the work ones I promise 😏) and long vacations. I think that is a side effect of the tumultuous 30s. You know why? Because when one is so enagaged with the daily work , you do not tend to think about how to break out of the rut. It is like having blinders on , you just do not have peripheral vision. But these milestones and vacations tend to exactly do that - give you time and space for retrospection. You start thinking about the past , what you wanted to be a decade back and the unsettling feeling that this is what life is pretty much about to be in the future. When you are in the 20s , you seem to have infinite ideas, options , energy and hope. As you grow older , you see constricting spaces. Ideas , options, energy and hope all tend to become finite. It seems there is only this many things one could do from now on. Some doors seem closed forever , others seem to be closing soon. I call this a mid life crisis because it starts getting scary that you are going to be stuck with seemingly fewer paths to go in life. Life seems to be converge and kind of demands you commit to the present form of it - good or bad. You tend to resent it , kind of run into a commitment phobia. I want to keep options open , doesn't matter even if fewer are available. Just do not want to settle for the current version of life. Not yet.
As you get older , probably when you transition from your 20s to 30s , one of the purposes of your life is to stabilize. One probably doesn't explicitly plan for that but that always runs on the back of your mind. At least as part of the Indian DNA. You want to get your life into a pattern , you want to actually settle down. But once you settle down , you tend to break the shackles. It is crazy sinusoidal. Maybe that is what drives life. The alternate cycles of settling down and not settling down (for lack of a better phrase) both inspire and challenge you. Whatever.
Note: Getting back to my initial note , I seriously think work anniversaries are harmful for retention. When one completes 5 or 10 years and there is a commemoration , one starts to feel you have completed a circle and need to try something else. If you are a HR , go ahead and make a case study on ill effects of such recognitions and celebrations. If you a people manager , do not give employees long enough vacations for them to start ruminating :). Either way , remember to give me credit for the tip.
