Different Phases of Life, Different Focuses

Never had I thought I would blog someday but I suppose at past 50, one should start penning down thoughts to leave behind some learning and experiences for those who seek wisdom on the Net. There was a professor who once had said that anything posted on the Net stays on the Net and should technology become very sophisticated someday where people can just seek assistance by redirecting their eye balls towards the issues that popped up in their brain and a hologram appears before their eyes with possible solutions - well, I hope my blog also appears as a possible solution provider to life issues. 

To be fair, I do not expect to provide all solutions to everyone's problems, my love is for writing (among others) and at different stages in life, we focus on different things. Right after graduation, I was hunting for jobs and that was during the great recession of 1988. Funnily, I did land a temporary job at the very university where I studied (they still owe me RM650-my final salary!!) while my fellow undergrads were scrambling to get employed. Somehow, transition from one job to the other from then one was quite smooth that I joined the proper workforce - full time job and all, worked for a full 15 years before I decided to temporarily call it a day. During that 15 years, the focus was on earning enough to be able to afford a house, a car (a kid came along the way after marriage in 1991) and some bank balances (not to mention the insurance policies). 

The day I left my job, I focused on my second child who arrived 10 years after the first one. It was parenting all over again but at the time my great hubby (now ex) wasn't much of a support. He was already 40 and was bent on having all the fun he had missed in his early 20s. So, as mother I had to totally focus on running the house, earning enough on part time assignments to raise the two kids, study for my MBA and of course to stay sane! The thing about sanity is that sometimes it snaps. Mine did in 2006.

Three years after leaving full time employment to focus on raising my precious second child, I realised that my worth was only if I were to earn hard money. There is a saying in my mother tongue - Tamil, a man without money is equivalent to a corpse. I realised in that during the three years that I was a full time home worker, part time earner. No one respected me despite my having an MBA and was the only person with higher education among my in-laws. Such was the power of money. 

In 2006, I decided to return to full time work. Landed a wonderful job with a government agency. The thing about government agencies is that the working pace is like the government, while the pay and perks surpasses the private sector. In the same year I divorced my husband to whom I was married for 16 years. The next 6 years saw my meteoric rise at work - given double promotion at one time for exemplary performance, was quite well-known among government agencies and even appeared on TV at one time! Achievements after achievements were added to my coffers of success along with lots of hard cash. In the interim, there was a cardiovascular surgeon in my life. Him being a millionaire added more hard cash to my balances. The thing about money is that it makes us `blind' at one stage in life. Blind when ego takes over all rationality. I realised the truth in pride comes before a fall in 2012 when my contract at the government agency was not renewed. Over night I was jobless. Actually, I, too decided to walk out of that job. The fact was - I was jobless, no income, had some debts, the cardiovascular surgeon and I had parted ways and had a kid in international school. As they say, every hard fall in life denotes a new chapter - it did, too, in my life.

26 September 2019