Life and its intricacies

Life is unpredictable. Things happen out of the blue that could change your life and your expectations of it, and you can do nothing about it. You face it, you move on.

Nevertheless, it isn't entirely true.

Where you are in your life at present, what you are and how you are, everything was your decision. Every trivial decision made through the course of your life has had an impact in your life, one way or the other. You often forget such life-changing decision you had made, mostly because you paid little attention to what you did then because it seemed to be of no importance then. Afterwards, you probably thank or blame God for putting you in the situation you are in.

If you have seen the movie 'The Butterfly Effect', you probably know what I'm talking about. In this movie, the protagonist gets to go back in time by looking at a photograph, and change what he'd done then, and come back to present. But when he returns, he finds his life entirely different from when he went to the past. In one case he finds his hands missing, in another he becomes the manager of a company in which he was actually just an employee; all just because he changed a small bit of his past.

My point is, if you're happy with your life at present, you're probably going to happy for the rest of your life. And if you're unhappy, you might spend the rest of your life blaming God for your misfortunes, or yourself for all the wrong decisions you made. Well, I'm not denying the luck factor. Some life changing event might have occurred of which you had no control at all, but there's only a negligible chance for something of that sort to happen.

So if you don't wanna spend your life regretting your mistakes, decide how your future should be. Make your decisions based on the lessons learned in the past.

That's probably what I ought to do.

Before I fall apart

There's just too much negativity everywhere I look. I honestly cannot find anything positive in whatever has been and is happening. When does life get better? Or does it at least get better?

It's probably just my perspective. My state of mind. Of course, things aren't going well and I always have tend to find wrong in what I'd done and regret it later. Nevertheless, I used to be an optimist. At least I used to think so. I used to think everything happens for good, and things will get better. But as it turns out, I was probably wrong. Life doesn't get better. You gotta make it better.

I've always regretted of not making the most of my opportunities. But when I think of it, I couldn't probably have done better under the circumstances I'd been in. Well, there have been some opportunities that I'd missed out of some so-called morality or some 'misplaced sense of self-righteousness', but then that's probably the way I'm wired. I can't and actually don't complain about them.

I still try to stick to the 'everything happens for a reason' principle. I always try to think things will get straightened out. But sometimes the negativity is overwhelming. I feel like I'm on the verge of depression, from where there's probably no coming back to normal.

Some other time I find my responsibilities and limitations overwhelming. I'm probably in my last few years when I could have been with no responsibilities. But my family is already dependent on me, and I'm finding it real hard to make the ends meet. I have to get home early because my mother is alone in the house. I can't do whatever I want, and that's what I'd always wanted to do. I've always longed for freedom. Freedom to do what I want, with no one to care.

I can only think of one closing line: "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa". 

Speaking of money

"'Money', so they say, 'is the root of all that is evil'" ~ Money, Pink Floyd


I was born in a middle class family. My father worked for the CISF, and later went to 'gelf'. My dad's siblings use to complain that he doesn't earn. And he didn't too. But neither did he ever fail to support us in anyway. I always got what I wanted.
When I grew up, and while I was attending college, my mom would always advice me to concentrate more on my studies, saying that dad has loads of debts. Eventually, I finished my college, but without a degree. Nevertheless, I got a job right after I left college at Innoz, the startup by 3 of my classmates. There was no salary at the beginning though. After that I was given 3k a month as salary, and I was the only employee there. Salary increased gradually, and once I even joined a different company at 12k. But then Innoz called me back offering 10k. The other company being shitty, I went back to Innoz.
Salary would then become 12k after some 8 or 9 months, then was about to be 15 after some more months, when I said that won't be enough. So it was finalized on 17. I'm intentionally not commenting on any of this.
On telling that 15 won't be enough and to make it higher, I was told there will be better pay after the company gets proper revenue and then I would be saying the pay is too high.

Afterwards, the office was shifted from the 16 seater Technopark TBIC room in Trivandrum to the present 3 floor + basement office building in Koramangala, Bangalore. The salary was increased from 17 to 30k after the shift. By then the company has received the first real revenue from SMS Gyan, as a cheque from Airtel. I told the team again that the salary will have to be raised. I was expecting the 'too high' pay to happen then. But the raise was again another 10k, to make the current 40k.
By then everyone else in the team seemed happy. One of em even seemed ecstatic, but I can only think of his low expectations. Expectation, of course, reduces joy, but I'm not just expecting. I need to be paid more. I think I deserve more.