My Thoughts !

Think of this. There are three magnets of equal power kept at 120 degrees. There is a small piece of a metal. Now all the magnets try to pull the metal piece towards themselves. The pulling power of one magnet is neutralized by the pulling power of the other two. So the metal stays in the middle. If you increase the power of one of the magnets, then the metal is moves a little towards that magnet, but due to the pulling of the other two, the metal won't get attached to the powerful magnet. If you keep increasing the power of the magnet, the metal slowly moves. Only till a breaking point, after despite the pulling of the other two magnets, the meta piece moves fastly and sticks to the powerful magnet. Even if you reduce the magnet's power to the older level - equal to the other two magnets, the metal piece won't move to the center. It stays attached to that magnet.


This is the circle of attraction. Compare it to our life. You are the metal piece. The three magnets are - your personal life, your official life and your aspirations. Whatever you do to keep the bread on the dining table, I would call them as official life; whatever you do to make your future a better one - writing a certification exam, reading about a new technology thats no way related to your current official work, etc would be your aspirations, and all the rest is your personal life. You are in the middle of these three and manage to spend time in all these, but not sticked on to any one of them forever. Just like in the magnets example, one of them being more powerful than the other two, in our life also, at times one of these magnets would require your attention a little more than usual. A deadline in office, or exam preparation, or ur marriage etc. You can't stay in the middle and say I wouldn't devote extra time for it. You need to move and spend a little more time. But you should know to what extend you can move and give attention, as sometimes, you move too close to the magnet and attached to it and then find no way to return back.

There are people who start working for 10 hours a day and then it slowly raises to 18 hrs a day. After a certain point, they could not revert to normal life. They loose their personal life and keep working. When I was in Dallas, I was talking to a person. He said, he has been working almost every weekend for the past two years. He said that he has not played with his kids for a long time. The worst thing was he was proud that he was working like that. I asked him, 'whats life?'. He cudn't answer. He didn't care. He was so happy that he has got good responsibility at his work and a good name that 'this guy works hard to complete the Mission Impossible'. Every time he gets his pay cheque, he multiplies it by a number between 45 and 50 and satisfied at the figure. I could only feel pity for him. Without a personal life or an aspiration to achieve a goal, the bank balance is not going to get anything. You too might have seen many people like that. On the other hand, I've seen people who are satisfied with what they have in their office and devote their entire time for their family. They don't care about the promotions, pay hikes and all they want is to spend time with their kids and wife. This also I consider as stupid. Although these kind of people are rare in IT industry, you can see them in many of other occupations. I've seen people join a bus company as a driver and retire as a driver. They don't have any growth at all. (In this way I'm amazed by the fact that Verizon's current CEO started his career as an assistant to a cable splicer! Thats what a real growth means) Growth doesn't help in office life alone, it will improve one's personal life and will reflect in his life style also. People hardly think of that and stay happy with the current job.

Its really tough to stay balanced between these three and enjoy all three. Hardly few people know this art.

If you were wondering what I'm scribbling about and where this discussion is going, sorry. It abruptly ends here. Few days back I was thinking and reviewing "something" and I got the idea of the circle of attraction. And just an entry in my blog about it :-P