It’s no secret that my life revolves around work.
It’s no secret that I dont have anything going for me in life apart from work.
If I were to look at the wheel of life (I filled it in 10 minutes ago), my life is, well, not lifing.
See the image below.
Now for context, compare it with what it was in 2018.
Do you see the change?
And this not-lifing has been a lot more visible of late. At least to me.
There have been far too many days with no action, with a lot of conduct unbecoming a C4E member, with a lot of mistakes by myself and the people around me, with a lot of random events that you dont otherwise expect a Saurabh Garg to be a part of. And with many more.
And the worst part is, I dont have control over any of those. And when I dont have an illusion of control (see footnote 1) over my life, I get in a funk. Right now, all the spokes of life are not spoking. Each is in disarray. And I dont know what to do about it. Worse is I dont know who to share things with. No, I dont need a life partner. I dont need a business partner. I dont even need a stranger that I can chat with to get the load off my head (FN 2). I just dont have anyone to share this with. Except this blog.
Thing is, for a large part of my work life I’ve operated as the man with the hammer of “if it’s a problem, go find a solution”.
I am used to looking at each thing as a problem and then working hard to find a solution to that problem. I know that life is unfair and you often get dealt a raw hand. When I am the one on the receiving end, I dont cry about it (see FN 3). I may rant about it but I dont lose my shit. And this solution-first mindset has been helpful. To a point that I’ve often survived. Vanita calls me a survivor. I would like to call myself a cockroach – I never die. I mean I will die at some point in time physically but I will not die before my actual death.
But this time, I am unable to find a solution. I dont know what to do. I dont know what to do anything on.
In terms of a 2×2 (am learning this from Hemant), here’s one…
Please excuse my handwriting.
So, if I struggling with a problem that has a known solution, I can easily solve for it. If it’s an unknown problem with a known solution, that is insight/epiphany etc.
If it’s a known problem with an unknown solution, I will have to be innovative about it. But if it’s an unknown problem and the solution is unknown as well, I dunno what to do.
And that is my problem at this time. I dont know what is wrong. And I don’t know what to do about it. I am doing all the things that I would generally do in the regular course of life. And because these are regular life things, they’re optimised. And thus there shouldn’t be any problems at all. But there are. And I dont know where are they stemming from. Wait. I don’t even know what the problem is. If I had known, I would’ve fixed it. It just that life isn’t living!
Ok, I am going in loops. I dont have an answer. I dont know when I’d find one. So that. Lemme end this misery and the misery of a post. With a track that I often listen to when am in funks like this one…
Over and out.
And no, no pity-party calls please.
Footnotes
- The keyword is – illusion. No one knows what life holds for you. No one can have control over it. However you can have an illusion of control – you know, you could say you can manage your time the way you want to. You can meet the kind of people you want to. Et al. So I have this illusion of control over life.
- I use this blog as my partner and I share my life with it. Unlike people who typically have one person for dumping all facets of their life, I have different people for different things. For work, I lean on Poo. For fam things, it’s either my sis or VG. For health, it’s Ashi. For others, there are people.
- When I was younger, I used to crib a lot, and rant a lot. To the point that people would not even talk to me. I’ve worked hard to fix that!