Remember
the movie with the same title? Will Smith starred as a struggling salesman of a
portable bone-density scanner whose luck was down & out. His wife leaves
him, he is kicked out of his own home & he has a five year old son who is
dependent on him. The movie was downright sad except for the last five minutes
when he gets called into a meeting with the senior management of the brokerage
firm he is interning with. They call him to congratulate him on his excellent performance as an intern & they offer him a full time position with the firm.
My
point is, Will Smith was genuinely in a bad place in his life, in the movie. He needed the
money. He had to slog his ass off to make ends meet. What’s our excuse? By
“our” I mean, my generation of work hardened overly ambitious position obsessed
bunch. And I admit I’ve joined the bandwagon.
We
are chasing the positions, the power, the big brands & the money. But are
we happy? Are we chasing happiness? Or are we just turning into lifeless working machines that “society” has imposed on us as the “right” thing to do.
I
feel helpless getting sucked into the system & to be honest I’m not sure
what the alternative is. I love what each job brings my way – the feeling of
being looked upon with respect, the wealth of knowledge that I acquire &
the opportunity to interact with senior, respected people from my industry.
But
am I happy? Are WE happy? I’m not so sure. We drool at exotic destinations from
our sad workstations & promise ourselves that we will DEFINITELY make one
of those trips by the end of the year, which never materializes of course. Year-ends are
the worst time of year because we end up making those “Annual ROI” PPTs to the
10,000 clients we service. Everyone is fried & the only vacation we can
think of is going to bed to take a 25-hour nap after horrendous work-days!
The
rate at which we are propelling with a hardened drive to jump from one
designation to the next till we dominate our respective chosen industries will become
our downfall. I cringe to think of what we have turned ourselves into. Happiness, I
will find you. WE will find you. In the meantime, please wait for us? Pretty, please?
1 comment:
Yup that elusive trip at the end of every year. I think sometimes we just need to be proactive at times and just do it! Ala the Shia LaBeouf video for inspiration :)
Post a Comment