This is a quote by Jim Collins, the author of "Good to Great" and few other books. I have read his book for some motivation. At some point of time last year, i was into this motivational stuff. I learnt a lot during that phase. Then work took over and my life got consumed and I have ended up restless as ever. In fact, this directly relates to the quote - if you try to be interested, you do find out a great deal of information and tend to be happier relatively. Which is what I was doing in the second half of last year - I was somehow content with the amount of information I was gathering inspite of the many unanswered questions. My restlessness subsided. Then I became terribly busy all of a sudden and have been heavily distracted from my stream of thoughts since then. In trying to be interesting, now I have ended up as an overworked, stressed and boring-cause-of-lack-of-play individual. I am trying to change that and I have somewhat succeeded. I am of course not where I want to be.
Let's try to apply this to my life now. There are too many unknowns - that's only because I think there is a need to know a lot of things. That's the desire that causes the corresponding suffering of having to deal with ambiguity. In the recent times, I have really learnt to make faster decisions at work, partially because that's what is expected and also because of the fact that it is important to get something done rather than making slow decisions and not having anything perceivable. I can quote that as a good learning in my life inspite of the amount of stress that I had to put up with. How else can I be interested? What should I be interested in? I know that I am having very complicated thoughts and I am not letting it go. I can't quite say that I have tried 100 things and none of them worked. I don't even know what I am trying and what for I am supposed to be trying anything. I am pretty sure there are quite a few people like me in this regard. I am also sure that they don't have the answer to the unknown question. I am watching a lot of Larry David these days in his episodes of "Curb your Enthusiasm". I highly recommend it BTW.
Look at Larry. He seems to be at peace with himself - well, not in those episodes, but overall. He has rightly capitalized on his talent and has had a decent break somewhere. He is 60+ and still pushing strong. He runs pretty fast and writes and directs and produces and what not. He still has the thing with him. Look at so many other sixty year olds around you - how many of them can be considered successful? I guess that would depend on the definition of success. We can keep arguing like that. But coming back to the point, how can I be interested? There are multiple things looming in the horizon. May be looming is not the right word. Let's say that there are multiple responsibilities for me in the future. One thing would be my own family and the other important thing would be the health of my parents and my in laws 'cause they are getting older. Harmony with family seems to be one very important thing for me although I have to admit that I have not been very good at it in the last couple of years. I guess those were the years when I tried to be interesting than be interested. Should I be totally interested in what I am doing right now? Why am I so influenced by successful people and flashy products and achievements? Should I dismiss this whole thing as a fantasy/dream or should I take it positively and do something about it. After all, there are so many others like me, or rather I am like so many others who are very predictable. What do I really have that would make me anymore special than somebody else. There aren't many to quote.
I was reading about this concept called "Space Elevator" today. It's a pretty fascinating concept where the rotation of the earth is exploited in hanging a taut tether between the earth's surface and space, where a counterweight is hung on the other end to counter the effects of gravity with centripetal force. They are testing the comercialization of this thing called "carbon nanotubes" which has the highest tensile strength and a relatively low weight. If they build this thing successfully, it could revolutionalize space travel and launch of rockets. They wouldn't have to burn so much fuel and propel a rocket into space - they can just get there slowly at the rate of 120mph. It's quite incredible! The point is that this thing affected me or rather I showed genuine interest in this.
Well, life is complicated. I will continue later.
Let's try to apply this to my life now. There are too many unknowns - that's only because I think there is a need to know a lot of things. That's the desire that causes the corresponding suffering of having to deal with ambiguity. In the recent times, I have really learnt to make faster decisions at work, partially because that's what is expected and also because of the fact that it is important to get something done rather than making slow decisions and not having anything perceivable. I can quote that as a good learning in my life inspite of the amount of stress that I had to put up with. How else can I be interested? What should I be interested in? I know that I am having very complicated thoughts and I am not letting it go. I can't quite say that I have tried 100 things and none of them worked. I don't even know what I am trying and what for I am supposed to be trying anything. I am pretty sure there are quite a few people like me in this regard. I am also sure that they don't have the answer to the unknown question. I am watching a lot of Larry David these days in his episodes of "Curb your Enthusiasm". I highly recommend it BTW.
Look at Larry. He seems to be at peace with himself - well, not in those episodes, but overall. He has rightly capitalized on his talent and has had a decent break somewhere. He is 60+ and still pushing strong. He runs pretty fast and writes and directs and produces and what not. He still has the thing with him. Look at so many other sixty year olds around you - how many of them can be considered successful? I guess that would depend on the definition of success. We can keep arguing like that. But coming back to the point, how can I be interested? There are multiple things looming in the horizon. May be looming is not the right word. Let's say that there are multiple responsibilities for me in the future. One thing would be my own family and the other important thing would be the health of my parents and my in laws 'cause they are getting older. Harmony with family seems to be one very important thing for me although I have to admit that I have not been very good at it in the last couple of years. I guess those were the years when I tried to be interesting than be interested. Should I be totally interested in what I am doing right now? Why am I so influenced by successful people and flashy products and achievements? Should I dismiss this whole thing as a fantasy/dream or should I take it positively and do something about it. After all, there are so many others like me, or rather I am like so many others who are very predictable. What do I really have that would make me anymore special than somebody else. There aren't many to quote.
I was reading about this concept called "Space Elevator" today. It's a pretty fascinating concept where the rotation of the earth is exploited in hanging a taut tether between the earth's surface and space, where a counterweight is hung on the other end to counter the effects of gravity with centripetal force. They are testing the comercialization of this thing called "carbon nanotubes" which has the highest tensile strength and a relatively low weight. If they build this thing successfully, it could revolutionalize space travel and launch of rockets. They wouldn't have to burn so much fuel and propel a rocket into space - they can just get there slowly at the rate of 120mph. It's quite incredible! The point is that this thing affected me or rather I showed genuine interest in this.
Well, life is complicated. I will continue later.
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