The Importance of talking to Ernest.

On my hurried ride back to the Union Station, DC to catch the 6 o clock back to NYC, I got an opportunity to strike up a conversation with the African cab driver named Ernest. I guess that’s how being international affects you after a while. The racial lines start blurring and an untainted kinship develops. You know longer see men/women in other countries as men/women from other countries. After all, we all live here in America dangling on this rope of hope that soon we will all go back to our motherland, soon.

"I asked him, Do you miss being home, Ernest?"

With a thick Ghanian accent (he said something like Dangme, Dagbane as being his mother tongue) he articulated one valid point -

“You live where you are most comfortable”, something his father had told him.

"Of course I miss being home", “Your home soil is your home soil”, “Nothing gets better than working for your people, your country” “We come here for technology, and we take that expertise back” “We should know our task, our duty.” were few things we discussed.

But do we, really? Are we in it for ourselves? Did Netaji Subash Chandra Bose think like that when he went to Cambridge? Did Gandhiji think like this at University College London? Did Sardar Patel envision his role in the Independence fight at Middle Temple, London?

Blah! May be - at times! May be - all the time. May be Higher Duty called when they least expected.

As the Interstate 495 traffic began to intensify and the prospect of not making for the train started looming over me, I saw what impact my conversation was having on the two of us. Free fleeting moments of pensive expositions and reverie started setting in. While I mused over about career opportunities in home country, I saw that he took deep interest in beating the traffic and helping me reach the station. "Its 5.20 - and these cars better move fast"

“I came here 18 years ago and I still feel the same when I go back to my wife and kids in Ghana”

Hah- He beat my 6 years away from home three times over. And Hah- that puts things into perspective.

25 minutes to go for the Acela express to depart and 5 miles in bumper to bumper traffic left. “Wonder how all our countries would be if whites hadn’t ruled over us?” I asked him. “Would we have been here today talking in their language?” “Would we have boarded that one way plane to take us to another land?”

“May be not.” he said. “But they made us love our motherland even more.”

10 minutes to go and I had to yet go to the travel desk and renew my ticket. As I paid him money, jutted out with my suitcase, and stepped out of the cab, Ernest exclaims, “Hey man, don’t worry about shutting door or anything, just run! You don’t want to miss it.” And so I sprinted and wala! Made it on the dot. In the midst of cultural exchanges, historical accounts and nostalgic memories, I realized how he did what he said – stuck to his assigned task – getting me to the station on time.

“We should know our task, our duty.”

So at least one of us knew their task, their duty, their Higher Order.

Bull shit estimates that help.

Faced with an odd problem yesterday. Was chatting an old old friend about his project situation. Seemed like he was working in a foreign country but doing some good work. Problem: He didn’t want to be there and wanted to be home. Bigger Problem: I didn’t know what to tell him.

Often times the remedies for disgruntled employees are in form of reminders. They are either performed by ourselves or then our friends, families and colleagues. The reminders are simple. “Your time will come, just wait it out.” “Hang in there buddy” “Well at least you are not doing …… kinda crap work” “Don’t lose sight of the goal” “Everybody goes through this, you are not the only one” “What other option do you have any way?” So reminders go from infusing positives about better things to come, to updates on current status to threat about the “what ifs” and “what else”.

As much as we don’t embrace these ideologids wholeheartedly and feel we need to constantly try to find a better life - no matter what, point is simple: they work.

However, this time I engaged in another form of pacification for the soul: Bullshit estimates or guesstimates (academic lingo, may be) or rational streamlined assumptions from varying pieces of information (consulting jargon, has to be).

I told him there are two things to be considered here. A) Happy Personal Life B) Successful Career. Now you can’t have both all the time. So either you are happy with both A and B which makes you part of 10% of the population at given point of time. Or you happy with either A or B which makes you part of the 70% of the population. Or then you are the sorry remaining 20% and you better do something about A or B.

My Source: I have no freaking idea. But it worked! He realized what I was talking about and made a choice and with that ended his two day depressing period. I told him there is nothing to worry about, if you feel you have a good personal life, be happy about it and seek a better job. If you have sucky personal life, then seek to improve it with job, heibus corpus.

This leads me to believe that bull shit estimates really help, I would say 3 out of 10 times :)

Institution of Anger

Dear Bapu,

I have realized one thing. I may let myself feel anger. Anger serves as a reminder to shed my comfort zone.

Your teachings have clarified my understanding of Anger.

I want to dedicate this post to You – The One Who Totally Owned this Institution of Anger. The more I maintain my life long fight to grasp the fundamentals of controlling anger, the more my respect for You grows. I wish to thank You for reminding us to shake our comfort zone which make our minds lethargic and complacent.

I am reminded how Satyagraha was founded on the notion of understanding the root causes of most of our rage – injustice and oppression. Through all Your effective systems of passive resistance, patience, and non-violence, You created this magnificent power within us. I have realized how passivity in the mind is far more damaging and can only be cured by passive resistance. After all, the source of the anger was from a certain injustice and it is that basis of that injustice we need to eradicate and change, not the person, not the object – just the action. The result will naturally be a change in the person.

I apprehend the importance of simplicity of shedding my anger as I pray and rest my eyes every night and importance of action required for remediation as I plan my day in the morning.

I have realized that feeling angry is just beginning of a struggle and not the summit of turn of events.


Your Humble Satyagrahi,

N



Bapu -
Quote # 1) "I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world." Quote # 2) “Man should forget his anger before he lies to sleep.”