Be CEO of your own life
Be CEO Of Your Own Life
(This is not my Article. It is a mere translation from Marathi of an Article on WhatsApp)
≈Courtsey Mahendra Ekbote
It was two days old an incident. I was in a Mall with family. My son was in ‘Play Zone’, Wife was (Window) Shopping and I was reading newspaper under the nice cool draft of the AC. The newspaper was for the name sake. In fact I was reading the people. People of different sizes and shapes were shopping as if it is the last days of their life.
(The middle class question that with so many things having been bought, where are they kept in the house always torments me!) Be as it may.
While my ‘Human Study’ was going-on, one young person sat next to me. Somewhere in the forties. Jeans and tucked-in T-shirt. Wearing boots in the feet and ‘Brut’(perfume)on his person. A Marathi book in his hands. He took out a shining white handkerchief from the pocket and wiped-out sweat from his forehead. Then he properly folded it on the pre-folded creases and kept it in the pocket. After these initial activities he opened the book. It was one of my favorite books. I could not hold myself and commented, ‘Fine book is this!’ and he looked at me smilingly and nodded.
After about five minutes that man turned towards me and said, ‘You like reading?’
‘Oh, So much. Reading is my first love!’ I said, watching carefully whether my wife was around.
‘How many you read daily?’ He asked
‘Not daily….a…a… Nothing specific is fixed. I read when I feel like’-I said playing this unexpected Yorker somehow.
‘You like eating?’- He asked
‘So profoundly! Eating is my second love’-I said
‘Is it so? Then do you eat daily or you eat when you feel like?’
‘No, no.. twice daily.. And in between some tit-bits, some munching keeps on going!’
-Hit-Wicket-
The young man smiled, said, ‘I read for one hour daily and do not go to sleep without reading. Bathing, Meals…and so is the reading.’
‘Quite a free-time you get?’-I said with a sheepish smile
‘You never get free time, but I take it out’-He said, ‘I believe that time is one of the most taken for granted things in this world. For that matter see (the example of) life. We take our life far too much for granted. If someone says that he will do a lot of reading after retirement then Lord Yama (The Lord of Death) will laugh thumping the desk a la Navjot Singh Sidhu.’
I smiled. Then getting serious, I asked, ‘Have you ever seen Yama?’
He laughed even more.
‘I am pretty serious. Have you seen Yama?’-I asked
‘I have seen’-He replied. ‘Two years before. I was crossing the road. A speeding vehicle came from the front. In the blinding light of its headlamps I saw the darkness. There for two seconds I sighted the death. After that I woke-up in the hospital only. Despite grave injuries I somehow was saved. When I came back home that’s when, (as if) I got a new life, like a rebirth. I have not seen The God but have seen The Death. Death teaches you a lot. My faith from that point onwards on death became firm. With so many deaths around, whoever thinks that he is ‘beyond death’ is human being.’
‘Do you know why human being is scared of Death?’- He asked
‘Means the near and dear will be far removed permanently. Because of Death human being’s desires remain incomplete!’ I said
‘Completely false’- He said. ‘Man fears the Death because after Death there is no tomorrow.’
I did not get it.
He then continued-‘We are accustomed to pushing everything on tomorrow!…’
Reading, Exercise, listening to music,
And the best part is
Whatever money we have, we do not use it today
But save it, so that it will get doubled in future and come back to us.
We have far too much of faith on tomorrow, it becomes the part of our lives.’
‘We are scared of Death because it does not give you chance to see this tomorrow!’
‘Death means, ‘Wherever you are Full Stop at that second’. ’
‘(Suppose)The game is in full swing and someone takes you out of it! That’s how Death takes you out of this world.’
‘You do not remain to raise your voice against this injustice’.
‘The human being is most scared when he finds himself helpless before the fact that after his death, he would not be able to see his near and dear.’
‘Therefore, after coming back from hospital I decided that henceforth I will live life with open eyes.’
‘So far I swallowed the food’
‘From now onwards, I will enjoy each bite. To live life enjoying the taste of life.’
‘And I took over the responsibility of my life on my own self. I became Chief Executive Officer of my life.’ He paused after a long discourse.
‘When you say CEO of a company it is fine but CEO of Life etc.? Isn’t it a bit too much?’ I asked.
‘I for myself have laid the rules by which to live life….’ He was saying
‘How many people you have in your company, then?’ I interjected, in a mocking tone.
‘You may say many or may say none’ He shrugged his shoulders while saying this.
Observing that I have not understood he further said,
‘I deal only with my Board of Directors! They virtually control my life.’
‘I have various persons on my Board
Farhan Akhtar Charlie Chaplin J.R.D.Tata
Shivaji Maharaj Gandhiji
Abdul Kalam Amitabh
Dr. B.R.Ambedkar Helen Keller’
Observing the changing feelings on my face he took a few more names.
‘If you read about these people, you will find that each one of them has/had some specialty. Some quality due to which these people are called great’.
‘ What I do….a…..Let me give an example..’
‘Suppose if I am caught in a situation where there is no way-out but to lie, I ask my Ethics Director Gandhiji as to what shall I do and do whatever he says’.
‘Similarly if I feel lazy in getting-up for the exercise then the thought as to what my Health Director would say/think makes me get-up and I go for exercise.’
‘Sometimes something happens and you feel greatly disappointed and depressed. I then summon my inspirational Director Helen Keller. Meeting her makes you feel that your difficulties are too small’.
‘When you feel sad the Entertainment Director Charlie Chaplin comes to meet you…’
Seeing my bewildered face he further said,
‘I know that all this seems pretty strange. However I tell you one thing. If living life is an exam, it is better that everybody prepares his own syllabus.’
‘We sometimes try to live life like others and get trapped..
‘Then how to live life?’ There are thousands of books in the market on the subject.’
‘Human being is searching the answer to this question since thousands of years!’
‘Gautam Buddha answered it in mere four words- Be your own light..’
‘I feel not so easy and yet so difficult an answer is there in the world!’
I asked the name of that young man, he told me. We bid farewell to each other. However only after four steps that young man turned back and approached me.
He said, ‘The most important part is left unsaid. I was saved in an accident and learnt so much.’
‘You…Please do not wait for an accident’. We both laughed.
The accidents do not take place through a vehicle only.
Meeting this unknown young man was also a sheer accident!
So be it as
As Lord Yama Pankaj Gupta
E-231, Windsor Park desires 30.11.2016
Indirapuram, Ghaziabad
