Training over....

Today is my last day in New York....Things during our training flashed by really fast... Met so many new people from the biggest MBA schools like wharton, harvard, MIT, LBS etc.... It felt good :) When I look at our bunch of people, I see two kinds of people:
1. People who had the power of information, they knew who to talk to, how to talk to others and were from the best of the families where there dad was a hotshot prof at some of the biggest names in the academia.
2. People who struggled, who had the fire in their belly... They did not know where they were going ... what they wanted...but they wanted to be the best.

Surprisingly I still think there were not too many people from the 2nd group. When I visualise these groups over a period of 10 years, somehow I see the first group doing better in their personal and professional according to the societal standards of happiness and success. There are quite a few reasons why I think so...
1. Most of the people in the second group have beginning to lose that hunger. They seem to have over burnt themselves.
2. They have good intellectual capacity but when they are left among 20 strangers, they are quite uncomfortable.
3. Somehow 2nd group has been so much single minded on achieving what they wanted, they have so many chinks in their personality and social life that they might feel incomplete in life ..
4. They have started wondering what life is for? How do you define success and happiness?

I am sure anyone can understand which group I belong to :)! I am not sure if I can say I am happy but somehow even at the risk of sounding arrogant, I think I have been successful SO FAR. Today, I have the luxury of thinking about these shits which my other friends don't have. I have a chance to improve my personal life while others are screwing their personal life amid a turbulent professional life... When previleges don't come to you in a platter...you got to take your chances and it's extremely difficult to maintain the fine balance. But I wonder, which way I should go now....There is so much to be achieved professionally and it's so difficult to fight your loneliness, about the things you miss on a weekend or a weekday evening and you want to live a fuller life.... I don't understand what is the correct balance of professional and personal life... Everyone seem to know their balance....I don't because probably I don't understand what I mean by personal life....Probably I never had one !

My days in New York

The last 1 month spent at New York were one of the better days of my life. There was no tension, nothing to compete for and I had enough dollars to support my over indulgence. I am doing everything I have never done and is legal :)) Am I happy? I think so...For the first time I like the idea of not being answerable to anyone! Not to my boss, not to my parents and most importantly not to myself. I like living in extremes...the 12 shots of tequilla for a newbie drunkard I think is a good proof :) . Somehow I don't believe in moderation as a way of life! The incremental pleasure of 1st tequilla shot is far lower than the 12th one and I can certainly vouch for that ... so why stop at the first shot? When I think of coming back to London, my heart sinks. I don't want that mundane routine which was so mind numbing and boring. I have planned few things for myself like trying to learn squash, dance, gym and roller skating. Let's see if I can complete even one of them. Life I have beginning to realize is all about initiatives and leaving your hesitation and ego aside. If I list the initiatives I have taken in NY I think I can count atleast 3-4 in the last one month and in London I have hardly taken any initiatives. Probably that explains the fun I had in NY even when as a city I like London a lot more than NY. When things would have settled post mid Nov, I guess I will try being a bit more adventurous and make my life more complete :)