I started my journey back to India today morning. I am writing this article from Jet Blue flight number 488, at 35000 feet up above the sea level and during the journey from Los Angeles to Boston.

I had to come to USA for important assignment of one of our strategic client. It was not an easy decision for me to come to USA for 8 weeks as I had some personal priorities at home, my health was not in a great state. I was a bit tired before I started my journey to USA on the very early morning of 2nd of July. I wanted to spend some good amount of time with my daughter as she started walking and speaking few words.

We often have to balance the personal and professional priorities in our life as both are important.

I arrived to Irvine, CA on 2nd of July PST evening to USA. I was lucky to get one day leave on 3rd due to long week end in USA for Independence day celebration.

My work schedule in USA is different than what I have in India.
a. I used to get up between 6:30 am to 7:30 am in morning. Take a call with team for the status update and preparation for meeting with client at 9:00 am.
b. I used to reach to office between 8:20 am to 9:00 am. The entire day used to be very productive and efficient as being on client place I needed to be very focused on day to day tasks and deliverables.
c. I used to leave the office between 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm.
d. My second shift used to start around 9:00 pm PST as Indian team starts working from 9:30 am IST.
e. I used to go to bed between 1:00 am to 2:00 am.
d. I did not get good sleep during the week days. The software engineer is required to sleep for at least 7 hours a day for his brain to work efficiently.

My schedule in India is totally different than what it is in USA.
a. I get up at between 9:00 am to 11:00 am in Morning. I would always has some tasks to take care when I get up. So my day starts with fire fighting mode.
b. I try to reach office as early as possible and usually I reach office in between 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm.
c. My Team members greets me with smile when they sometime find me in office around 10:00 am. Some people do say that Hareshbhai , are you still in office and have not gone home yet ?
d. Reaching home after 12:00 am is a routine and not exception. If someday I reach home by 9:00 pm I get a surprise welcome from family members and I get good answer from my wife that I have not prepared dinner for you yet. 🙂
e. In short, if I have to summarize my work-life balance in one sentence then – “It is completely mess”.

I am a software engineer  by profession and I always try to put my learning from my profession to my life and vice-versa. While I was in USA I got some free time between 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm PST. I used this time very wisely during this visit. I reviewed the life that I have lived so far. I am 32 year old now and I believe I have lived 50-60 % of my life. I looked back, analyzed my life starting from 1997. The year 1997 is important as it was the time when I started thinking about my life, what I wanted to be in life and how I wanted to live the life. I have done pretty well from both personal as well as professional aspects during this span of 18 years. However, when I review it, I do see that there were few things and choices which I would have done in better way. There is always some big force in anyone’s life that drives their life and people are what they are because of that driving force. One of the driving force for me was to do the different and best which nobody has done before. I set some very high standards for myself. I could have been better to myself in terms of expectations from my own self. I feel like I was always under the pressure of doing my best in everything I do. I did not compare myself with others but with my self only. One of the side effect of comparing yourself with your own to be model requires you to put lots of your time in thinking which is not always productive. I laugh when I look at some of my expectations or wishes which I set for myself. Here is the list :
1. Being richer than Bill Gates so I can spend money on philanthropy and remove the poverty from the world.
2. Being a most talented software programmer who would invent something new which world has never seen and it would have very big positive impact on the way human being lives life.
3. Being a Prime Minister of India by 2027 and establishing good governance model and removing the corruption from country.
4. Helping all my friends and family members who are in need.
5. Making sure that each person on this earth does not have to struggle for basic needs of life such as Roti, Kapda Aur Makan ( Food, Cloths, House) and everyone has enough money to live decent if not great life. For example, father has money to look after their children’s need such as toys, books, education, marriage and health. Free quality medical facilities to all.
6. Establishing only one religion called “Humanity” in the entire world where people see god within another human being irrespective of their so called born-identity religion. Making a world a place where everybody has respect for everyone considering them one of the form of our almighty, omniscient, omnipresent god.

There are many other such wishes or expectation that I had. There is nothing wrong with that. Such expectations make you good human being.

As I am thinking and writing this now, I have spent 50% of important years of my life. I assume that I would live good life up to the age of 55-60 years if nothing unexpected happens. I have limited time and with my own personal responsibilities I would have to make the choice of what I can do and what I need to focus. Any of my wishes that I described above is going to take life time and even If I am extremely positive about what all I can do, I would end up creating only base and all these wishes would require continuous efforts event after I die.

So, the review comments I got from myself are :

1. I don’t need to worry about my wishes. It is good to have and I don’t have to let it die. Things would happen if not now then later. It does not require me to be there. It is good if I can do. It is better if someone else does. The end result will matter most than who has done it.
2. Live a good managed life. We have only one life. There is no point in dying of heart attack when you have 50 crore in your bank accounts and two children having age below 10 years and a beautiful wife living the life of widow in her early forty. You only need good amount of money which is required for your family’s daily and future needs.
3. Don’t focus more on being a super rich. One thing I have learnt in my life is, we spend more when we earn more. The status quo and all are just a state of mind. I used to had lunch in 20 rs and still had satisfaction of having eaten good food. I also had dinner and lunch in 5-7 star hotels of the world and even after paying 30-50 times more money on food, you are not guaranteed to get the satisfaction. The only satisfaction we get with spending more money on food is , the state of mind that says you, I had a costly lunch or dinner today. You feel good when your friends says WOW. But in reality those WOWs don’t matter much.
4. The race to have some standard life never ends. Even Bill Gates and Ambani also feel that they need better house than their current billion rupees palaces. Sadly, there is no end to it. You need to sleep for 7 hours a day in decent bed and you don’t know during your sleep that whether you are in billion dollar house or in one of the room of 2-3 BHK house. You need to spend good time with your kid. The fact is, place does not matter at all for your kid.
5. Save some money for your needs. Plan better for future of your family members and uncertainty of life.
6. Spend good time with family. Even if bill gates give me his all money, I can not buy the my daughter’s days which I have missed this year. Life is as simple as that. A time gone is gone. You can not buy same time again. You try to procure some time for future and miss the present time.
7. I looked at the life style of world’s most successful CEOs. They always have working vacation. They can spend few days in year with their family on some beautiful and costly ice-land however they are not lucky enough to spend good time with their family every day.
8. I need to spend some time with my dad. That is the wonderful gift I can give to him. He has always loved having long discussion with me and has dedicated his most precious years of his life for me. Making him feel better and taking his care would give me more satisfaction than a big thank you email from the any of CEO of fortune 500 companies. My mother like all mothers of the world, was having beautiful heart and she dedicated her entire life for family without any complain about the work she did. The saddest part of life was, she was diagnosed with cancer in a same week when I joined Microsoft and shed died month later. It is practically meaningless to be in world’s best company and you were not able to spend much time with your mom on her last days of life. I wanted her to bring to Hyderabad and have better peaceful life. But you can’t do much against god’s wish. I don’t want to have same regret for any other family member. My father is my real hero and I want take care of him. It is useless to be a CEO of world’s best company in life and you are still not able to spend time with your dad in a way he wants.

9. Stop the race against time. We have only one life and we have to bring it a meaning. There is no fun watching people from heaven remembering you for the innovation that you did. But it is painful when you see tears in your dad’s, brother’s, sisters’, friends, daughter’s or wife’s eye.

10. The great things comes with great cost. I need to do small but meaningful things. Need to make my life better and creating a ripple effect of it so other people can have better life.

The most important lesson so far in my life that I have learnt is from my last 60 days. I realized the value of life. I had an opportunity to review my own life. My mind is calm since last few days.. No stressful thoughts overtaking smile from my present moments. I think I have started learning how to live a life. It is a new journey. The part two of my life has just started. I have good respect for myself as I have always stood with me in all the decisions that I have taken. I have some strong feeling in corner of my heart that when I decide to do something by heart, I make it happen and that may be the reason why I love myself most.