Self – Actualisation

Recently, I met an interesting Woman who have achieved Career Peak. She is the Head of the Department.She groomed her successor and then quit her high profile job for lack of challenge in the role.

Been there, done that. You know.

What could inspire her , challenge her next ? She is driven, and enterprising.

I suggested her to go for a startup venture since she is a Servant Leader.

She confessed, she is a Hermit ( which resonated with me ) and at times she experience

Existential Crisis ( which resonated even more )

Lot of similarities except the fact that I haven’t reached Peak in my Career yet.

Talking of Careers, I heard from a Respectable Leader –  Careers are sometimes balls of yarn rather than Career Ladder.

That’s what my  Career has been all these years – A ball of Yarn.

What is Existential crisis ? What causes it ? And what is the solution .

A problem solver as I am, my theory is the antidote to Existential Crisis is Systems of Engagement.

A system of engagement could be –

1. Love
2. Movie
3. Book
4. Social Media ( Facebook, Twitter, Linkdedin)
5. Social Networking
6. Friends
7. Family
8. Conversation with strangers
9. Writing
10. Research
11. Parenting
12. Music
13. Art
14. Trekking
15. Travel
16. Running, Jogging, Walking
17. Gym or Fitness Regime
18. Meditation or Mindfulness ( this requires a separate discussion altogether )
19. Paid Work
20. Voluntary Meaningful Non Paid work, Mentoring, Community Service

When you aren’t engaged with any one of the above, you experience Existential Crisis.

Bingo.

Problem Solved.

My 2^nd theory –  Fall in Love, Travel or Write a Book or do any of the above  to evade Existential Crisis.

Prince Hamlet experiences an existential crisis as a result of the death of his father. This is shown especially by Shakespearein the famous soliloquy which starts, “To be, or not to be: that is the question…”

That begs the question – Do people who suffer from Existential Crisis  experience Positive Disintegration ? And as a result do they Self Actualize faster ? 

An existential crisis is a moment at which an individual questions the very foundations of their life: whether their life has any meaning, purpose, or value.^[1]This issue of the meaning and purpose of existence is the topic of the philosophical school of existentialism.

No wonder I am drawn to Philosophy by Neitzche 

Inspirational Stories and rise of Social Media

I am sharing my thoughts on Rise of Social Media which i shared in the form of a comment on Sukumar’s blog. Wow. Reading this blog post itself was so inspiring .

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Allow me to digress and propose a Theory. For sometime I have been pondering over the real reasons for phenomenal rise of Social Media , so called Social Media Revolution, in our Society , all over World from last few years. We can say, It is a very recent phenomena . I guess, as I read more and more blogs, I have found answer to my own question. Leaving Commercial & Economical reasons aside, i guess , People all over the world were really fad up of depressing stories like Corruption, Crime , Stock market crash ( while some of it may be real, more often it is seen that truth is far far behind and wrapped up in several layers to benefit certain sections of society ) . People want to hear stories which are authentic, real, genuine, inspiring. What other way could be better than to give publishing power to every individual on this planet. And the ability to connect people to each other via networking platforms. Combine it with the people’s ability to choose. So now people can hear real stories in the form of blogs ( hearing, passing on and sharing stories which is an age old tradition in itself across cultures ), create their own “media” and collaboratively consume it too via Networking platforms. Coming from such forums, say blogs, we know, we are listening to genuine stories from real people who have no other motive but to share their own stories and personal experiences which appeal to mankind. One may argue, why not books serve the same purpose. I understand , the main distinction why blogs are popular is the power to network . While books provide great content , blogs provide content, context and the network. Had it not been for this blog, I would not have had heard the stories which need to be told and preserved and cherished forever, not just by select few but across cultures, geographical locations. Every now and then , I visit this blog, in search of a great story and i am never disappointed any time . I usually don’t spend more than 5 min on a website, not only I stroll here , I comfortably bring my chair and sit here for long hours going through posts, comments to the extent of having conversations with great minds. You would have noticed, I am often tempted to leave my footprints here cause of the truly absorbing blog posts which I get to read.

Sukumar, once again, Thank you for sharing the story of this event you attended. Truly inspirational.
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Sukumar (subscribed) said October 9, 2011, 8:32 pm:

Thanks for the kind words Ruchi. Glad you liked our posts. This particular event was a spectacular one and very inspiring. Your theory on blogging is insightful. Good one.

A True Story

As appeared on TruthorFiction 

A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a home-spun suit walked in timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President’s outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn’t even deserve to be in Harvard.

“We want to see the President “the man said softly.

“He’ll be busy all day “the secretary snapped.

“We’ll wait” the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn’t and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president..

“Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they’ll leave” she said to him. The President, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him “We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.”

The president wasn’t touched….He was shocked. “Madam” he said, gruffly, “we can’t put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.”

“Oh, no,” the lady explained quickly ” We don’t want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.”

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, “A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard.”

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly,

“Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don’t we just start our own?”

Her husband nodded. The president’s face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name: – Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

Most of the time we judge people by their outer appearance, which can be misleading. And in this impression, we tend to treat people badly by thinking they can do nothing for us. Thus we tend to lose our potential good friends, employees or customers.