Friday, November 24, 2006

When will you call it quits?

Yesterday was the first day of year 2 of my salary-less survival. Not that this is the first time, I've gone through such a time. In fact, it is the fourth time. What makes this time special is that the last times my struggle periods (if-i-may-call-them-that) lasted for 3 months, 2 months and 2 months respectively. This time I've broken my record. I've just begun the 13th month. And I am hoping 13 proves to be my lucky number!

I often wonder how each of these times were different. And few of my friends who look at such a pathetic (their opinion) state, do find it intriguing that every time I got myself into the situation knowing fully well the repercussions - It never happened, I always did it! Let's see.

The first time, I came to Delhi without a job, without a house to live in, and without a relative in town. Mistake, mistake and mistake. It was through sheer luck that I could find decent and secure dwelling on my day one. The first time, I spent money on my bike and went hungry so I could find a job. I was someone who made mistakes.

The second time, I lost two well positioned jobs due to my simple yet profound dumbness. I hated marketing / sales, I hated doing business, and I depended too much upon god-knows-what. Dumb, dumb, and dumb. The second time I spent money on keeping myself alive in Delhi winters and went hungry so I could find a better job. I was someone who had shown an aptitude for dumbness.

The third time, I left the job gotten above with much hardship at 04:30 in the morning cuz I couldn't take in the environment. I underestimated the chill of January in Delhi, I underestimated the fact that zero means no more than zero, and I underestimated the past hardships. Ego, ego, and ego. This was probably the worst of all times. There were no jobs in the market, the few that were, were those I wouldn't take (ego), and the ones I would, were not open to undergraduates. The third time, I spent money on nothing cuz I had none, and went hungry while looking for my kind of job. I was someone who had shown traits of arrogance and stubbornness.

The fourth time, which hasn't ended yet, I started a business. The question that one of my far sighted friends keeps asking me is "when will you think it's time to call quits". What a rhetoric question! It is never a time to call quits. Anyway, the point I want to highlight here is, this time I am not going hungry. This time, I am spending money on my car, on the right dresses, on making international calls etc. Yes, borrowed money. Yes, borrowed as personal loan - the kind with the highest interest rates. Yes, since a year. I intend to go as long as banks would let me. Then, I'll sell the car. Then, I'll borrow from my friends. Then, I'll borrow from my family whatever little they can afford. Then, we'll see. Of course, I know it'll never come to all this; we'll make money long before then, but if it does, I'm not setting a limit to how far I'll go.

So, I've proven myself as someone prone to make mistakes, dumb, arrogant, egoist and stubborn. After writing the last paragraph, I'm also certified mad and crazy. Oh yeah, irrational too.

I feel quite at home in this world.

3 comments:

Priyanka said...

I know you can do it. No questions about that, for you are the genie I(ehhmmm??) will like to work with ;)

Pankaj Katoch said...

I guess I get moved and excited when I follow the lead in the post, and flow with it's way of thinking and viewing the determination and optimism.

However as soon as I take a step back and try to access it through my rather simple way - which says you should be doing what you really love, and rest of the things usually follow - then all I can gather is that you love jumping into hardships for the sake of it, and then get a high overcoming them for the heck of it. What's the fuel that keeps your blood pumping? My guess is - we'll make something work, and we don't care what is it, at least it'll be something we built. And yeah, we'll also like that we made a lot of money.

I think even that is all quite challenging, as evident from the fact that not a lot of people do it. But to a person like me, who likes the coziness of stable salary, even getting your own shop profitable at Shopprix, don't care what it sells, is also very hard.

Pooja said...

Reply to Pankaj's Comment:

My perspective while writing the post was "This is all the world sees". They just saw the egoist till she managed to triple her salary in a couple of months; then suddenly she was brave. Today, they just see the irrational person and will continue to see her that way, till she makes it; then their views will change.

And you are right. One should be doing what one really loves. At the same time, you got to be accomodating for some exploring :) ... we started with an idea which none of us cared much about, it was a means to make money and more importantly, work in a particular team, we changed four times before deciding what we want to pursue, for money of course. Now, I am more passionate about it than I was about Nova / Hermes(pine's last products) - and that, is saying something. I remember Calvin's last statement from the series,
It's a magical world, Hobbes ol buddy. . . let's go exploring.