It is all about being human!

Birthdays are an ideal occasion to introspect and then if possible, attempt to emerge as a guy better than one has been. My fifty fifth today brings back to me a kaleidoscope of my earlier years, my follies and my weaknesses rather taking center stage.

Fifty five is fairly old despite how young one feels at heart. It is almost seventy over with only about thirty remaining, yet the very thought that one can make a much bigger mark in the remainder is what gives hope and strength. May god give me the strength to get over all my mistakes and shortcomings and help me in emerging a better human being that one has been in the past. 

My morning walk today again gave me an opportunity to blabber out my thoughts. Perhaps the youngster who accompanied me gave his ear out of sheer respect for seniority, yet the blabbering had some sanity and its essence may remain at the core of all my actions for the rest of my life. Perhaps much more important than being wealthy or powerful is being a genuine human being, an act so simple yet so hard to emulate. Emulating simplicity or genuineness is not only difficult but almost impossible, because these traits cannot be emulated, one can only be. Yet the effort has to go on, not only for my own sake, but also for all those who are the intrinsic constituent of my own tiny universe. 

If only the clock could be turned back a few decades, I would radically cut down on my nasty behavior, catch up on a lot of reading and writing that I have missed and not waste time on issues that now appear as mere trivialities. It is indeed true, yet a fairly late realization, perhaps for many like me that life should not be allowed to while away on trivialities, there are much bigger and better things to do like simply being human.

Yes it is true that in the bureaucratic circus I belong to, being human remains farthest from our thoughts and actions and that is the root cause of all our failures, our failures that are not merely ours but strongly impinge upon the organization we work for and the nation. Our sole focus on self gratification and absolute lack of concern for others has hurt the nation in the last sixty seven years and would continue to do so in future unless we recast the governance model of this great nation.

My last five years in the service of the nation begin today with the prayer to the almighty that this period should not be allowed to go in vain. I strongly believe that the contribution to the society at large that one is able to make towards the fag end of the career is what will give me the satisfaction to carry on unabated even after I hang up my official boots on the last day of 2018.

This purpose of this blog is only to strengthen my own thoughts and resolve!