Existence And Beyond .....

Atlas Shrugged!

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:21:54 -0500

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.

Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.” | Atlas Shrugged

Reject !

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:37:35 -0500

I woke up to a cliched Response from one of the amazing company recruiter I recently interviewed with to let me know that even though I had the background but I wasnt a perfect fit for the Job. We will keep your Resume in our records and continue applying for opportunities in future.

This got me thinking- Isn’t Job hunt So much like finding that special someone in your life?? Even though you are a nice person you want to be “Just friends”. You put all your time and energy into build that relationship and then it just didnt click ??

We wait for it to happen and one fine day you just get lucky and everything falls in place…Like magic !!

You wonder what you did differently - probably nothing - just that all the past experiences made you a better partner or a better candidate than others :)

And you know what’s the catch ??

Like love sometimes you find a job somewhere where you were looking for the least..with someone whom you never thought it was possible but was always there..

The opportunity is right in front of you …look for it .. grab this opportunity…when the time is right …everything will fall in place indeed. All you need is patience and a little faith :)

Pursuit of Happyness

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 22:31:14 -0500

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there?

That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what.

How did he know that?

Work life balance ? Thought for the day ...

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 17:02:00 -0500

This friday at work everyone was in the holiday mood . All smiling faces discussing holiday plans with families and loved ones.

Every left early for the day - the higher management sent emails to ask their employees to take a well deserved break after the long year that they had.

I was given a small task after which my director who had dropped by to wish happy holidays asked me to leave early for holiday (good gesture but accompanied with a condition to finish that small little tiny winy task ).

So I set off to verify a fix for an issue we were debugging for this months customer release : Only a minor glich it refused to work.

It was a 5 minute test scenario only if it worked.

It took me and my Colleague 5+ hours to resolve by process of elimination if it was a Hardware issue or a set up issue or software issue or a firmware issue .

It was more than what we bargained for .

Right when we were debugging the issue we looked around in the lab - it was just 4 of my teammates left.

Everyone else had left for their respective happy holidays .

We had to send out an update email before we signed off .

We had nothing to update and we couldnt just state that it did not work - leading to 100s of questions from managers and POCs asking WTH does not work ? did you try this did you try that ? thus ruining out holidays .

To avoid such a scenario we decided we would give them a detailed analuysis of things we did try and that worked and that did not work and thus narrowing down the issue.

By the time we finished it was 9 PM . We started for that Small tinie winie task in the afternoon.

On our drive back home ( My colleague had to drop me home as I missed my last bus back home ) he said something that got me thinking: ” We live in a very competitive world ” he said, ” every minute is valuable - The customers dont care if its a holiday or not , they dont care about Santa ..with millions of dollars at stake .. if they see an issue - they want a solution or a possible explanation right away - If we dont do it someone else will… what would be left so happy about the holidays then ? “

What was it … ahhh “christmas spirit” !! I wonder watever happened to that ..

I am just a phone call away from working on a weekend :)

Happy Holidays Everyone !!:)

Life happens.

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 20:29:37 -0500

One of my dear friend once told me writing is good for your soul .It helps you organize your thoughts when you feel lost. So here I am , writing this blog in a very unstable state of mind hoping to find myself again.

There is a fine line between knowing something that is good for you and taking your ass off that chair and going out in the real world and doing it.

Suddenly on this frustrating Saturday afternoon I forced my self to “re-reanalyze” the decisions I made in my life, the person those decisions made me today, all the experiences I have had - Did it make me bitter ? or better ?

I finished my school in 2001 and joined a 3 year diploma course in Electronics and telecommunications and moved on to complete my Bachelors in the same field in 2004.

A lot of events took place while I was being trained to become an engineer. An academic drop , a heartbreak leading to low confidence , low self esteem - I was convinced life couldn’t get worse. Like everyone else , my life had its share of ups and down. I manged to sail through or rather fight my way through to complete my master in electrical engineering in 2012(Yes, FINALLY!)

Like any other kid born and brought up in a Gujarati family who runs their own business I was tempted to join my dads company - which I chose not to so that I would have my own independence and I could have my own identity.

The gujju in me was exhilarated at an offer to be the Co-founder of an upcoming and promising start up idea in the New York City.

Life cannot get better than this I thought back then.

As days passed by and the excitement diminished - so did its promising potential .

Reality kicked in. Life happened accompanied by another heartbreak -Which I survived thanks to my friends.

I managed to get a Job in my DREAM company.

A contract Job . I still work there.

This is how it feels to be living your dream.

This is how you feel when you love your Job.

This is how it feels when you cant wait to get back to work on Monday curious to learn something new.

The orgasmic feeling you get when all that you learned all these past years Is right there in front of your eyes.

The feeling that you dont want this to go- you want to hold on to it for as long as you can.That you know you deserve to be here. The feeling you waited for years- that feeling of being content.

I LOVE MY JOB.

It is not the ideal job in the world.

It pays less than a what a Research Assistant is paid in graduate school.

No matter how much you enjoy it . No matter if it has the potential for you grow as an engineer- this is not the regular , full time , permanent Job that a Masters student is assumed and “supposed” to have .

(Whatever happened to my Independence ? my identity ? my life ?)

I know there is something better out there.

I know I am learning and when the time is right I will get what I deserve.

(I wonder why not this ?)

I cannot give up . I will take my time and be patient. I am preparing myself in case an opportunity strikes .

Like they say ” Luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation”.

Life is happening right now - in this precise moment.

This moment leads to the next which leads to something that all of us call Life.

Cherish it - Relish it - make the most of what life offers you.

It is as simple as that.

Photo

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 12:19:45 -0500

"Anything which can go wrong will always go wrong"

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 01:24:44 -0500

““Anything which can go wrong will always go wrong””

- Murphy - The B@$%^&* who saw things as they were (via wittyandme)

Period: Let me just stab you in the uterus. Nbd

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 17:46:52 -0400

Period: Let me just stab you in the uterus. Nbd
Period: You didn't like that pair or underwear, did you? Good, 'cause its ruined.
Period: Go eat a whole tub of ice cream, a cake and 3 chocolate bars, and then maybe some fried chicken
Period: I hope you like blood
Period: *le breeze* instantly horny
Period: Can I make those wrappers any more noisy? Challenge accepted.
Period: I hope your mom didn't like that bedding
Period: You're not ugly enough as it is, here, have a face full of pimples
Period: Let me just keep you up all night with some cramps
Period: I'm here for a week, enjoy bitches

"I think one of the most universal human experiences is feeling alone. You’d never know it, but..."

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 23:52:17 -0400

““I think one of the most universal human experiences is feeling alone. You’d never know it, but there’s most likely tons of people feeling the exact same way. Maybe because you’re feeling abandoned. Maybe because you realize that you aren’t as self-sufficient as you thought. Maybe because you know you should’ve handled something differently. Or maybe because you aren’t as good as you thought you were. Either way, when you hit that low point, you have a choice. You can either wallow in self-pity…Or you can suck it up. It’s your call.””

- Scrubs

Keep the Faith

Mon, 07 May 2012 16:46:00 -0400

“Maybe it’s not even advisable to be an optimist. Maybe pessimism is something we have to start applying daily, like moisturizer. Otherwise, how do you bounce back when reality batters your belief system and love does not, as promised, conquer all? Is hope a drug we need to go off of? Or is it keeping us alive? What’s the harm in believing? “- Carrie Bradshaw .

Be Optimistic. Give it some time. Time heals everything.

Everyone tells us its all gonna be okay.

What if its not okay?

I believed in magic when I was a kid only to learn they are just tricks.

I believed in Santa only to learn there wasn’t any.

I laughed at jokes until nothing was funny any longer.

I believed in fairy tales and prince charming and love made in heaven only to learn how meaningless all this was in reality.

I had faith . I had faith in me, in him, in us , in life around me and I had it all figured out.

I knew exactly how my life was going to turn out to be or lets just say hoped it would .

I had a belief that all the withholding from life would stop .

That after all the drama it was my turn after all.

Belief : A strong word that we all got wrong.

What happens when we believe in something all our lives and its does not come true ? When every time you try to rise back something else shakes the ground you are standing on and you fall back again. When you try to pretend to be okay and deal with the million balls life is asking you to play with ? and deep down you know you are not okay ? and what if it stays like this forever ?

There is no magic. There is no Santa . There is no prince charming for the damsel in distress.

Everyone one of us have felt “STUCK” at some point in our lives.

I am yet to find someone who made it through without the help and support of their near and dear ones.

They are our Santa (in spirit). They help us believe. That there is magic not outside but within you if you care enough to find it.There is no prince charming and that the damsel refuses to wait for him to come and save her.

That she will have a happy family which she could lean on . She will have a chance to re-live the childhood with her parents which she missed out on.

She can and will find her way through it on her own.

Lets hope she will make it through this.

She will have faith. Faith in herself.

She will learn to fall and Yes, to rise back indeed.

The rest of your life is being shaped right now

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:53:00 -0400

I recently graduated from my Masters in Electrical Engineering .

Unlike my friends I chose not to apply for full time job opportunities as I was buzy planning and boot strapping a Start up with my Mentor Professor. With the idea of my life dream coming true , I was more than happy. I was going to live a NORMAL life finally ! - I told myself.

But as it turns out , in few months I realized things didn’t turn out as they expected to be. Dream- lets just say were still dreams and far from reality. As the number of team members started reducing , the need for a reality check was increasing.

I started applying for jobs and I still am.

Its been more than 3 months now.

Interviewing and learning with every new experience.

Today , I attempted to be like everyone else again.I interviewed for yet another Wireless Job OPPORTUNITY :)

Dreams… Hopes… Aspirations… desires… the wait for that one chance to make things okay.

From One Tree Hill(something I am watching these days) :

“The rest of your life is a long time and whether you know it or not it’s being shaped right now. You can choose to blame your circumstances on fate or bad luck or bad choices or you can fight back. Things aren’t always going to be fair in the real world, that’s just the way it is but for the most part you get what you give.

Let me ask you all a question. What’s worse: not getting everything you wished for or getting it but finding out it’s not enough?

The rest of your life is being shaped right now with the dreams you chase, the choices you make and the person you decide to be. The rest of your life is a long time and the rest of your life starts right now”

The Key to success is BALANCE ?

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:02:55 -0400

Somewhere , sometime , someday - one has to stop or may be pause for a while.

Enjoy the journey they had and prepare for the battle that lies ahead.

Juggling between thousands of thoughts ,wishes, dreams, aspirations, goals.

Reaching deadlines and fulfilling expectations of family, friends and above all- oneself.

Doing everything yet feeling like you left out on something.

Somewhere that little something that is missing.

That awesome turning point to the extraordinary thing they call life.

How do you draw a line and how do you balance your acts?

How Does one balance….. balance ?

(Picture courtesy :http://www.slashthree.com/)

Hopeless Hope

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 04:00:05 -0400

Have you ever been in love??

There’s too much of it around but its more of the idea of falling in love, the idea born in our helpless minds, making us vulnerable to the endless possibilities “being in love “has to offer.

(Picture courtesy of http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/08/steal-like-an-artist-austin-kleon-book/)

From valentines days to romantic birthdays to changed Facebook relationship status. Blurring the practical self, the individual me.

No matter how much one tries - One chooses to hold on.

To take that one chance on the possibility of a dream come true.

When does one stop and put an end to the hope?

When does one draw a line ?

When does one stop holding on to the idea , the illusion ?

and face the reality and accept the powerlessness it has to offer.

When does one start to concentrate on the most important person in ur life - You !

Staring Outside my Window

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:00:05 -0400

Staring outside my window,looking back at past on a fine rainy day- enjoying the perfect weather with a cup of coffee and a movie , curled up in my blanket, I paused the movie wondering how things have changed.

The person we once were to the humans we become. New city, new people , new perspective - a perfect recipe for a Survival.

Although my new life provided me the opportunity to re-invent my self as a person , it also helped me see myself and my past with a new perspective.

How different the surroundings are, yet so similar .

Is it learning new things or realizing the existence of things we already knew ?

Do I miss my old life?? No, I miss the fact that I missed out on so many things while I was there.Things we take for granted , people who were always there, surroundings we were born into and situations we grew out of.

Twists and turns,

ups and downs,

highs and lows

destiny…fate…. life…whatever you call it.

Smile that it happened, smile that you survived .

Smile , looking back on the past.

Staring outside the window.

(Picture Courtesy http://pinterest.com/)

You want something- Go get it ! Period.

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 18:38:00 -0400

4th January 2010- The day I reached US to purse my Masters of Electrical Engineering after a year long war between my head and heart.

Back then,I did so to escape from a world that had - let say “collapsed” (in my head). A life I had not expected and a life I wanted to undo.

All the months of running around the hospitals and meeting doctors for my dads health, and deferring my admission to USNW (Australia) thrice, I decided it was time to do something about the way I was living my life.

I didn’t want to grow up to be that old aunty who tells stories of her dreams to kids of the “Could have been and Would have been” of her life.

I wanted to grow old to say “I wanted to do something and I went ahead and did it”.

I was leaving behind a family who didn’t approve of my decision to study further. Which , when I think now, was the right thing for them to feel. A family that had been through a lot and need their daughter next to them.

I was leaving behind a relationship of 4 years with the most amazing person I have ever met .Someone who stood by be through the roller-coaster called MY LIFE.

I was hurting when I took that flight from Mumbai.

I was heartbroken,disappointed and shattered (dramatic and filmy style).

Wondering if this was the right thing to do ?Was I ready to live with the guilt all my life if things went wrong ? But then how worse could it get ? I thought.

And here I am now- healed and full of life .

The two years havent been the perfect or right of a movie kind.

Life has its way of acting funny , no matter what corner of the world you run to.

But all of this , made me the person I am today.

I no longer feel it was an escape. Escape is when one is wants to live in denial of the reality of ones life.When one resists to accept and acknowledge that something is wrong.

I was fully aware that I needed help, that I was messed up and I needed to do something about it.

How is that an escape??

My decision to fly stands.

I am glad I did it .

And in my doing , I took a chance which opened new doors for myself. I allowed myself to be a better me. I allowed myself to learn new things and open my mind to new pattern of thinking. A better way of living.

Until that decision , I had been living a life inspired by compromise, a life lived on blame and eventually that would have turned into regret , and may be resentment.

I stand by my decision . My decision to say to NO to things I did not feel right and NO to things that took away my energy and enthusiasm towards living the life I had imagined.

I had left the place and people I spent 25 years of my life with , to find an answer to all that was wrong .

Let Just say , I “Almost” did .

My First Post !

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:45:00 -0500

” Someday I am going to look back on this post as wonder wat was I thinking :) “

So the truth is I decided that I would do this as a part of my New Years resolution… and Keep doing it until I think I am good at it (probability of which is close to zero, not about me thinking I am good at something…I am awesome !!..how good can one get , it is the probability of me continuing to do this regularly)…As U can see this already , I am 6 days late on keeping my new years resolution but I am going to make myself feel better and say I am 359 days early to achieving my next years resolution… How awesome does that sound !!

Loads of things were running on my mind when I started this post.. should I write about past …which is a constant companion or write about things I would want to achieve and the person I aspire to become in future (and try n prove that the law of attraction indeed works :P:P)

But I decided Lets make this as it is … No regrets (past)….No Anticipation (future) …Just few random thoughts put to words of this moment as it is.. (present).

P.S I would definitely make minor mentions and references of my past as well as future cause both help me be the person I am Today .

Hope I make it to the next one !!