VIEWPOINT. Making peace with the present

Each of us has experienced a strong desire to feel settled some time or the other. Parents feel more settled when their kids are admitted into a suitable school. And later, in a professional course (preferably law school, architecture or medicine). In the final year, we seek settlement through a job. Once we join “a good company,” life is well taken care of, it seems. Only to realise that our first job is the commencement of a fascinating new journey of survival in the corporate jungle.

Imagine the plight of a hapless young engineer or a fresh management trainee when they are being ‘on-boarded’ with a series of presentations that ask them to keep aside all they have learnt, adapt to the new corporate culture and build credibility in the organisation.

Market visits or factory stints soon follow the orientation, where they dive into live projects. After spending a year or two in the initial role, she starts to feel the need to move into a new role where she can presumably apply her people skills or market knowledge.

However, that expected transfer may take time to come, building anxiety. We feel unsettled, till our next move kicks in. A General Manager in a reputed organisation felt deeply underutilised in her role as a profit centre head, having been in the role for several years.

Some internal leadership changes and organisation restructuring left her feeling even more distraught, so she decided to take a break from her work to pursue advanced studies in a university. She felt she was at crossroads and the world beckoned.

Freedom from mundane quarterly targets, monthly review meetings and weekly telecoms – she revelled in it! However, well before completing her break, she encountered the familiar state of seeking the next move. So when do we really settle?

A river begins as a few melting drops from the icy glaciers, becoming a rivulet that feeds into a charming brook. As it turns down the slopes, it gathers momentum to become a youthful stream. A few waterfalls later, it builds into a powerful river that can wash away entire villages in turbulence. It emerges with grace across banks to large towns and meanders in muddy sands to break into an estuary till it meets the ocean.

When, then, does the river feel settled? When it has become an adult river or when it slows down in the plains, gradually finding its way to the ocean?

The journey of the river, much like our lives, is one of movement and change. Every moment is a new twistWe adapt we learn, we flow, we fly, we glow. There is beauty, there is fear, there is anxiety there is excitement. Every day brings new experiences, new learning, a new discovery of our selves. Imagine if there was predictability and certainty every day, and we knew exactly how to maximise our gains successfully – how insipid our stories would be.

Why do we then feel the intense urge to seek our next milestone, when the present phase of our journey is so miraculously wonderful? We may not meet new people everyday, but we can be sure to discover newer aspects of the people we live or work with. If that is not available, shouldn’t we notice the many layers within us?

But our minds are so preoccupied with achieving popular measures of happiness or success or security, that we miss being in the present moment.

As Eckardt Tolle puts it so succinctly, the past and the future are mere thought forms, only the now is real. As humans we are perennially being driven to ‘Do’ that we forget to ‘Be.’ Why does our mind feel so unfulfilled that we seek completion by doing and acquiring more?

Even in our pursuit of seeking interesting experiences, we feel compelled to acquire new experiences as trophies of our ambition! When will we feel more present in the moment and enjoy transient experiences rather than seeking a fictitious equilibrium of feeling settled with the next milestone of our ambition.

The writer is the Chief Strategy Officer of Titan

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