Un-employing myself

Not wanting to be one of those millions employed yet adding little value to the organization or to oneself, I decided to un-employ myself while there was still time.

Before this daily chore of looking at computer screens, waiting for tea breaks, pivoting around in excel sheets while dishing out balderdash in strategy meetings to align with the boss, altered my neurons to believe that this is what life is all about, I decided I had to unplug.

Why did I take up a job in the first place? I asked myself. To earn money, respect, fame, and power? To utilize the time at hand, now that schools and colleges were done with? To create something new? The answers were both elusive and inconclusive. I wasn’t creating anything useful. In fact, there must be many like me, who are simply killing time with each passing day (probably tracing the coffee stains on their desks), leaving the office unchallenged and unstirred. Not to ridicule the ones who did get a chance to feel alive while working, for I have had my fortuitous share of it too. If I discounted money as a need for the time being, the rest were, but a figment of the mind.

Not that I had not attempted it earlier. I have failed miserably twice, unable to handle the free time at hand while there was no dearth of ideas in my mind. Moreover, I had grown up on the social definition of a successful career woman and it seemed absurd then, that I was throwing it away when I had it on a platter.

After all, the 20s is a decade of possibilities, albeit defined by the world. But there is a set of possibilities that I have discovered crossing into my 30s that seems more at peace with my nerdy-sporty-filmy existence on this planet. So, I asked myself, 'Why not take another shot at un-employing myself, but this time a longer one?'

Nine months down the line, how am I surviving? Well, taking each day as it comes helps while shaping up the possibilities a little more each day. I can’t believe that all this while, I had allowed myself to be so charmed by my dreams that I had not felt the need to think about the process for reaching them. I was a compulsive day-dreamer. But today, chipping these dreams further to remove the frivolous aspirations has helped me to focus on the basics – the process.

It is okay to catch that flight of fancy, but it is not okay to not fasten the seat belts for then you are bound to feel the turbulence. In fact, each day is an attempt to know my goals closely and critically so that I can align them against a sound process. Despite the bumps, once this gets going, it isn’t that difficult to transition.

Being jobless is a lot of hard work after all!