Ascent

Yesterday, I spoke to an old friend of mine for 10 minutes. Nothing so unusual about that, but it was for me. It was remarkable because she made me think: think about the big questions in life such as career, personal life, family, friends etc. Nothing remarkable in that either- everyone thinks about these, but it was remarkable for me because it changed my thinking.

What she said struck a chord. Here I was, going on a totally different track than I was used to. I needed a wake up call to slow down my pace of life.

For the past several months now, I have been pushing myself hard to prepare myself to enter a B-school. The pace has been hectic (but enjoyable), and the ride anything but smooth. I had cut myself off from almost everybody, surrounding myself with books. Slowly, I stopped writing, -one of my favourite activities- stopped reading books, just spent my time preparing, setting higher and higher targets. I couldn't sprint at this pace in a sustainable manner.

Then, I started slowing down, taking each moment as it comes, scrapping all my grand and elaborately constructed study plans. I did whatever I felt like doing at the moment, without pushing myself to devote such and such time to such and such topics. Surprisingly, I fared better. Unsurprisingly, I felt much better.

Yesterday, when she told me to not lose my friends, I understood. She was speaking from her own personal experiences. I'll not lose my friends, and I'll go a bit further than that: I'll get back to writing.

Kashyap is someone who is defined by the company he keeps, the books he reads, and importantly, his emotional outpourings in the form of articles, blog posts, diary entries et al. Renouncing all that in order to compete in a rat race is not a holistic way to live life. Eventually, these things will catch up with you. I can't go very long without putting pen to paper, nor can I do without all those things which define me, just as a race car can't sacrifice pit stops to save time.

That doesn't mean I'm pulling out of the CAT race. It just means I'm learning to balance all aspects of my life. I can run a 100m race at full speed, but not a 10km one.

I do have to admit, though, that all this effort was worth it, and if I had a chance to do it all over again, I'd do things no differently. But, for pointing some things out to me, due to which I started thinking things over, and for kindling these thoughts, I owe you one.

Thanks. You know who you are.