The Real Challenge Is Now

It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them. Alfred
Adler

I have taken my decision- I have set rolling the process of resignation from Infosys.

Why did I need to do it?

Many people have not understood.

There have been some who have responded with "Aha!" They were proud of me, they said, proud for the courage I had shown.

Courage? I am not sure if that word is applicable here.

I did not take this decision thinking it was 'bold' or 'courageous' or whatever. I am not even sure if it is right. I did it, simply because I had to. The restlessness I felt inside was not letting me live.

That said, the drama is over now. The decision is taken. The family has been told, and they have nodded in support. The company has been informed and there is no turning back now.

I am in Bangalore for six more weeks. I expect to be relieved on Jul 31. I have no work in hand in the office, and in general, I've told myself that these two months- June and July- ought to be my model months. I ought to live them with the habits I hope for the year ahead- My Great Year Of Experimentation. Because simply, if I cannot do it now, I cannot do it then.

This is a very foreign concept that I am implementing in my life- to live an year of Bohemian existence, totally after your dreams, trying to 'figure out' what you want to do with yourself and with your life.

That's why so many people have not understood the decision. "Can you not figure out while keeping your job?" they've said.

I have not been able to. The restlessness did not leave me these ten months.

So, then, that's what made me take the big hop. An irrational restlessness, that I cannot quite explain to anyone else, and that I cannot say for sure I will not face again.

Like for instance, I faced it yesterday.

After many days.

Yesterday, Sullenness revisited me. I kept a tight face the whole day, not talking to or indulging my friends, and just staring at my computer screen resolutely, trying to work on the story that was my target for the day, and yet not quite working on it, and instead spending that time chatting on the communicator, or reading emails or stories or online books- doing anything to escape the act of writing. After the lunch, I walked to the bus stop, with a beating heart, weighed down by the guilt, knowing that it was writing that I was trying to escape, but telling myself that I wanted to read 'Arranged Marriage' by Chitra Divakaruni because I wanted to give myself a model worth aspiring- giving myself all sorts of justifications for what I knew was a timid act of running away.

I almost reached the bus stop, and that is when I knew that I would not be able to look myself in the eye if I went further. If I cannot do it now, I cannot do it ever.

I turned back, back to the office.

I was on my seat again.

I still did not write. I still wasted time reading newspapers, and then, surfing the websites.

It was publishers that I searched for. I wanted to be sure that my latest idea, the one that I am working hard for these days, was marketable.

I spent nearly hours on the task.

I almost submitted a book proposal to a publisher.

But wisely, better sense prevailed.

My idea was just nascent yet. It would be sensible to work on it further, to let it develop itself over the next two months, so that I had a better, firmer product to promote.

I came back to the room with a gnawing emptiness. I had done nothing productive in the whole day.

Well, it's not that I had done nothing. I had started the story I intended to work on yesterday.

Only, I did not finish it.

Like, the many many stories that I have started, but not finished.

This may be attributed to the restlessness in me.

But I know the truth. It's Anxiety.

Anxiety that I may be mistaken after all.

That the story I am writing may not be good, or of any interest or value to anyone.

That I may be deluding myself.

I've discovered that I am scared to push my boundaries, and go beyond. Maybe, it's the fear of the unknown. I fear that I will fail.

That is why, while jogging, I do not regularly upgrade my targets. The moment I start puffing, or longing for air, I slow down. I have never experienced the 'second wind.' Except perhaps during the Sunfeast 10 km Run.

When I am writing, I do not experiment much. I do not go beyond the conventional. And, my biggest problem, the anxiety about 'greatness' does not go away. I do not just write; I write to be 'great'; I write to write a 'great story.' And this ambition makes writing difficult. Ridden with Anxiety. Impossible almost.

I understand that the confidence in my own style will come if I survive through all these anxieties and self-doubts.

Earlier, there was always a 'genuine' reason (to be honest, they were all just excuses) to give to myself for not writing just then.

For the past few months, one of the main reasons I had been feeling so restless was the thought that it had now been too much time since I had been just talking, dreaming, while actually I had done not much.

Now is the time to do.

I have left everything else, to just write.

Till now was the easier part. It just meant doing what I had long romanticized. Now, I will have to live up to what I have done. Ahead lies the challenge.