2022 : A roller coaster ride with a crazy view!
As I reflect the year gone by and all its pivotal moments for the world and personally for me, I am beginning to realize what a roller coaster ride it has been. And yet this ride has had some brilliantly crazy views of magical resilience the world has shown and how each one of us too got an opportunity to reflect the same resilience in our own personal journeys. As the world was just moving on from Covid 19, it got hit with an unnerving combination of Russia -Ukraine war, rising inflation, climate change challenges and economic slowdown. And yet what an incredible show of resilience it has been. Voila — Twenty Twenty Two, a roller coaster ride with a crazy View. And my personal experience has not been far behind — a rollercoaster of risky career moves, shaky friendships, transformed deep connections — some got better, some worsened, adventures and travel, unimaginable spiritual growth and sweet internal battles and so much more. Thoroughly enjoyed the ride and like every yearend review here I am with my top 5 learnings of 2022:
1. “Take risks — If you win you will be happy, if you lose you will be wise”. Because the biggest risk of life is not taking any risk. With risk taking there are no bad times in life — every moment is good — either you are happy celebrating your achievements or you are enjoying learning from your failures. The risk I took this year to leave years of tax experience behind to take up a CEO role at a startup, which despite being just an 8-month stint taught me more than what 20 years of tax specialist roles did. Amongst many other things that I learnt and experienced, the most important reminder was that we are the CEOs of our respective lives and we are the only ones responsible as well as accountable for our own career progression, our decisions, our personal and professional growth and our failures too. When we start living this truth, we will always be at peace with ourselves, we will never shy away from taking calculated risks, we will never worry about what people think about us and we will cherish every success as well as failure with equal amount of joy and enthusiasm.
2. Entrepreneurship is a mindset — This is something I fiercely believe in despite being always challenged by my friends who are startup entrepreneurs or business owners. Many business owners tend to think that people who are in jobs or are professionals will never know how to run a business, without actually realizing that their own businesses are being successfully run thanks to the support and services provided by these very professionals and job goers. This year once again my belief got validated as I witnessed and experienced that entrepreneurship is all about taking accountability, making things happen, leading from the front in ups and downs, seeing opportunities and possibilities in challenges, inspiring people and taking them along to achieve meaningful outcomes that make purpose driven businesses flourish and create more and more leaders. You are an entrepreneur in true sense if you have such a mindset and you act according to this mindset irrespective of whether you are in a job, in a CXO role or in the role of a founder in a promoter driven business. If you fail to lead and look for someone else to do it, its game over.
3. Intent has no meaning if your words and actions do not align with your intent — Be it your self-improvement project, a business project, a career plan, a social sector initiative, a spiritual goal or relationships, without action the best intentions in the world mean nothing. And sometimes you may have the best intent and your words may convey that intent too but if your actions don’t align with what you think and what you say time and again, then your integrity will be questioned someday. This year yet again I experienced quite a few instances of people’s intents not meeting their actions for variety of struggles they may be going through but it made me promise myself with greater intensity to always be mindful of not being such a person in anyone’s life and a wish for myself and everyone that may we always have the awareness to align our actions with our intentions and words. Let’s always strive to walk our talk as well as our thought.
4. Learning the art of letting go is a journey — We humans are emotional beings and always trying to strike a balance between holding on and letting go as balancing a logical intellect, a stable mind and a loving heart at the same time takes a lot of effort and practice. And therefore learning the art of letting go is about cultivating a habit that requires consistent repetition to become strong. The purpose of letting go is not to erase emotions but to acknowledge their presence, gracefully accept them and transform our relationship with them. It’s like when you want to learn detachment from the world you cultivate attachment with the divine. Similarly, if you want to learn the art of letting go something or someone not meant for you, you have to cultivate the art of holding on to your own self, the treasures within you, the divinity within you which is more than enough to compensate for what you have to let go. As its rightly said, “letting go is not giving up; it is the graceful walk between continuing to put effort into making our preferred reality come true and not allowing our happiness to be controlled by something we do not have.” Letting go reaches deeper levels when you are able to observe what is happening inside you like an observer, like a witness with total acceptance that every part of life is impermanent. Learning this art of letting go is therefore a journey and every emotional or hurtful experience will get you closer to the finish line. Be grateful for such experiences and enjoy the journey
5. Giving is true living — As a beautiful quote rightly explains — “Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, an embrace, a word of love, a present, our presence, a part of our life…all of our life”. Giving generates joy as by giving to others we end up giving to our own selves much more than what we give to others — we give to ourselves joy, fulfillment, divinity, love, gratitude and all of God’s beautiful attributes. We justify being called God’s children when we are givers for life as we receive gracefully and gratefully each and everything that He has given us and keeps giving us day in and day out. This year one more time I experienced that giving makes me truly alive and fills me with gratitude. Always remember that expectation is a gift as when someone expects from you it means you have given them reasons to believe in you. And only 3 kinds of people will expect from you — those who love you immensely and feel for you (bhav), those who lack something (abhav) and look for you to help them stand on their feet and those who are majorly inspired by you (prabhav) and have seen potential in you to help them transform their own lives. Giving is a privilege — make sure you never let go of an opportunity to give. Always have a big heart and an open mind. Keep giving, keep living!
Congratulations to all of you for thriving 2022 and wish you all a super blessed 2023!
Thank you for reading!
