Rahul Desai's Blog

Stress Management

Do one thing at a time. Do it mindfully. Do it well. Enjoy the satisfaction. Then go on to the next thing. Multitasking might work for computers, but humans have yet to get the hang of it. It leads to careless mistakes, shoddy work and unreliable performance. Worst of all, having to do things over. This is no way to live. Give what you’re doing your undivided attention. Take the time to get it right. And enjoy the experience. Is your life fulfilling? Or is it merely crammed? Know the difference and you’ll realize it’s not the quantity of activities you engage in (or possessions you collect) that ultimately determine your happiness. One naturally unfolding, enriching experience can easily surpasses many rushed and distracted ones. But you may be so chronically overscheduled, you never give yourself a chance to enjoy anything to the fullest. Experiment. Choose an occasion and give it your complete, mindful and unhurried attention....

Throw something out every day. You’ve got too much stuff in your house. Office. Garage. Attic. Useless clutter that’s weighing you down, getting in the way, obscuring the things you really need. Be realistic. If you’re not going to use it, lose it. And you don’t have to make a humongous project out of it. Every day, find one thing you don’t need and toss it. Or give it away. Over time, the clutter will begin to vanish and space and order will magically appear in your home and in your life.

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I’ve not referred Webster’s, Oxford’s or Gala’s or any other reliable (or even unreliable) dictionary for an absolute meaning of the verb ‘to struggle’. Somehow it gives me a negative feeling and therefore I defy its any relation with the noun ‘success’.

We often hear from our parents, grand-parents, elder siblings, some times even friends (the early-age achievers, talking like 90’s at the age of 20’s) referring our cousin for how hard-working s/he’s been; our senior school-mate how he struggled for the position he’s at today; some nobody in some not-yet-claimed land in the galaxy telling how much pain she went through to reach where she’s today.

Okay wait: what has ‘pain’ got to do with success or achievements in the first place?? Even the laziest ass would agree that some sort of hard work is must. But that simply shouldn’t inflict struggle into the picture. In fact, in this jet-age, a struggler (to start with) is most likely to enjoy the rest of his/her life as a successful struggler (by choice) only. Don’t we know it’s a call for smart work, instant money and faster growth today? Of course, this never rules out the importance of hard work, nor can anything else do that. Accomplishment without enough attempt is likely to go away faster than it came in. Hard work has no alternative. There’s no success without pouring oneself completely into the attempt. However, this entire process can actually be exciting and fun, than tedious or painful.

I'm not ashamed to admit (sounds Reva-style) I got my first salary (Basic + HRA + one million types of allowances – two million types of taxes) at the age of 24 (23 years, 10 months and 14 days, to be precise). Compared to my sister starting at 19, and one of the cousins at 18 (and many others in the line) I started a little late. So how bad is it on my part, considering the facts that my parents were willing to invest in my formal higher education and we were three people earning (and earning well) in the family of four?? I know they’ve actually ‘struggled’ enough to earn and save to afford mine and my sister’s good education (accompanied by a lavish life-style). So, what’s so wrong if I’ve decided to break free from this vicious inter-generation-cycle of struggle?

With some experience of working for someone, I ultimately decided to take up my own business (Read: I joined Raghu on his business). I had to do it some day; but went for it a little early (courtesy: motivation, pumping and torture from Raghu, apart from my parents’ and mainly my sister’s unconditional support). Now, this was a big deal. A lot of planning has to be done, we being startups there’s a big element of risk (the whole idea of business can flip the other way round), it seeks a lot of hard work for very less or may be no returns for indefinite time... there were issues at every level. There were no big promising projects for quite some time. The expectations were being put forward in different ways (sarcastic on most occasions) and all we (partners) had was our shoulders to offer to one another. We had opted the harder path, and so there was no complaining.

But hey hey hey! There are no free lunches in this world (at least not in IT-industry). Soon we had one, two and now we have enough work to show on chart. The race hasn’t been easy and the movement is still on. A well planned effort, nurtured by sufficient hard work is bound to pay off. But, that’s not struggle, that’s Life!

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