An Exit Interview

Mr Z is set to retire. He is the last man in our office, down the levels. He keeps to himself, never claiming to be capable of doing anything more than his routine. Neither is he a man of such knowledge to be called especially intelligent nor did he ever display such special traits, admirable or funny to be the center of attraction or gossip. But he's a man whom I have never seen grumbling about how little means he has at his disposal. That pleasant smile on his otherwise warty face, had always been sweetly infectious - true to the saying, face is the index of the mind!

The other day, Mr Z happened to walk into the cafeteria with his usual cranky steps that has since long stopped arousing curiosity and amusement amongst us colleagues. He glanced at me from the self-serve counter at a distance. I returned a welcome smile. Beaming with joy about know-not-what, he carried his decked plate past other tables to mine. After we exchanged our 'hello-how-are-you's, I reminded myself, he is left with few days at this office. I could not resist asking how he reflected upon his days in this Company where he has spent a big chunk of his life-time without much of rise up the corporate ladder. He smiled and spoke after a thoughtful silence, 'I had never been in the race to scale up that ladder….I had instead been going up another one – the ladder of happy living!'.

His eyes caught mine as if to confirm whether I was curious to learn more. Assured on that, he continued.

'Looking back', he said, 'I have made little money, but I've no regrets. I enjoyed life, saved as much as required, spent the rest. Never paid heed to what others said about what I spent for and how much I did. I never spent a buck where not required, spent a hundred where it was worth it. All that takes to be happy is this - know how to live with what we have, never thinking too much about what we don't'.

I smiled silently at him, letting him know I was keen on hearing him speak more on this. He went ahead.

'My outlook towards life had been simple.... It is years now since I had been to the theatre to watch a movie with my wife and kids. Why go to cinema if a good meal out could cost much lesser? I had always preferred to dine out and enjoy! Unlike being at the theatre, when you are out to dine you get the bonus of chatting with your most loved ones while you wait for the order to arrive. You wouldn't miss the distinct tinge of happiness on your wife's face for having called a day off at the kitchen while being able to pay her full attention to the merry chirping of her kids. You can relish the twinkle of excitement in their eyes when their favorite servings arrive. You can feel contented on having made them happy. In the cinema, we relate to the moods of the celluloid shadows and miss out the real ones on the faces of our dear ones'.

Why take a newspaper when the television can keep my wife entertained all noon and also gives me all the News to makeover my lazy evenings? The little saving therein is enough to sponsor some relaxed evenings with her at the coffee-house down street after a long walk. Why do I need a car just because everyone else has? Boxed up inside a car, I wonder if I would ever get the comfort of a relaxed walk with my better half, spiced up with all that family humour and gossip.... Setting spending priorities is a must. My wife stood by me in each of our little resolutions. She mirrored my attitude or should I say I mirrored hers?'

'A perfect marriage of thought and action!', I thought.

Mr Z continued, 'As a result I never had been in the minuses of life though I never made too much of the pluses. I never owned more than what was needed at the moment but always had enough for the rainy day'.

'Believe me,' he said, 'balancing spending with income or saving does not come in the way of sharing happiness. Its all a matter of outlook.'

He continued to emphasise his point further. 'I could gather enough nuts to fulfil the minimum expectations of my family. Those that I could not meet with money, I fulfilled it with love & affection, understanding & care... never placed my ego above my family. Never put them at stake for my differences with others at my workplace or the world out. Never compromised with my duty unto my employer. Today I have offers for light jobs even as my twilight years have started. Just because I own a history of commitment and loyalty unto all those who trusted me. Does it take anything more to ensure social security? Insecurity is an imaginary problem that people create out of their own defects, out of their fears'.

He paused here for a long moment, then continued.

'Ever wondered how and when a fish sleeps in water? But it does. You could only know it when you become a fish in your mind, when you acquire those characteristics of the fish that helps it strike a time-balance between need, circumstances & threats. And as long as we do not try to build on illusions and false self-estimates, we are safe in life. The trouble starts when we try build our world around our ego. Men of ego, like empty ruck-sacks, cannot stand erect for long. Realise this and feel grateful for Life that has not put us through too much of trouble. Don't put your happiness on stake, don't risk losing your job especially in these times of recession, when you know you are dependant on it to take care of your family. Don't run after money, run for the accomplishments within your reach and happiness is yours! Money will follow...as much as you need - not as much as you greed.'

Such simple mantra of happiness & success! Reminds me of the great American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, the Indian seer Sant Kabir, the more modern example of Indian President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam... Didn't all of them exemplify a life lived on similar lines - lives full of content but not a bit of it brought in by material riches?

As he finished his short late lunch, he looked at his old watch and exclaimed, 'Sorry, Its time to move on to my duty, sir!'. He took a hasty leave. The slow eater that I am, I was still at the table contem'plating' while I watched Mr Z walk out of the cafeteria in arthritic steps. What a perfect mind inside a not-so-perfect body!

I wondered how many millionaires could boast of such contentment in life. After all, is not everyone struggling for that ultimate thing called Happiness?... the most important of our needs that we unfortunately often put last in the list of our priorities? If only we could think simpler and stop complicating our life with never-ending wish-lists...

Think different, think simple... Chiraag

More On Dealing With Change

This is an extract from ' The Lost World' by Michael Crichton which beautifully brings out the destructive potential of the human trait to resist change and unconventional thinking:

"What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is a fight for conformity, not an effort for insight. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. Behavior associated with beliefs, policies and conformity to it has made Human beings so destructive, that we may sometimes think we're a kind of plague that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that it makes one think that maybe that's our function. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion."

This is a particularly powerful thought-provoking write-up - a critic’s point-of-view that calls for serious examination of the human attitude. Quite remarkable facts to be found in fiction! Sometimes good ideas are lost just because they are a small part of a greater work of fiction and very easily left out unrecognized by majority of readers. But a moment of reflection would reveal the enormity of facts behind it. Facts based on valid philosophies that are not fiction by any means.

My more flamboyant friends may find this a bit depressing. The most uncomfortable revelation many times appears thus for the emotional mind! But it is generally observed that only 5% of the human population becomes leaders, while the rest 95% are followers. Among the leaders, 4% are those who are simply reiterating what has been said before – old wine in new bottles. The rest 1% are the ones who bring a radically different perception that threatens to overturn all our beliefs hitherto. Copernicus (he discovered that it is the sun and not the earth which is at the center of the solar system) & Galileo (he propounded the law of falling objects and proved that Aristole was wrong!) are just two examples who fell in such cadre. They did meet their share of revulsion during their lifetime for the ‘crime’ of initiating a radical change of perception, a different one than what the all-powerful Church held in those days. But these were, thankfully, the ones that changed the course of human advancement in the right direction. If you think that was too old a case, remember how the world responded when the first test tube babies were announced, cloning was reported or surrogate motherhood was debated. All of these breakthrough bio-techs are today seeing their critics calm down while the advancements have taken a firm foothold in the same world that surged out initially against it.

But what if it happens to be the other way round? What if a handful of destructive thinkers manage to lure a majority of followers to keep clinging to distorted, misinterpreted, hard-line, fundamentalist iterations of the past in spite of the fact that there is no hope of progress offered by those perceptions that have lived their lives and are now set to be replaced by newer ones? What happens when the Old comes in the way of the New? What if 1% of leg-pullers manage to swerve the rest of the population away from the path of progress by exploiting the human tendency to resist change?

What Michael Crichton has quoted based on research is not about you and me, or a handful of positive thinkers. It is a more holistic view of what the human world is today. It does not say there is no hope. It only says the proportion of people who do not want to change is alarmingly high in the human race. The result – a handful of destructive brains still hold the threat to take over the world. A handful of people deciding to use nuclear arsenal can even today wipe the earth clean of humanity. Where would you, me and all the technological advancements stand then? There is technology to utilize nuclear power, is there a technology to prevent a dropped nuclear bomb from setting off? Is there a technology to identify a terrorist standing next to us? The point is, all the material good happening outside is at great risk unless we focus on weeding out all the moral bad that is contained inside those who are not with us in the effort to change for good.

Contrary to the common man’s ‘all-would-be-good-in-the-end’ attitude irrespective of what happens in the mean-time, what concerns us in the immediate future is not who is right but who is mightier. If a single evil-minded fundamentalist has a hundred times more determination to wipe out the human race than all the noble men who have all the great dreams for prosperity on Earth, the noble intentions don’t stand a chance; thanks to us commoners who are happy keeping our heads buried in the sand and think we are powerless, not in the fight and hence safe!

We ignore the fact that there may be a 'bomb', may be one for cultural destruction ticking away right next to us...

We can check this precarious situation if we, as a united human race, unanimously and consciously embrace change in the right direction and weed out this earth of all such forces that are stopping or could stop progress in the direction of peace and perpetual happiness. As long as we are still fighting for survival in a world ripped by threats, as long as we do not learn to excel in a competitive world by merit and not by force, we have not come a long way out of the cave-dwelling savage psychology that we humans had started out with.

Hope that the best of minds would come together for social leadership of a new kind to make this happen.

Chiraag