A change in the direction of my life

About 4 months ago, I wrote about my decision to quit writing full time for now and do it along with a regular day job.

In this while, as you might have noticed, I have posted very infrequently. I have been busy doing quite a handful of things. I recently took up a job in software development. For sometime, I tried to get a job in organization development but that was not working out as soon as I would want it to. So I came back to my old love.

I also decided to move to New Delhi from Bangalore. Making both these changes has been quite demanding.

Before I continue further, I want to say that this post talks entirely of what is going on in my life. Usually, I don’t write such posts but I think I need to keep my readers informed about the direction I am moving in. I feel that you, as a reader of this space, deserve to know what I, the writer of this blog, stand for. So here goes…

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When I started writing, I was fired by the idea of doing something that I deeply connect with, the idea of creating something of my own, of being my own boss, of earning money from my own passion. In the last year and a half, I have seen tremendous growth and I feel like a very different person now.

I am still in love with most of that original idea. There have been some new realizations though that have led to slight changes in my inclination.

What holds

Growth and expansion. With this blog, I got an avenue not only to share my experiences and life lessons with you all, but also to grow as a being and allow myself to expand into my potential. I have gained some rich experiences, like working totally on my own, giving full attention to what I like doing for a whole year and a half, taking this year and a half off from professional work and then getting back at it, looking for a job in a new city of my choice, and I have experienced first hand the effort it takes to make the context switch when you move from one line of work to another…

I still coveat such experiences.

Expression, writing, analysis, observation. This is a place where I feel totally connected with myself and I feel that life force is flowing through me unimpeded. I feel pure and complete. This still holds and keeps me strongly bound to the blog.

I want to continue expressing myself though writing, and other means, I want to continue seeking more knowledge about life, I want to observe this world, and I want to use my mind to analyze and try to make sense of what I see.

Creating things. I still am in love with creating new things, whether they are a piece of software, an article or a book. This I intend to continue.

What gives

Being my own boss. I am not so keen on being my own boss now. According to my current understanding of things, the idea of working alone came out of my habit to keep to myself. I have always avoided connecting with others. But now I feel that, to find deep happiness, one needs to connect deeply, both with one’s own soul and with the souls of those around. There is a deep joy in working with others towards a common goal. With my new job, I see an opportunity to work towards this.

Being a personal development enthusiast. If you have read my About page, which was created towards the beginning of the blog’s life, I call myself a personal development enthusiast. I now realize that my enthusiasm is towards the greater and all encompassing field of life itself. I am more of a life enthusiast! I am an analytical thinker. I am an observer… of life, of people, of myself. I am a seeker… of knowledge, of truth, of wisdom. 

My interest has also started building up in the fields of philosophy, psychology and sociology.

This is causing an expansion in the kind of topics I write on. You might have noticed this in the last few articles already. I am yet to change the About page though.

A respite for my cash flow

As far as earning money is concerned, I feel I am OK, for the time being, with getting it from software development. I have always enjoyed software development and it seems to get me money easily. This is not to say that I have abandoned the idea of making money from my writings and my expressions. It is just that I am not too keen on monetizing this persuit for now. For now, I want to just focus on continuing writing from my heart and improving at it.

This move has an added advantage - I just have to write to express myself freely and to create good value. In the past year, whenever my focus was on earning money through my writings, I felt that my writings got a little disconnected from my heart. I wasn’t writing as freely. Whatever was coming out, I wouldn’t feel it truly and clearly reflected my soul.

I feel it is possible to have both but for the time being, I want to focus on just writing and writing well. I want to write from my heart, without much thought to whether the article will attract attention and whether it will turn up on search engines etc.

With this job, the concern about a negative cash flow, that I had while I was writing full time, would be gone. Of course there is the brute force method of just keeping at it until it starts earning me money. I don’t think one way is better than the other, they both probably work. It is just my personal choice and comfort with this particular path right now.

What I expect in the coming days

With this job, and its demanding nature, I see a challenge in managing my writing. I have purposefully pushed myself in this corner. I see a lot of adventure and learning in the days to come and I am excited and eager for it.

Well, this is where I am right now. I am kind of enjoying this uncertainty and feeling very excited and free in the moment. These changes have forced a lot of readjustments and a lot of rethinking about a lot of things. I feel all these changes will spark new realizations, new observations and new insights which I intend to share on this blog.

Until next time…

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