Why do I need to write?

I started reading the book on writing by Nathalia GoldBerg called “Writing Down The Bones”. She writes about writing from your heart, write what comes to your mind, totally raw, unpolished, the way you think, the way you perceive the world. Writing makes you write more. It is a habit that grows on you and you start enjoying it especially when you write from heart. I totally agree with her. So I have decided to write more often about anything and everything.

Why do I want to write? What is the big deal in putting thoughts into words? Why do I want to express in the writing form? Well, here is the answer that I gave to myself. I have got an opinion about everything, I have this strong urge to express my view, opinion, advice and suggestion about anything and everything. It could be a view on anything, starting from how to raise a kid to how to run the country. I don’t think anyone needs to hear my opinion or view. I just want to think about it and express it. Writing is a good form of expression. I can speak out my mind and give myself a complete chance to explore a particular topic to the depth that I desire to go. It is an outlet that gives a great pleasure, invokes the creativity part in it. It gives me a chance to look at my thoughts after a while and evaluate my values and ideas.

Thanks Nathalia for inspiring me to write.

Value of career, people and time.

We all think we know the value of things that we possess, may it be worldly possessions, riches or abstract things like time, relationship etc. Yes, of course we know what we have and how valuable they are. But the fact is that we realize the real worth of the things only after we loose it.

I am a software engineer, have been working for dog days and I love my job. I always considered myself as a career person and thought that I knew exactly what career meant to me. But wrong, I actually did not know the real value of it. I valued it for the wrong reasons – I wanted a job because I thought I can not be at home without one. I did not value my “software profession” and did not think that I was really excited by it. I thought that I don’t care for the money I make because I didn’t even know what I was making. All these so called facts became a myth once I lost my job. I got a chance to evaluate the values that I attached to my profession, my commitment, my involvement, my passion.. in essence my real reason for working.Once I lost my job, I got a chance to spend time at home and do whatever I wanted to do. I did not get crazy. It was opposite of that. I had more things to do at any given point of time. I got a chance to explore and experiment and I loved it. So my fear that I will go crazy being out of work proved to be a myth. However, I missed not doing the stuff that I used to do when I was working, missed meeting the people and have technical discussions, missed reading badly written code and twisted logics. I missed the day to day activities that I used to complain of. I missed rushing out of home in the morning, sipping coffee while driving to work, missed listening to NPR’s morning edition. I tried to adopt some other career – but no, I couldn’t – I was attached to “software profession” . I felt real pain leaving it and doing something else for a living. It was okay to do anything else as a hobby but not as a career. I could not let go the money that I make in my software engineering profession. I valued the money I make more than I thought I did. Yes, it is a profession dominated by guys, boring and monotonous at times and is restricted to 8×8 space. But still, I liked it. I wanted it. This I found only after I lost it. In some sense, loosing my job made me realize the real importance of my job. I thought if I stay home, I can give quality as well as quantity time to my kid. I can be a parent and a teacher. But no, when I lost my job, I became more irritable, my quantity of time increased but quality definitely took a dip. I kinda knew about this but did not know the degree of it. That I found only when I lost my job.

On a different note, I lost a friendship. I got hurt by one of my good friends. I used to talk to her everyday for hours together about anything and everything. I valued her friendship and thought I can not loose it on any cost. But then, one fine day for no big real reason, I lost it. I was hurt, really hurt but then I slowly got over it. I stopped talking to her. I missed it initially but with time, missed her lesser and lesser. Now I am revaluating the years of friendship that I had with her. It was total waste of time. I had put more value onto that relationship than it deserved to have. Loosing the relationship made me realize this fact. Now I am now evaluating the real value of all my relationships in life.

“Time” is another thing I took it for granted till I realized that I don’t have much of it left. When I was young, just like all kids, I took time for granted – postponed doing so many things. I did not value the passage of time. Did not stop and think about the moment and how I was spending it. Soon, days went of.. years went off. .and now I find myself old . .. old to realize that the time to do so many things are gone. I realize that I wasted so much time doing things that are worthless, things that did not give me pleasures, time wasted in complaining and crying, time wasted in living in grief, time wasted in fear and worry. Time gone is gone for ever. Now, I am teaching myself to value time. Value each moment as it passes because once it is gone it will never come back. It will be a different moment! A different valuable moment to treasure!