Saturday, October 17, 2009

Unfinished Business


It's 4:38 a.m. and contrary to what you might think, I didn't wake up early. I just haven't slept yet.

You know that uncomfortable feeling you get when you know that there is something you had to do, but can't quite remember what it was??
Yes, that's been keeping me up nights.
And I'm not just talking about tonight or the night before. It's been this way for quite some time now.

I was thinking (again!) and I realized something. Most of what I begin to do, doesn't quite meet its end.

INCOMPLETE

That's the word that describes the past decade's activities in a nutshell.

I am a victim of procrastination. And that is probably one of my biggest weaknesses.
I can attribute most of what I am today to my unfinished agenda for life.
And it hasn't always been my fault. There have been times when circumstances pushed and pulled me away from the final act.

I think it started when I joined enginnering college.
Two years after trying my luck at Electrical Engineering, I started all over again with Computer Science Engineering.
Took me longer than it takes your average joe to get a Grad degree.
MBA was an even worse experience.
First semester in Kolkata, 2nd Semester in Gurgaon...and then to Chandigarh to start from 1st semester all over again.
I began writing a children's book 2 years ago. The plot was laid out. The characters left me midway.
I fell in love with a dream about tomorrow. I didn't stay in love long enough to see the tomorrow.
It's unfair on people around me.
There are two kinds of people I know of- the mountains and the streams.
The mountains refused to let me reach the top and the streams weren't deep enough for me to make the effort. And all my endeavours to be with either were once agan - incomplete.

I've been telling myself there is a reason why all this happened.
I just don't see what the reason could be.

It has affected me on the personal front too.
I never finish what I start.
Infatuations are nulled before they can even blossom and commitments are shunned before they can even be considered.
My jigsaw puzzle is missing pieces.
My mind is occupied with incomplete thoughts.
There is something worse than the knowledge that you did something wrong - and that is the knowledge that you didn't do it all the way to find out whether it was right.
I have unfinished business. Only, it's with myself.

7 comments:

  1. Wow Dear !!! i must confess i've been sailing in the same boat for quite some time now. i can relate to every word of it n seems like my own life story cut short n presented b4 me as the crux of who i am !!!
    hope this eye opener stays wid me long enough to find out if it really changed me wen i look bk 5 years hence !!!

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  2. I honestly hope that 5 years hence you'll look back and pat yourself on the back for finishing all that you start.

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  3. I read something n the wall of a cafe recently: "Decision helps to start something and Discipline helps to Finish it". But I dont really believe in following everything I read off the walls of cafes.

    Consistency has also been an attribute of my personality, however, most of my life has been about drifting from one thing to the other and just sailing through it all and now that I look back at the last twelve years of deciding for myself, I love every bit of it and would do it again only if I am allowed to repeat everything that I did.

    So dont be hard on yourself. A life is what you live and not what you live as per the yardsticks and parameters of others.

    I, too, face the occasional, seemingly disturbing, pang of procrastination and an incompleteness sometimes. But thats coz of external, "social" parameters of what life should be. Its not rebellious... just my way of appreciating the one life that I have.

    Sorry for the free philosophy... you write beautifully.

    :)

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  4. Free philosophy is the best kind, you know :)
    Thank you for sharing all that you did. And of course, for the simple yet emphatic compliment :)

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  5. Why? Oh why do you have to go and write down the story of my life so simply? There you go... You've done it again :)

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  6. No matter the distance Amu, our lives have always been sympatico. I don't see to many up- sides of that predicament but in our case, it helps because it helps us to stay friends :)

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  7. Maybe finishing something is about....completing it?

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