Wait and Watch

Wait and Watch

Ever wondered why people in this world are getting so much success? How they are doing it and what’s their secret? We are in awe of the accomplishments of these celebrities and try to retrace their steps or atleast the steps that we know they took, to reach their pedestal.

They say the upper peak of success is lonely. Complete and utter B.S. The upper peak is lonely because you made it so while reaching there. If you take the right steps and don’t sell your soul to achieve what you want, the upper peak is full of life and fun.Right from our humble school beginnings to our choking corporate careers, we face hurdle after hurdle which seem daunting at first but soon lose their importance as we rise above them and move on to the next. In school, the task of getting good grades in every exam was so difficult but now when you think about the same, it seems funny. We would gladly trade our school life for the unfruitful corporate life we are living currently.

In schools, we always competed with other students of the class to gain the top rank. Part of this came from our parents need to see us excel while part of it came from our own ambition. Bitter rivalries were part and parcel of our school careers. These rivalries laid the seeds for the competitive spirits that is engulfing us right now.

Don’t get me wrong, competitive spirit is good. It keeps things interesting and entertaining in a company. In fact, it is even recommended for a company’s success that its employees stay competitive. But, the competition should be friendly and not diabolical. It should not push your colleagues down rather than raising them up to your level.

When people see their colleagues performing well, rather than feeling proud for them, they plan to pull them down. The sad part is not the fact that we do this but it’s the fact that this was taught by our teachers and to some extent, by our parents since our childhood. And when the pulling-down doesn’t work out, people resort to office politics. The skillfully inferior employees perform politics either through family ties with the higher-ups or by making themselves indispensable to the company they are in. They make the higher level employees to make a choice between them and their ideology and the person they don’t like.

A senior or a mentor’s job in a company is to teach, educate and train his tutee with all his knowledge so that the tutee becomes better than him/her. But rather that doing that, they engage in politics to make sure that the tutee doesn’t get better than him/her so that the mentor can protect his/her own job. The constant insecurity of someone taking over their job drives them to take such steps.What we don’t realize is that if we do our job perfectly and give 100% to it, there is no chance of us getting replaced. There will always be people who are better than us. No one can be the perfect person in every department. But overcoming those skill flaws and co-existing together is what makes life come full circle. Instead of competing with others and pulling each other’s leg, we should focus our attention on channeling our frustrations into improving our own work quality and let our actions speak for us.

Appraisals and award functions are held to honor the work of hard-working individuals. But rather than, awarding talented individuals who need the motivation, majority of the companies’ reward employees who are glorified yes-men (people who tell what their seniors want to hear). But, even if the deserving individuals don’t get rewarded, what we need to realize is that awards and hikes has never and won’t ever define us. An employee is respected for his ability to switch between positions and his capability to wait.

Aah. The wait. Intezaar, as they say in Hindi, is the most impatient word in the corporate world. Yet the word is the most telling quality in a corporate employee. The ability to wait is what differentiates an individual form his/her compatriots. Life has everything listed down to offer you and it matches with your own bucket list but all that is different is the time. Everything will be handed to you one day but all you need to do is wait and build your skill set and capability for that day. That day, when the opportunity knocks on your doorstep, make sure you don’t have earphones on with music so loud that you can’t hear opportunity calling you. And make sure that before this particular day, you don’t screw yourself by following some advice from the internet or crooked means to relieve stress that has no connection to your ambitious dream.

In the end, all we want is to come home to our family after a day’s work, spend some time and share some love. Money is important to sustain your life but life should not be sacrificed to sustain money. If you end up doing the sacrifice, the day you retire, one look at your face in the mirror will tell you how much the person staring back at you has come from the innocent ambitious individual ready to take on the world three decades ago. Even though you end up achieving what you want through crooked ladders and unethical means, your health and soul will know of your deeds and will never let you rest.

Before looking for your soulmate, promise yourself that you will possess your soul till the time you die rather than selling it for some corporate gain. Let people make mistakes and let’s make ourselves available and capable to fill in their shoes when the company needs us rather than stealing their shoes. Be an example for people around you rather being a lesson.

Happy Valentine’s day in advance for all those who love their partners or pretend to love them and greater wishes to those who love themselves every single day without the requirement of a partner.

Adios.