Learnings v2004!
I haven't been regular with my blogs lately. Well ... Life was pretty much routine ... 5 days in office and 2 in Pune :) ... the speed of time passing by has never been so much! Before I even realize ... another year in life is gone ...
2004 will definitely be one of the eventful years in my life! If I look at myself just a year ago (well it seems like yesterday) I was a totally different person than what I am today! The year began on a disasterous note for me. I had requested my grandparents to come over to Hyderabad and spend some time with me. Now ... what could have gone wrong with that! But when we were driving towards Ramoji Film City on the outskirts of Hyderabad, my grandmom suffered a massive cardiac arrest. When I took her to the hospital her heart had almost stopped beating. I still remember each and every moment of that day when I was standing outside the Critical Care Unit of Apollo Hospital in Secunderabad. I could not even see my grandmom, all I could see was a set of monitors with a dozen waves and numbers - CONSTANTLY FLUCTUATING!! Everytime there was a spike or a drop I skipped a beat!
That ONE day made me a totally different person. Careless, rash, over-confident and (a bit) arrogant that I was earlier taking everything and everyone for granted, that ONE day made me realize what "RESPONSIBILITY" in life means. I had assured my parents that I take complete responsibility of everything when I flew my grandparents from Pune! So God forbid if something had gone wrong how was I going to be able to face my parents! Forget anyone else how was I even going to face myself! In a flash I could remember that hundreds of occasions when I had taken my grandmom for granted, misbehaved with her! And probably thats why when in the evening the doctors told me that she was out of danger "the (mistakenly) Responsible 23 year old guy" was in tears ... with unfortunately no one to wipe them!
That day I learnt the value of LIFE - its invaluable! I learnt the value of having a shoulder to cry on when you desparately need one! I learnt that nothing in life can be taken for granted! And most importantly I learnt that there was something that was more important than me - LIFE ITSELF!
In this very year I have misunderstood the best of friends I have and relized it the hard way that once said cannot be undone! I learnt that its important to count 10 before you lose your cool!
Work life too was sweet and sour. I had the best and the worst of times of my professional career in 2004! Unexpected promotions and as well as unexpected (and unwanted) organizational changes! I learnt that it is very easy to stay where you are scream that "LIFE IS HELL" ... but then if you want to change things then first thing that changes is you yourself! You take one step from your HELL and you realize "well ... life's not bad!"! Its your perspective, your attitude ... the way you look at things that matters!
A few months ago a friend used to ask me "how's life" practically everyday at lunch. And I used to be surprised when he expected my answer today to be more positive than that yesterday! But now when I look back at the year that was ... I realize 2004 taught me that thats just the way it should be! :)
