WakeUpLive.com presents: Life is a Journey, Not a Destination

My life has seen very few failures. However, the biggest failure was mediocrity.

I was brought up in the congested, yet middle class, surroundings in the coastal city of Madras in India. Since the time of my birth, my life seemed already to have been choreographed. All middle class kids were inculcated with the same ideals and philosophies of life–study well, get good grades, find a good job, get married, settle down, have kids, give them a good education, retire and die broke!

Well, when I say broke, I don’t mean penniless; I mean broke–with respect to how much you could have earned and accomplished.

Peer, parental and societal pressures forced me into a professional career, for if you did not become a doctor or an engineer, you were considered a failure. For years, I maintained a comfortable standard of living sustained by a steady job. But I never stretched myself. I always succeeded because my goals were set low. Even my doctoral degree, I believe, was a low goal for me. I had mastered the art of mediocrity. I knew I had the passion, but that passion seemed to be redirected at trivial things.

One day, I found myself shopping for a digital camera. Like many men, I wanted to get the best value for my money, so I embarked upon a research project that would have put my dissertation work to shame. I studied digital cameras for the features that I wanted. What if, one day, I find myself at the Kakamega National Forest in Kenya, awakening to the sounds of a herd of African elephants silhouetted against the crimson sun as they meander towards the watering hole? To capture the vividness of the situation, I had to have the best-featured camera. After 6 months of intense research, I found the camera I wanted.

A few years prior to that, while watching the wedding video of a friend, I spotted the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. My friend introduced me to her, and a international phone relationship began. My phone bills were so high that my phone company took an unusual step of requesting payments semi-monthly. Two months into the relationship, with payments mounting, on impulse, I proposed marriage to her. A month following that, I found myself married to that woman: Lakshmi.

As I write, I have been married to that same woman for 12 years. It took me less than three months to make a life commitment, yet, it took me more than six months to make a transient commitment on a camera. That’s when I realized that I must have my priorities wrong!

I started to think about my career and my passion. I wanted to focus my energies in the pursuit of life’s gems and not it’s trivialities. A year later, when we had our first son, Ishwar, I felt a real purpose in life. I stopped sweating the small stuff.

But the focus on climbing the corporate ladder at my job, again seemed to emphasize results over journeys. I began to think that only success mattered, and the path to it is simply to be endured, not relished.

One day, I found my two-year-old, Ishwar, looking longingly at the landing of the staircase, from the bottom of the stairs. His goal was set. With a thousand-pound determination stuffed in a twenty-pound body he then embarked upon a journey to the top - a journey filled with adventure and wonderful experiences. This particular time he reached his destination, though that was not always the case. But he thoroughly enjoyed his journey. My son had just thought me another valuable life lesson – to enjoy the journey of life.

The next day, I quit my job to pursue my passion; to help people and companies. In the process I also unshackled myself from the daily grind of a 9 to 5 job. Rather than be a cog in somebody else’s wheel, I wanted to be my own wheel. So far, this has been the most exhilarating journey of my life.

If my story helps but one person to reflect upon life and think about the passion they always wanted to follow, then I would be most delighted to have helped in that realization.

*** This article was republished with permission from the best-selling Wake Up...Live the Life You Love book series. To hear more information on this book and the book series, go to http://wakeupteleclass.com/.