A Sabbatical that changed my Life - New Beginnings

Episode 1 – New Beginnings

Sabbatical [səˈbatɪk(ə)l/Submit] – noun – a period of paid leave granted to a university teacher for study or travel, traditionally one year for every seven years worked. "she's away on sabbatical"

I was not a teacher and not teaching at a university so why would I be granted a sabbatical and that also a paid one by my company?

[Although frankly speaking, mentioning who I worked for in front of anyone almost invariably always resulted in the same reaction “Oh NiT...which center do you teach in beta?”...No...No...No...For god sakes NO!!!...I work for NIIT Technologies the software arm and not NIIT Ltd. the training arm...]

And that was my way of walking away from the suggestion that I should go on a sabbatical and my first reaction when I had looked up the word which would change my life forever!

After all I was a typical work addict who believed that I working more and more and more would ultimately result in solving the problems existing in the society today, uplift women and solve the world’s hunger problem.

[Sounds familiar doesn’t it ...seen a beauty pageant recently...]

Really – who was I kidding?

Aha “kidding” reminds me of “kid” = my son who was the primary reason I agreed to going on a sabbatical as I was repeatedly told “spend time with him when he needs you and not the time when you need him and he need his girlfriends”.

When you have time-off, you are idle and have time to think and when you have time to think...

[No...No...No...“An idle mind is not a devil’s workshop” but “An unoccupied mind is like an innovations workshop...a plethora of ideas, thoughts, opportunities, almost like a kaleidoscope”...]

You see the world in a different light as you have left the grind of the daily routine behind!  

So what are the TOP 4 things this seeing the world in a different light really teach me?

[Hey...why not 3 or 5 or 10 things...as those are really the numbers which make sense when you have to speak about something profound like “what are top 3 fears you have?”...”where do you see yourselves 5 years from now”...”name 10 words starting with the letter A”...and so on and so forth...now you know why I was taught 4 things ]

Frankly nothing new and nothing we have not been told hundreds of times by a lot of people who claim to be much more intelligent and saner people than me:

1. Work can never be more important than your Life and those you Love in your Life – sounds familiar doesn’t it and so very true once you start to swear by it and practice it!

2. To see the big picture (ahem...not “Sholay” but perhaps God’s grand design for your life) you have to break your daily routine, free your mind and start to fully observe what’s happening around you and once you do that, that’s when you start to see the real you emerging out of the smoke like magic!

3. Frankly I am too set in the clichéd template to think other than Top 3, 5 or 10 but still wanted to say Top 4 although there were really only Top 3 things and I had to write this as the third one otherwise the story wouldn’t have flowed on from the next point to what I had to say onwards!

4. You have to leave the old behind to make new beginnings – yeah big deal...everyone says that but do you know how difficult it is to break away from something you have been doing all your adult life ...your comfort zone...I was shit scared and felt “I have spent 16 years in IT...how can I stop doing that and start anokherang”...but frankly till you do it you will never know how easy or difficult it is – right?

More on new beginnings and the genesis of anokherang in the next episode:

“Episode 2: From Program Head@NIIT to Head of Everything@anokherang”...