Monday, June 21, 2010

Life of a vagabond

Today was a very nice day, exceptional from regular routines, and anybody who is following this blog now and then, must have noticed that I am a person who does make lists but favours spontaneous moments of living.

I love the idea of finding something unknown as life unfolds into the next chapter. I hate having a clear cut image of what can or will happen tomorrow. To my great delight, life has been quite surprising till now, those what I had planned never worked the way it should be (or may be I never planned that good!), but on the way I had fun and lots of learnings, and every time I ended up into a new corner, thought for a while about what could happen next, started again and again ended up into a different destination then the one which I had in my mind before starting the journey. 

In this pursuit of living an unpredictable, constantly changing life, along with several memories, I have gathered many other wisdom too, which might be useless abstract whims of mind for many but for me they are extreme pieces of treasures.

Unforgettable friends and their friendship

When I call some old friend back at home, they sound so lonely even in their own land, they say they don't have any new friends, only some long distance ones like me with whom they have studied in college or university, and I in contrast  get so many hands to shake, and so many smiling faces wanting to be my friends to whichever new place I went. May be because at each place I know I will be here only for a short while and so in order to enjoy my days I open up myself without caring for any criticism or formality, and that helps.

Optimism and determination

As I normally don't know the next station where my journey will stop either in terms of place or in terms of work or culture, therefore I have learned to be optimistic and positively determined for the future. I have learned from my previous experiences that nothing can stop a desired journey, it might get a little late from some unforeseen obstacles, but the learnings from those obstacles can only help to move forward. From my past I have learned to believe strongly on the famous Hindi saying that when one door get closed, you will find several windows opening in front of you.


Flexibility and understanding towards others nature, culture and belief

I have got exposure to lots and lots of people, from different places, origins and religions.  I don't try therefore to analyse or criticise a person's comment on the perspective of how I felt about that, but on why or what made him say that? I try to find explanation regarding others behaviour, may be sometimes so much softness does not work, and I end up feeling useless but at the end it is not that harmful,  at least I never end up making an enemy.

Patience 

This is another virtue which I have learned, specially in Europe where people are very responsible and very patient, they will never burn a government bus for protesting against unsatisfactory Government bills or regulations. They of course show their protests, in newspaper columns or by an organised strike for one hour or so.

Taking responsibility of my own decision

This might not only due to my travel prone life but also due to some extreme decisions I have taken, I have often complained and nagged about them specially on those which turned out as a failure, but slowly I am learning to take responsibility of my own deeds both at work and at home, as a woman it is a great learning and I will try my best to pass this parcel to 'J' too, as unless and until we women are learning to do this, we will keep shouting of glass ceiling, inequality,  feminism and nothing will happen.     

Finally the biggest learning form my vagabond life is that life is once in a lifetime opportunity, so why waste it on meaningless demands, and why not let it flow on its own path, and while it flows why not try to enjoy the journey to its fullest?

p.s.: I will be lying if I don't add that, I do feel friendless lonely creature at times, I become an extreme  pessimist at many phases of my life, I do cringe on the person making silly negative comments on me and I do loose patience sometimes following several rules trying to balance the dual nature of an expat life. I do sometimes want be pampered like little girl in spite of demanding equality both at home at work. But in those situations I (most of the time) sit back and assure myself that at least I should  try to overcome these negative moments just by thinking that this 'time' is not going to come back, so it is not worth to waste it under the clouds.

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