My Life is My School

During the course of my 20 years in the Corporate world, I have faced several challenging situations. I have done well and come up trumps in many. I have made a mess of several things as well. I have landed in the dumps. In each of these cases, I have experienced and internalized several lessons that Life taught me. There are others in the queue waiting for their turn to get into my bloodstream. I am still an avid learner.

A strange thought struck me one night.

Have you ever looked at Andromeda in the skies? Its an eerie sight. This galaxy gobbles up several smaller celestial objects in its vicinity. And it leaves a debris to remind others of the events of a bygone era. Every celestial object learns about their immense energy in the process. Both creation and end are explosive processes. With all the forces at play, even the process in between becomes a tight rope walk for something like Andromeda itself.

What if I could chronicle the events and lessons I internalized in the process? What were the events that required to walk the fine line between fact and fiction? What did that do to me? What if the people I interacted with where all shaded by my biases and opinions? What if my fears were truly unfounded? What if the leaders and my counterparts were human as well, with their own fears, apprehensions and insecurities? What if I was wrong in reading this as arrogance and intransigence? What if I was too open and direct, in cases where I should have been a silent? What if the openness was not desired at all in the first place? Finally, what if I am not who I was perceived to be? Residues. Excellent reminders to help me synthesize the inputs and ingredients that went into the cauldron.

I thought, I will start documenting these lessons. Sometime, not too far in future, I hope to read all of these entries and have a good laugh and say - I am still at school. My own private school.

Thanks to all the imaginary people who were real to the extent I wanted them to be, who have contributed to these lessons and made thus journal so colorful. Without y'all, this would have been an exercise in futility.