The Working Years

Along with a group of my friends from college and work I attended a seminar not so long ago, the subject and content of the seminar was career planning and progression. All through the session the speaker was placing the importance of a good career and how to advance the ladder to reach the top. After the session I had this debate taken up with my friends to find out where their vision takes them upto; some wanted to be the CEO's, some wanted to start their own setups and be extremely successful in that, some could see them being immediate managers, some wanted to be important persons that takes them across the world etc etc. I myself wanted to answer that question, but I caught up in a dilemma- do I want to have a successful career so as to enjoy a busy life or do I want to have a quality life. Now quality is a perception; what may seem to be quality for me may not be the same quality for others, but the question remains what is a quality life?

Long ago I read a story, believe I read this in my teens. I did not fully understand its implications of how it would come into an effect on our future lives. Narrating the story, there was this man in his mid forties who used to spend his whole day sitting on a river bank and fishing using a fishing rod. Sitting for almost 4-6 hrs a day, somedays he used to catch upto 5-10 fishes and somedays return without anything. He used to take home 1-2 fishes for his meal and rest he would sell it to a local shop for small amount of money. This routine continued for long time; A successful business man who also happened to be in his mid forties came to see this continuing act and decided to advice the other man.

He went up to him and said, "Why are you wasting your time with a fishing rod to catch a few fishes, and instead buy a fishing net and in less time catch more fishes.

The first man replied, "What will I get if I catch more fishes"

The business man, " With more fishes in less time, you can sell all of them and earn more money"

The first man, "What can I then do with more money"

The business man, " With more money, you can buy a small boat"

The first man, "What can I do with a small boat"

The business man, "With small boat, you can go further into the river and catch more fish and sell for more money"

The first man, " What can I do with that more money?"

The business man, " With more money you can buy a bigger boat and go into the sea and catch more fish and sell for even more money"

The first man, " What can I do with again more money?"

The business man, " You can employ more people, buy fishing boats and send all of them to sea and earn more money catching fish"

The first man, "What can I do with even more money?"

The business man, "You can then employ more people to run your business and relax

The first man, " What do you think I am doing now?.

Most of us are like the business man, we think of earning more and more instead of earning enough. We think of living in the future when we have the option and oppurtunity to live in the present. Me myself have asked at times why should I be so busy and what for am I aiming. Should I aim to lead a better life or should I aim to lead a busier life. A busier life means, probably I will grow up the career ladder, be a CEO, travel lots of places and have more money in the bank. A busier life also means, I have less time for myself, less time for my friends, less time for my wife and kids, less time to socialize and less time to appreciate the good things in life. I will grow on to a stage where when I retire, I will have plenty of money in the bank, a good house, a decent car to travel in, but then my kids would have grown up and gone their way, lesser number of friends, relatives that are no longer closer to me and get confined to the four corners of my house. Well to me a quality life is not something like this, but enough money to survive, enjoy my kids growing up, spend time with my wife sharing our love, meet up with friends and family, celebrating every ocassions that come in, go for movies and then retire with lot of people to socialize with. However the dilemma continues because everyone has to find a balance between the two life styles.