Only One Answer

What could you do differently?

This prompt really has a singular reply

My whole life…

Who wouldn’t like to?

Who could actually?

That’s the million dollar question…

Can we really start with a clean slate?

That too at the fag end of my/our life/lives?

Or any point of time in life’s journey.

Is there anything called clean slate or a repeat version?

I think I am repeating myself but I will again reiterate that whatever has happened in our lives, though may not be to our liking or wish, has happened for our own good. What has not happened has also not happened for our own good. Sadly, we do not or refuse to realize it.

I didn’t want a nine to five job. The first eight years of my career I wanted to run away. It was stifling. But I had nowhere to run away to. Honestly, I did not have any inkling where I wished to run away to? But I just wanted to…

I wanted to acquire an on job professional degree because I thought it will help in my career progression. Although I was not very keen on getting one. I just wanted a tag of being a professional as it was considered important, useful and required. But the syllabus did not interest me. So, I did not get one. Fact remains, throughout life I resented being the black sheep of my family.

My nasty boss made me work overtime without any additional incentive. But during appraisal time he compared me with the so called professionally qualified peers and denied me my due. I can say that over and over, with due respect to all professionals worldwide, paper degree has nothing to do with attitude towards work. I am afraid professionals do not always handle issues with a holistic approach. Their thinking is confined to their own field of proficiency which at times reflects a microscopic mindset.

The funniest part was when at the fag end of my work life I was requested quite a number of times to agree to take an extension as a consultant. Remember the unprofessional me who was demeaned by her boss was now being touted as a domain expert. I laughed to myself and politely declined the offer. Of course! There were various other reasons for saying no that I don’t want to get into.

Coming to the prompt – what about my lifetime regret of being less educated than my sibling?

If this prompt was given to me a decade back I would have cried hoarse about not being able to acquire my Masters, not having the requisite skill sets for my job, not able to opt for the career I wished for and above all stuck in the rut of a stereotypical office job.

Today I thank my lucky star that I had the job I once detested, a routine income and a bunch of perks associated with it which facilitated my mother’s astronomically expensive treatment. Being associated with a fortune five hundred company puts you in an enviable slot in society. I actually got to do the type of work which, without my knowing, I was fit for. I realized quite late that I was not meant for the profession I once thought was just for me.

Life is extraordinarily strange. I had limited resources, opportunities and qualifications. I did not possess the eagerness to please my superiors. That was my undoing. There was a time when the Head of the Unit publicly stated that he would have to think twice before deploying me to other than the desk I was working on. A few years later, a tough task master of a boss wrote in my appraisal that I had the ability to do any kind of job given to me to perfection. I took it as a great compliment.

If I were born with a golden spoon life would surely have been a bed of roses. But one never knows. With roses thorns come free.

There were innumerable hateful bad patches in the journey which made me what I am today. They were perhaps required to strengthen me. Though I could have done without them. That’s what I could have different in life. Even now when it becomes insufferably depressing I have only one question: God what next ?

Going by the prompt, my humble submission is there is no point looking back because time is linear. There is no U turn. History may repeat itself but it’s contours are never the same and how you will react to a repeat situation may not be the same as you have done before or thought would do if there was a second chance. Simply because you have moved on, wizened and however much you feel that had it been that way it would have been different, in reality it never is.

The karmic conundrum is too complex. We humans are too complex. What could I do differently? Nothing I suppose because had it been some other way it might not occur to me to do it differently. As simple or stupid as that. If that makes any sense to you all.

The pic has nothing to do with the prompt but I am quite taken in by reflections. The reflection here is hazy. I guess the crux is : What is with us is what we truly have or deserve; what we don’t have is like the reflection – a kind of mirage- we think it’s adorable, aspirable and could have been achievable but it is not. It is as unattainable as the reflection – a foggy image of what could have been but not a concrete manifestation of really what it was or could have been.

Well that does not mean one should not try hard enough to change or modify one’s circumstances but the efforts are for a better today or tomorrow and not a resentful brooding over the past. I hope I have made my point home.

Thanks for patiently reading me out.

I can be quite opinionated at times….no…most of the times.

🤫🤫🤫