I guess, no one can understand the sorrows of tomorrow better than me. Last week I had written on the importance of discipline. I had kept that blog off from getting public for quite sometime, while the idea was raging storm in my mind.My earlier blog on Discipline This was one blog which I refrained from writing purely out of sense of shame, how can you write about something, when you are yourself a victim. But then I deliberated with myself, toying with whether it would be sensible to put forth for the whole world to see my daily failures. And I thought writing is not only about sharing your victories, but also to be forthright and cruelly honest about one's failings. When you write it down, you are better positioned to differentiate between cause and symptom. So I wrote, trying to understand the inherent cause of my unforgivable sloth, and with a hope that maybe, my own blog might be able to shame me into action.
Anyways, that blog prompted me to embark on the experiment with the Twenty-One day exercise (propounded by Robin Sharma who proposed that any activity that you force yourself to undertake for Twenty-One days becomes your habit) as I started to attempt to get myself out of bed at seven. Nothing earth shattering there, only thing I tried to ensure is this modest routine is not betrayed even on weekly holidays.
It worked well for a while, till the time when last week I was off to Chandigarh for work. I had a flight at decent hour in the morning. The night before I had time at hand to prepare for the travel, then the enemy alter-ego in dark apparel struck me. I pushed the packing to late night, planning to do it before I went to bed. When eventually I went to bed, tired of news debates, pushed the packing to next morning. When the morning arrived, sat down to read the newspaper, till it was too close for comfort, to the flight departure. I threw in a day change of clothes, put in the bag my laptop, the newest weapon in my salesman arsenal, my iPad, and left.
Barely scraping through the long security checks, I did board the flight, fairly pleased with my close-shave calculation. The disaster was impending, but it waited before presenting itself to me in its full fury, till the night had fallen. Back in the room at Marriott, when I sat down to connect my laptop to Internet, found all the charge drained out. When I fished out the power cable out of my bag, first disaster struck, it belonged to another laptop. I had taken off in rush with the power cable to the new HP spectre laptop bought for my wife, in the process separating the two young lovers. But then, why would a gadget heavy guy like me be worried on being abandoned by a single device. I had iPad for customer meeting tomorrow, I pushed my hand inside the trolley bag till they touched the bottom. iPad was being charged at the night so in the morning rush left its lover behind. No worries, I had phone with 3G, which for airtel became limping EDGE in Chandigarh, well equipped with outlook mail and I was very sure I had seen the thin phone charging wire which lovingly held my palm when I was looking for iPad charger. With a smile of pragmatic knowledge the charger was taken out and I went in to put the phone on charger. Now, the defeat was absolute; it belonged to the HTC Hero which had received an honorary retirement after full service of three years, one year back.
My humiliation was complete. If only I had packed my luggage the night before. Procrastination is a wonderful malaise, it is a temptress which always leaves you in a state which is worse than where it has found you. It begins a story which doesn't end for long and when it does, trust me there in nothing happy in it. It finds to about to embark on a glorious task, tempts you, seduces you, and you loose the sense of time, truth and honor in its embrace, till the time, it leaves you when you find yourself bitter, tired and every inch a loser. To save yourself from this temptress, repeat after me
- I will call up those who need to be spoken to, the moment their though reaches me.
- I will move my a**se out of the bed, cruelest is the first moment, which has to sacrifice itself to lead you to the redeeming beauty of the rest of the day.
- I will set aside work and sit with my daughter when she comes to tell me how she is preparing for Christmas dance in her nursery school and how her classmates play ghost with each other.
- I will clean my cupboard and find the insurance policies due this month and pay them up.
- I will write even when at the moment the very subject on which I ought to right eludes my like once prided confidence.
- I will get up in the morning and run, till I can stretch my pitiable, gasping four kilometres to a liberating twelve.
- I will stop putting up with those who drain me down.
- I will reach out to those who fill my life with abundance of love and warmth.
- I will forgive those who once wronged me and free myself.
All this I will do today, because as great, wise soul, Sri James Bond once said "Tomorrow Never Comes" (or is it die, any way, under the license of poetic liberty I have manipulated it) and as another learned sage, Louis L'amour preached as I remember from my adolescent days, in unmistakable baritone ( yes, some written words by the feel of it, carry baritone within)
"No matter what went before, a man's (and woman's too, have added being equal opportunity writer) life begins today."
Anyways, that blog prompted me to embark on the experiment with the Twenty-One day exercise (propounded by Robin Sharma who proposed that any activity that you force yourself to undertake for Twenty-One days becomes your habit) as I started to attempt to get myself out of bed at seven. Nothing earth shattering there, only thing I tried to ensure is this modest routine is not betrayed even on weekly holidays.
It worked well for a while, till the time when last week I was off to Chandigarh for work. I had a flight at decent hour in the morning. The night before I had time at hand to prepare for the travel, then the enemy alter-ego in dark apparel struck me. I pushed the packing to late night, planning to do it before I went to bed. When eventually I went to bed, tired of news debates, pushed the packing to next morning. When the morning arrived, sat down to read the newspaper, till it was too close for comfort, to the flight departure. I threw in a day change of clothes, put in the bag my laptop, the newest weapon in my salesman arsenal, my iPad, and left.
Barely scraping through the long security checks, I did board the flight, fairly pleased with my close-shave calculation. The disaster was impending, but it waited before presenting itself to me in its full fury, till the night had fallen. Back in the room at Marriott, when I sat down to connect my laptop to Internet, found all the charge drained out. When I fished out the power cable out of my bag, first disaster struck, it belonged to another laptop. I had taken off in rush with the power cable to the new HP spectre laptop bought for my wife, in the process separating the two young lovers. But then, why would a gadget heavy guy like me be worried on being abandoned by a single device. I had iPad for customer meeting tomorrow, I pushed my hand inside the trolley bag till they touched the bottom. iPad was being charged at the night so in the morning rush left its lover behind. No worries, I had phone with 3G, which for airtel became limping EDGE in Chandigarh, well equipped with outlook mail and I was very sure I had seen the thin phone charging wire which lovingly held my palm when I was looking for iPad charger. With a smile of pragmatic knowledge the charger was taken out and I went in to put the phone on charger. Now, the defeat was absolute; it belonged to the HTC Hero which had received an honorary retirement after full service of three years, one year back.
My humiliation was complete. If only I had packed my luggage the night before. Procrastination is a wonderful malaise, it is a temptress which always leaves you in a state which is worse than where it has found you. It begins a story which doesn't end for long and when it does, trust me there in nothing happy in it. It finds to about to embark on a glorious task, tempts you, seduces you, and you loose the sense of time, truth and honor in its embrace, till the time, it leaves you when you find yourself bitter, tired and every inch a loser. To save yourself from this temptress, repeat after me
- I will call up those who need to be spoken to, the moment their though reaches me.
- I will move my a**se out of the bed, cruelest is the first moment, which has to sacrifice itself to lead you to the redeeming beauty of the rest of the day.
- I will set aside work and sit with my daughter when she comes to tell me how she is preparing for Christmas dance in her nursery school and how her classmates play ghost with each other.
- I will clean my cupboard and find the insurance policies due this month and pay them up.
- I will write even when at the moment the very subject on which I ought to right eludes my like once prided confidence.
- I will get up in the morning and run, till I can stretch my pitiable, gasping four kilometres to a liberating twelve.
- I will stop putting up with those who drain me down.
- I will reach out to those who fill my life with abundance of love and warmth.
- I will forgive those who once wronged me and free myself.
All this I will do today, because as great, wise soul, Sri James Bond once said "Tomorrow Never Comes" (or is it die, any way, under the license of poetic liberty I have manipulated it) and as another learned sage, Louis L'amour preached as I remember from my adolescent days, in unmistakable baritone ( yes, some written words by the feel of it, carry baritone within)
"No matter what went before, a man's (and woman's too, have added being equal opportunity writer) life begins today."
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