Contentment is the new full stop

Saturdays give me deeper shades of blues than Mondays. On Saturdays, my Sametime chat list is almost inactive as the corporate office has a 'proper' weekend off and a lot of guys in the Nasik office take an off too. But this Saturday is slightly different with a lot of personal and professional jobs to finish. However when you feel like writing something, you have to do it. There is no way out or in and obviously there is no two ways about it.

Let me digress from Saturdays and writing, I want to tell you about something else. As I mentioned in some of my earlier posts, I did not write to influence, inspire or insult. But, if this inspires someone or at least encourage them to think a little more, I'm more than happy :)
Ok, so I go to the office canteen for lunch during office days and I go alone as;

1. I get hungry by 12.30 and the scheduled time is 1.00
2. I do not have a team here to go with
3. I prefer to finish the lunch fast without much chattering in between
4. I spend some quality time with me, thinking about a lot things. No distractions in the form of internet, computer, phone and the food is not great enough to distract ;)
5. I can observe people, which is a part-time job of mine

So, the last two points are very much relevant to the blog post. When I think, I think about a lot of things which are general, individual and stupid, like;

• How can I break the monotony of this life?
• Am I going to have lunch in one or other corporate food courts/canteens for the rest of my life?
• Can I support at least one person who has lesser privileges?
• Shall I call up my fiancee after lunch or would she be busy?
• Can't I be a serious person if I try, oh wait, why should I be another boring one?

Some make sense and some, as usual, don't. Then I look around people and see happy faces, cracking jokes, sharing food and interestingly contented. Some guys give me a look which says, "why the heck this guy is sitting alone and eating away to glory". Some others are more sympathetic and looks like "poor chap, no friends". And most of them do not care about my existence, which in turn makes my Sherlock work easier.
So as I walk back after lunch I could catch a glance of the entire canteen, sort of bird's eye perspective of it. I see contentment reflects on a lot of faces and they are happy about where they are and how they are. They all work from 8.30-5 (or more), have lunch with colleagues, go back home, spend some time with family, sleep, come back to office next day and the cycle repeats. So someone like me; goes to office, of course feels blessed about having a job, work like everyone else from 8.30 to 5 (or more), have lunch alone and (mis)use that time to think and observe, go back home, spend some time on internet and phone, sleep and the cycle repeats.

As you can clearly see the only difference here is the time I spend everyday with me, during lunch. And, I firmly believe that those few minutes are going to make me standout from the crowd. Contentment is dangerous, contentment is limitation and contentment makes you sit in a corner while that one in a hundred moves ahead. Statu quo is the easiest and the most boring thing to be with, to get over it you have to think about advancement, the next step. Think not just in terms of a promotion or salary hike, but in a wider perspective. Unless you think about these you will be happily living a normal life, which is quite fine with the majority. And here we have a chance to standout from the majority, do it! Happiness is a better alternative, go for it and stay away from contentment, it kills progress.

These two advertisements influenced me a lot and I'm sure a lot of us have already seen them 'n' times. Watch them again and again, till you are out of monotony!

Ciao! :)