4 phases of reminiscence

As one more of the festivals passes by, I sit down and reminisce. Of 41 Diwalis that I have seen and how I evolved through them (I was born on Diwali day, 1980).

Phase 1, the comparison years: Diwali was the holiday time. Busy with the sparklers, crackers, and feasts. And the gifts. Those were the years of comparison. The mind always wandered to measuring privilege by the amount and size of fireworks and festivities at one’s home. One who had them the largest was the happening guy. The privileged guy.

Phase 2, the competition years: Diwali was the breather time. You were in the rat race, and your mind could just not switch off. The same guys that were your rivals in campuses were now friends. Likely all united in festivities but we all knew that cometh tomorrow, we had to all go back. To the same race. I, for one, never noticed when the festival came and went.

Phase 3, the networking years: Diwali was now the networking time. Diwali was now a confluence of how many you were connected with: how many wished you, gifted you, paid you a visit, called you. Not just personally but also professionally. And you always wondered how to grow these networks. I remember once promising to myself that I’d send cards and gifts customized with my own handwritten notes. A practice that paid dividends but didn’t scale with time.

Phase 4, the contentment years: Diwali is the family time, contentment time. Both at work and at home. At home, you see others enjoy, and you feel good. Same at work. You see people taking a break and coming back recharged. And you feel content. At OfBusiness, we all feel so. And I feel that we have learnt from my earlier 3 phases. No one feels the need to compare; each one is well off both tangibly and intangibly, enjoying what he/ she does. There is no rat race; if there is a race, it is against himself/ herself to be better than his/her previous season, a yardstick that he needs to measure himself/herself against. No one needs to further network; OfBusiness is his/her network, his/her real, big family.

Is there a 5 th phase? Life is too expansive to not have one, but we would be best left in phase 4. It’s bliss with you all @OfBusiness.

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