Thank god its Friday..

So Fridays finally here, this week was killer what with all the changes at work. More companies were acquired and the need to align my team according to the needs of the acquired business units kept me busy. Another little thing that kept me busy this week was a really really old spark taking shape of a flame.

Before I get into what the flame is let me take you back 11 years, I was in the 7th Standard and it was then that I got my first taste of flying. Me n my family were flying from Cochin to Mumbai on an Indian Airlines flight partly sponsored by the Indian Govt due to my dad's army connection. I still remember very vividly the way the plane accelerated with a burst on the runway and the heavenly skies and the cute air hostesses. I was smitten, all I could think of was to become a commercial pilot. So much so that I recall confiding in my school counselor (on whom I had a total crush on) about my new found aspiration and how I was really crushed that I could probably never pursue that dream due to financial constraints. My counselor totally broke the student-counselor confidentiality and informed my mother, who at that time was a teacher in the same school about my little predicament. Slowly but surely that chapter of my life got lost in time.

Fast forward to the present and this little spark of my past has come alive again, and no I'm not talking about the crush on the counselor spark. At a time when I have been having difficulty figuring out the direction of my life there is a new direction coming into play.

Now that I look back I know at that time I was mesmerized with the glamor associated with being a pilot but where I am right now its not just that, the main draw is that I get to travel, see places and do what I would really enjoy doing.. flying. But once again financing is a big issue and there are a lot of other hurdles as well. I have just re-opened this chapter of my life and for a guy at this juncture in life has to consider every angle before taking any steps so theres still a long way to go...

And as far as this weekend is concerned I might be able to hit the beach again with three beauties ameya bhau n my bro. I hope it works out.. See ya at the other end of the weekend.

Long time no outing

This was one of these weekends where I was constantly dogged with the issue of "nothing special to do".. Now that the parents are gone, my house has kinda become the refuge for all my drunkard friends. This I think is another symptoms of my lil crisis, anything routine repels me to kingdom come. I kept insisting, we have been drinking at my place every weekend since my parents left.. I want an outing or there will be hell to pay, but once again after a of lot brainstorming we came to the realization that there's not much to do for a gang of four guys in a city filled with couple conducive activities..

Atleast earlier when I had the car we'd go out for a joy ride with bhau at the helm entertaining us pillions with his car driving escapades. Now with the car gone to god forsaken chennai the only entertainment that we are left with is a game of Fifa 08 on the PS2 which not everyone likes to indulge in. Man I miss my car.

I've really started feeling like I'm stuck in a rut like a 24 year old uncle and to make matters worse I see my brother enjoying his care free college days by having chics over from udaipur and his trips to kashid. All of this put together results in a very unfulfilled Vineet. But the weekend wasn't an absolute waste, the saving grace was a tiny lil KV GK reunion with ameya, zahid and me talkin bout the hay days and another walk down the nostalgia lane...

I was planning to enroll into a para gliding course but I had to shelve that idea due to lack of funds this month, that is what I need. I've gotten too much into a comfort zone not wanting to make new friends or discover newer avenues of weekend activities. Right, so just two more weekends before my bank account gets topped up and then I can start off with para gliding. Till then there's going to be more of the morose and unsatisfied Vineet..

No validation like self validation

We, humans revel in positive attention some to such an extent that they will go to the extent of being tremendously boisterous and loud about every mundane little thing. They all remind me of just one person "Rakhi Sawant" yes the bootylicious, well endowed(thanks to a gifted team of doctors and a hell lot of Silicon) item girl of Bollywood.

No offense to this clan of people, they are who they are. Coming back to the point, everyone needs validation, we derive the feeling of self worth from a warm approval, nice compliment, little bit of praise, or a huge applause. All of these go a long way but fall short in front of self validation. Remember the moments in life when you helped some guy and thought to yourself, now that felt good. No one had to tell you " dude you're Mother Teresa man you should get the noble peace prize for that" that incident just got buried in the sand of time. You sat and finished the crossword all by yourself and thought to yourself "man my English is fabulous, I could be the next Salman Rushdie". However ludicrous the self praise might be, it has an effect like none other.

Its all about self image, and the moment that falls all the approval, compliments seem to fall on deaf ears. Now its time to pick yourself up do things that you like doing, things that you're good at. Easier said than done, its a long process and the journey is still not even close to being over..

The road to recovery

The lowest of lows during this transition is when self doubt is at its peak, when suddenly it does not make any sense to carry on with your lowly pathetic existence. I've just wasted good 24 years of my life and the saying "Youth is wasted on the young" starts to make sense. So you're in a situation where you have spent your life doing nothing and now the remainder of your life seems like an empty glass.. hence the term A glass three quarter empty.

This is where it all stems from, your incapability to see a bright future which you so easily could in the recent past.

Now don't get me wrong, I am a graduate with not the best academic record but have taken it in my stride and worked my way up. I started working at the early age of 22 with an IT marketing firm, I recall being an overly enthusiastic chap touted to be the next big thing. Nine months into my first serious job and I was offered a position with a company called Oracle, in the IT circuits this would be considered a seriously big break. My stint at Oracle totally lived up to its expectations as far as learning was concerned, in fact I took it in my stride to learn more going beyond everyone's expectations. After Oracle I got my next big break as a manager with a fairly reputable IT consulting firm and a fat salary to boot. My salary grew four folds since I started working but job satisfaction came down by as much at my new position. The very job that gave me great satisfaction a few months back was failing to create the same spark.

After a lot of struggle i finally decided that I was in some kind of crisis and that is when I discovered that this condition was quite common among twenty somethings. They say that every journey begins with a step and I hope against hopes that I have taken my first step in successfully making this transition.

There's actually a name for the crisis

I've been around this seemingly cruel planet for just over 24 years and this is the first time I am dabbling in blog writing, its quite amazing how people manage to put their thoughts and more importantly "feelings" out in the open with such ease. For a nube blogger like me it feels a little unnerving but its about time I tried this shit out and see what the fuss is all about.. first hand.

So what is it that has finally brought me to this juncture that I need to put down my feelings on paper (yeesh, I cant believe I actually said tht).. this lil something called quarter life crisis.

For the uninitiated simply put its the ongoing struggle between ‘I could probably be good if I tried’ and ‘Who am I kidding here?’.

This is why self-awareness is overrated. All it means is that you become even more aware of your insecurities and even more paralyzed by them. In the meantime, the people around you who are unaware of themselves are able to delude themselves into thinking that they’re hot shit, and on that basis go out and rock the market.

This also dooms any attempt to break out of a funk through self-examination and attempting to discover my strengths, because all that does is lead you to discover even more weaknesses.

You might say.. hell you have that figured out then whats the fuss all about. It doesn't end there, realization unfortunately is not the cure, realization doesn't seem to change the fact that I am still my own biggest critic and now I seem to have acquired a keen sense of over analyzing situations. What will I be doing 2 years down the line, will I be dependent on my parents retirement fund to pay the next installment on my 1986 Maruti 800 (Cheapest car available on Indian roads) or will I come out with the next big business plan and break the bank.. and I answer myself, you're a worthless bum and will probably end up taking customer service calls from dumb westerners like Bert cuz he's having a tough time figuring out what he's supposed to insert in the DVD tray of his latest Dell SX 500 for all your life.

Hi I'm Vincent Martinez (pseudo name) thank you for calling Dell computers, I'm going to be your desktop assistance specialist for today. How could I be of assistance to you? I'd just set right in...

Right at the heels of discovering the "three quarters empty glass syndrome" I might still have hope..