It has been a long time since I posted something in blog and I didn’t notice it until a friend of mine pointed it out to me that I haven’t made any 2013 posts. So I started of thinking about topic on which I can blog. I thought about some technical stuff, I thought about some criticisms, or maybe my experiences in Chennai (Oh boy there is a lot to blog on that). But then I thought for the past 2 months, since I came to Chennai I have been experiencing some issues, Just when I thought my life is all settled and that I can sit back do the work go home and enjoy, as usual, Life has thrown me off feet, I was in a confused state for quite a few weeks, I could clearly sense that this is not the kind of work I want to do, not something monotonous and without risks. But when life throws a problem at you it also has a lesson along with it and a few references that go along with it. The first such Reference I got was from a TED video by Aravind Gupta and the two most important lessons I learned was “Sometimes you don’t know what you want to do, but it is definitely good to know what you do not want to do”. And I felt this was exactly my situation I don’t know where to go from here but I just knew that this was not my place in this big universe. But then I thought why is it that I don’t like my present situation, I have a respectable job, I have all the time in the world, so why should I quit all this, it is then that Life threw a second reference at me( I should thank my friend who physically showed me this reference) It was a lecture by William Deresiewicz on Solitude and leader ship( I would recommend this to all my readers). In this lecture Deresiewicz  clearly explains what big corporations and MNC’s are like:

That’s really the great mystery about bureaucracies. Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. Just keeping the routine going………………………………..

For too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don’t know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don’t know how to set them. Who think about how to get things done, but not whether they’re worth doing in the first place. What we have now are the greatest technocrats the world has ever seen, people who have been trained to be incredibly good at one specific thing, but who have no interest in anything beyond their area of exper­tise. What we don’t have are leaders.

What we don’t have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army—a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision.

This lecture was an answer to my  question, and I felt I shouldn’t be a part of a bureaucrats, like the ones I see around, life has much more to it than just earning money, its about how you can change lives not just others’ but yours too,  Sometimes you just have to look beyond the horizon, sometimes you have to trust your inner guts. Even with all this said I still have no clear idea on what to do but definitely not the “rat race”.