We have been faced recently with lot of souls departing this earth.

And my prayers for them in their next journey..

Jagjit Singh whose soulful voice took me back into different lifetimes and beautiful scenes and emotions.

Shammi Kapoor who would light up any ambience with sheer life..

Steve Jobs was a fascinating soul who I always used to observe from afar… following him online.. but the one which most touched me was his lecture to the students in Stanford University which says a lot of where his purpose was driving him and how.. It is so profound that his words have been echoing in the recesses of my mind for some time.

Couple of quotes which resonates within me very strongly.

You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Reminds me of The Buddha who I have grown to love and asimilate in essence… slowly.. at least attempting  to…

Death is the only permanent thing in life.. Everything else is temporary.. If you live well, you will die well…. Define your purpose and pave your path… it gives a very important push to align my priorities in order…

Sometimes, my close friends and loved ones ask me to compromise… and to do a certain thing in a certain way…

And I think to myself… if it was my last day… how would I do things… yep… that really makes me work with compassion and yeah measure on my compromise.. Compromise is not a best friend of mine… but I have a wary relationship with it..

So today I have been thinking on how we keep thinking of always “trying to do the right thing”

Again one of Job’s statements come to mind… to keep things simple.. which is more difficult than anything.. then its easy..

Many a times, I face aspects at job or life which leads me to many gray areas… and it still sometimes takes me sometime to get into a natural mode of doing the right thing.. I search now how to keep it as simple as possible.. even though the mind always likes to complicates things..

I still get stuck between either stimulus or response to stimulus.. and then have to step back to choose the in between path and respond from an objective self. I am trying to get that to a natural skill where I do not have to think too much..

Well, sometimes, we work in automation when we have to DO THE RIGHT THING when our value systems are in sync..

When I was a kid,  doing the right thing meant I had to be within boundaries.

All rules were laid out and well as long as my conscience  was fine, I was fine breaking it and that started my belief that Breaking Rules is a way of actually testing my own boundaries of how far I could stretch the concept of doing the right thing…  It was fun when I was a teen… I could get away with it.

But as I moved on, the lines blurred between rights and wrongs.. and the one way which drew the line was intense suffering which I had to go through due to certain actions or inactions… and maybe one would call them lessons in golden platter… but life.. its so wonderful, it has a speciality in serving more lemons when you made a lemonade of it…

So “doing the right thing” for me needs lot of consistence and commitment and yeah core belief alignment

Being in an organization : is determined by if I enjoy or love what I am doing… and bring in benefits and get benefits..

Being with someone : is determined by the fact if we exchange warmth, unconditional love and just pure sharing of selves… internal and external… all without validations.. or rules.. but just being in the moment together with lot of awareness…

Friends : definitely again based on value systems definition which makes the friendships stronger

So looking back, I now find that its very easy to do the right thing if one focusses on one’s core values…

What do you stand for ? What values do your represent and cannot do without ? Its very important…

That is an important factor which makes me quietly confident in being content with what decision I make… even if its sometimes the wrong one.. or a losing one..

My losses have always given me great gains… and today I reflect upon them..

• Willing to voluntary NOT get into medicine or engg like my many friends…. brought me to the wonderful world of IT and its possibilities, enabled me to push my limits.. 
• Quitting a self debilitating relationship which I thought was my lifeline, made me get into a worse possible relationship which actually shaped the woman in me and today, I am in a no compromise a relationship of choice.
• Quitting my first job because they would not pay me for the double role that I was playing.. was so painful since I had so many friends and security…  but it took me to a path of adventure of getting into a totally new technology and the world of encryption. 
• Layoff time, I see my friends getting laid off. And the way it was done, it was very unethical… at least thats what my value system said… And thinking upon it, without a job in hand, I quit… as it went against me to work for an organisation who would treat their employees in such a dispassionate manner…Specially when I asked if my name was on it and they refused to tell me anything about it..  that was it… it was a very quick decision… made with some nervousness but firmness… and yes where employees were given 2 month severance pay, I had to pay to get off the job… it was tough at that point but I don’t regret it. … And Lo and Behold !! I got a wonderful job where my learning curve knew no bounds… it was an amazing phase… that too when the stakes were totally down and recession time… 

There are many more striking points …. in different aspects of my life which kept telling me that as long as I was true to my values and beliefs, I was always going to do the right thing…

Even if it meant that I am losing everything at that moment… LOL… but the choice has to be always be a well accepted one…. Acceptance comes when one is in sync with one’s values…

Doing the right thing… Lets DO…. rather than talk more about it..  (still learning though)