Vithun's Blog
Building Resilience within Constraints
The constraints that life has placed at different phases have helped build a certain resilience that make me not take the eventual absence of constraints for granted. Instead I’m in a more balanced state to deal with the positive changes, while mindful that both success and failure are never permanent.
As Rudyard Kipling says:
If you can meet success and failure and treat them both as impostors, then you are a balanced man, my son.
Money
I grew up in the middle class Bangalore of the 90’s. In my formative years, there were phases where my parents could just about make ends meet. I remember in my early college days, my daily allowance would exactly afford me my bus charge to college and back. With my college being close to a commercial hub, I’d longingly look at the shops, wishing that one day I could buy all the gadgets, clothes, and food I wanted to.
About a decade and a half later, as I visited the same place, I could now afford to buy any of those. But I no longer wanted to buy everything anymore. I had learnt to live my life within limits.
Job
I worked at a company for close to 7 years in my late 20’s and early 30’s. The company sponsored my visa to live in the UK. Like any job, it had its ups and downs. During the days with downs, I wanted to quit and join another company. But I had to grin and bare as the hassle with shifting visa sponsorship was too high. I’d longingly look at job advertisements wishing that one day I could apply and go work wherever I wanted to.
A few years later, when I got granted permanent residence in the UK, I no longer depended on the company for my visa. I could afford to join any other company I wanted. But by then I had learnt to work through hard times. I no longer wanted to leave simply because of some hard days. I ended up staying on for a while after.
Title
Working my way into my career, I used to think that my lack of seniority and title comes in the way of sometimes taking opinionated decisions and pushing through with them. I used to think that one day I would have the title where I could simply tell people what to do and they’d listen.
And then when I got the titles and the power that comes with it, I no longer wanted to indiscriminately use it with people. I would rely more on influencing through building trust, relationships, rationale and narratives, the way I had learnt to over all the years without such titles.