The BUSYness Perspective

About 10 years ago, I had an argument with a close friend of mine over the kind of life I was imagining ahead. While talking about career, routine and then personal life together, she was teaching me of how a normal and good life is about working 9 to 5 and then spending time with your family or friends till dinner. Sleep with / without watching a movie and wakeup again the next day to progress with whatever we were doing yesterday. The only thing I agreed with was to sleep and wake up the next day to progress with whatever we were doing yesterday.  I didn't like the 9-5 concept or even about the after work time to be spent with family or friends.

I hate this for 2 reasons -

1. Why should I slot my time for everything precisely. Can't I just prioritize my work and meetings for the day according to what needed how much time? I wasn't having a business in those days but rather doing some full time and sometime part-time jobs. My attitude has generally been about doing and 8 hours job in 2 and then spend time on things that I wanted to do. 
2. Why spend the free time with family / friends always?? Where is the time for your own mental and spiritual growth? Why isn't anyone giving more time to themselves apart from the time the spend in the loo (if they dont read in there) or over a lonely drink / cigarette?

Over the time after meeting more n' more people I started realizing that maybe I was not ambitious. Not for a career everyone was running after. I wasn't academically bright ever till my school days. My IQ was amongst the top 5 in my class but my rank was among the last 5. I really hated the way I was taught. I loved some subjects like biology, history and drawing but I wasn't given the freedom to experiment here. There was always a rule. Even for playing my keyboard for the gathering there were rules like which songs to play, which not to. And again not because I played bad but because I was a notorious kid, i was banned totally from playing solo at the school gathering. Its another thing that I ended up as a backup artist with almost every singer in the same gathering. Things the way they were moulded or routine(d) never did and still don't seem right to me. I always wanted to walk life in the untrodden way. Yes I wanted to earn money and I still earn money that I targeted. Though I agree things went horribly wrong on the personal life front. I wanted to be busy and progress but I wasn't made for the old school tricks.

After years of facing hatred, jealousy, anger, uncertainty, disgust, etc not from my own conscious but my own people, time started changing recently. Maybe I didn't earn some years of my life like others did, but I do earn right now as much as they do by working only 1/4th of the time they work. Now people openly tell me of how lucky I am or how jealous they are about how I live my life, I wonder what they were thinking in the past? Its only when people see an example they term as successful, they justify its ways. I am not saying that all people are envying me nor do I yet say I am successful, I am still on my way, the problem is about people having time to judge other's lives and comparing it with themselves. I think after their education and in their settled life - sad are those people who are not happy with the work they do and envy others, happy are the people who are happy with their work and have time to think about the ways other people work, but happiest are the people who are happy with their own work and are least concerned about what others are doing. I am from the last batch regardless of being successful or not, but its quite often that people in the earlier 2 categories pull me down to their level when they have to argue about my ways of work or about someone else.

I always wondered why was there a discrimination in all aspects during mankind's history. Right from races, castes, colors, profiles, status the leaders of a society or a community have always found out ways to set different categories of people. With over-emphasized or hyped education about unity or peace we fail to achieve peace, instead we end up blinding ourselves against the reasons where logical discriminations were made. Its the judgemental attitude of people which has resulted in any kind of discrimination. The person who had the right to set this pattern always put oneself in the best status, because after all he was given the honor of setting these. Even the industrial revolution resulted in white collared workers and others. The corporate world has resulted in more. The trouble itself about the discrimination or any kind of frustration arising from one's own deeds or someone else's deeds would all end if we stopped judging other and thought more about the betterment or enhancement about what we do. 

Recently after a lot of investigative attempts of some people I wanted to know what they are upto. I was not understanding why are they really interested in what I am doing and how much I am earning. Now this group of people knows three examples where I am one of them.

1. Myself - A person who believes in chasing dreams but not dreams based on still-life career or routine work. I believe that money comes if you are persistent, patient and strategical enough about what you want to achieve. Just following a routine part of progress, appraisals and promotions doesn't mean success for me. For me success means a lot of money & fame laying on the foundation of satisfactory work. NO REGRETS! I earn and spend an X amount for 4 hours work.
2. PERSON X - A person who has a lot of fortune left for him by his parents. He dreams of earning crores by is hell lazy do do any kind of work. Rather this person doesn't know what he/she wants to do. Having new ideas every year, the person is lost about where to invest how much to invest and how much to expect in profits. Even after lot of loans which remain unpaid or are paid by selling assets this person lives a comfortable lifestyle with the fortune which never seems to end. Still earning and spending the same X amount a month.
3. PERSON Y - A hard-working ambitious person. Very dedicated to one's work and career. Sets goals and hits them with a lot of hard-work but in time. Works for 10 hours in a day still earns and spends the same X amount. People abroad earn and spend more though.

A handful of people from the third category are really intelligent enough to understand the concept of smart-work and also are totally happy with what they are doing. They have no time to think about others. But most of the people in the third category generally have the idea of hard-work in their head which has to feel hard and not to be done with ease. These frustrated people are always calculating their own work time with other individual's work time. Being frustrated most of the times with their own routine and career choice these buggers spend endless energy and efforts in crucifying themselves or criticizing others for their ways of work. These people work really hard and whenever they have the time to think about themselves they are in a very tired and frustrated mood. They generally get insane looking at a lazy person who is lucky enough to live the same kind of lifestyle without working as hard as him/her. Their comparison is generally dependent on how much time they spend working hard for their bread, save their money and then spend it for their definitions of right spendings. They loathe people who are earning the same amount in lesser time and easier ways.

The problem in these frustrated people isn't about their wrong ways of work. I am nobody to judge that. Their problem is about the time and energy they spend comparing themselves with others. In worse cases, the frustration that they endure trying to convince others about how hard they work and rightly they are paid and others are just lucky for being paid for easier work. The the WORST cases these people don't just try to convince their targets but spend time in preparing a team to convince their point of view to a certain person. These unsatisfied souls are extremely unstable with their own career. Their intellectual limitations itself show of their inability to find logical and practical solutions to reach a certain goal in an easier way. They really spend their energies totally dedicated to their work and are physically and mentally exhausted when they come across and opposite work situation which is giving equal kind of results. I think happiness of a person has a lot to do with the intellect of a person and not just about satisfaction and contentment. The people who spend a lot of time grumbling about others and proving themselves right are generally unhappy about themselves. They cannot be passionate about their work enough to be able to ignore what people around them do. Their happy and satisfactory moments in work are generally occasional moments when they are praised by their collegues or subordinates for some specific purpose. Even understanding the selfish motives behind all the praise, they relish it like their favorite dish and get energetic again to bombard others with ethical, practical and career knowledge using their own example as metaphor for success.

I don't believe that many of the people who read my blog lie in the frustrated category in the last example I mentioned, but I am sure that there are a handful of people who might be in that category. For the non-frustrated I would encourage you to continue with your passions and goals no matter how many hurdles of frustrated people you face. Don't even spare a thought trying to analyse their views. For the frustrated lot i would say, "Avoid convincing me or the people whose ways of work you don't approve. Spend more time enhancing yourself and being happy with your work all the time instead of momentarily. we don't have any problem with your ways of work as long as you leave us alone. Remember the happiest people are those who mind their own business and handle others, we follow just that. Our BUSYness progress is more about our own goals and personal satisfaction which has nothing to do with others. We cannot compare our ways of work and our profits with anyone else's, instead when we fail we try to learn what went from from our own mistakes and other stories we found successful. We don't have time to criticize you..... oops. I think I am only doing that writing this blog.... but damn you.... you provoked me to do this after torturing me for years!!!! It will take you a lifetime to get me frustrated again. I am peaceful after letting out all this scum on you, and I was always been happy with myself anyway!