Karmanye Vaadhikaraste.. maa faleshu kadachanam..

Every year, every hour, even every nano second brings change. Some changes are profound. Some are incidental. Some shake you out violently while some slowly drip in your future and you realize quite later the change that happened oh so slowly that you didn’t realize while you were going through it.

I THINK ( read : HOPE) I have finally, truly accepted that things , well, they tend to change . And unlike earlier times when I spouted Zen-ness everywhere but in my own life, 2015 has been actually Zenified. And this has happened gradually and without me actually planning it. So much for the will and self motivation and all that.

Life is full of accidents. Good and bad. Small and big.

But to accept it without grudge, truly in your heart/head and for it to be a continuous organic process- is something which doesn’t come out of ‘knowing’ alone.

IT happens. Like shit happens, IT also happens.

It has been more than 12 months that I have, more or less been largely accepting . Of the fact that things will change. That most of them are outside of my control.

Even when there were some pretty unique experiences which changed my perspective. Even when after there have been significant changes in my work profile. Even when husband went through a rough professional patch of his own.

So far – It is more or less calm acceptance.

For example. Recently when there were regular redundancies at work and half of the people I knew were laid off, the very fact that I wasn’t bothered for my security just brought home the point as to how seriously accepting I have become.

This job had literally fallen out of nowhere exactly a year ago. Just when I had prepared myself to branch into something else- out of my long frustration with corporate life- a honcho who knew me ten years ago called and made this fabulous work-from-home happen with the same role and money that I would have made had I stuck around in the asshole ridden place I worked for. Even when there were a couple of weeks of uncertainty about whether I will get this job or not- husband got a bit edgy- but- pat on the back- I was epitome of cool. I really didn’t worry whether I would get this or not.

When I did, I worked my ass off. But I could have easily been redundant- especially with the new structure across our corporate behemoth. I know it is my work, which without false modesty has been best of the lot. But it would be stupid to assume that it was other people’s work which made them lose their jobs.

It does take experience to bring home the humbleness that it is chance, quite often blind and almost always out of your control which changes your life.

And maybe it is time, it is experiences, it is slow knowledge that life beats you into- but I have stopped bothering about changes, especially the ones which are not in your control.

And an organic apathy is developed to what the changes mean for me.

Of course it means further changes just might be around the corner. It could be me sending the ‘It has been great working with you bleh bleh’ email a few months down the line, who knows.

But can I do something? In this case, nope. So I am content to work hard- something which I have accepted is in my blood. Accept that I do have a year more at least, or it could be a few more months of this wonderful earn a lot while you spend your working day in shorts thingie. It is quite possible that some high level strategic plan might upset this utopia. Who knows. Who cares. Not me.

What it means is that for the new few months at least I can work in conditions which I love. And that is more than enough.

Karmanye Vadhikaraste and all that.

The year bygone..

When you are young – there are things you don’t believe you would do even when you are at a gravestone age of late thirties. Like I could have never imagined wearing wrap dresses regularly.

Reviewing the bygone year with satisfaction as a couple if one of these utterly uncool middle aged things.

But embracing my inner non-cool ness is one of the learnings ( sour grapes of middle age) from somewhat traumatic last year, which actually is very liberating in an odd, regular-like-daily-newspaper thingie.

Anyway, so we were sitting down with a beer this XMAS and ended up reviewing this year somewhat sentimentally. Husband as usual is mix of quite an extreme of materialistic tomcat and zen monk- although in essentials we agree to the bullet points, how we describe these is poles apart. That required a post in its own. Anyway, this is MY blog, so here are things this year from my point of view.

Overall, the year was really busy, lots of drama, lots of changes for us. So sounds clichéd, but I really can’t believe that the year is gone!! And the ageing process has made me happier for a year gone well rather than the usual hyper anxiety about things to come. It has also made me count the blessings ( aaargggghhhh… but true, embarrassingly excruciatingly true), not worry about the future too much.

After the dip in the second half of last year- this year my health was tops. And that really really was the best thing of all. My only wish for next year in all sincerity is to keep up with good health for me and the family.

I joined a new job and voila, didn’t have to compromise on money either. Worked like a Siberian Husky dog and that reminded me that given the right conditions ( read: absence of assholes to deal with on regular basis and at least one inspiring person) – I can be a inhumanly excellent , brilliant,workaholic who takes some really mind-blowing decisions- in nutshell I am truly total return on investment for the company. Pat on the back. ( Middle age middle age) Work from home for the first time for me and I loooooved it.. me in shorts, dog curled at my feet and I am on a call negotiating deals worth millions of dollars . How superb is that!!! In fact since I work UK timings pretty regularly- I wouldn’t have been so diligent had I had to sit in an office. My pearls of wisdom and experience of working from home in the next post!

I published my first book. And it became a bestseller, ahem, am I not the cat’s whiskers? The whole experience of publishers is material for another book though, or at least a post.

Next to none movies/ series as well. I mean I am yet to see Homeland season 5, so you can imagine how totally malnourished I am on my basics. The only movie which I loved this year was Bahubali.

This year I didn’t read many new books, was especially low on crime fiction, what with the job and all. But I got obsessed with several topics, highest amongst them was the terrorist organisation which literally seemed to spring from nowhere. So I watched the videos, read their own magazines, read books, articles, chat sessions and overall. I get glimpses of understanding of this somewhat bizarre youth culture phenomenon turned into medieval religious crackpottery- but I am still not satisfied with my own understanding of young people from relatively secular backgrounds embracing death for a totally outdated ideology of mass murder and self- denial.

I joined the gym for the first time in my life and kept up. Especially impressed with self that I kept up with strength training, which I associated with Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt ONLY. I actually like it and I plan to keep up for next year at least.

My brother’s nasty marriage finally broke for good and took away a load of collective tension, least of all, from his befuddled mind.

I had another what I can only call, unique experience, which is a matter of another series of posts in fact.. it needs to be put on paper with some thought.

So, there.