It is a biweekly update with project manager in Sweden, where he will update the project status to the team here, so it is an interesting meeting. I took an excuse from the manager that I will join little late to the meeting, because I have to go to lunch with a visitor who is leaving to Sweden that night.
Though it is a linked call, since headphones does not work in CAE computers, we generally gather in a conference room. Apparently I joined 15 minutes late, when I entered the meeting all the chairs were occupied, and everybody gave me a blank look and turned their faces toward the screen. I was little happy that nobody was bothered that I am late, as I ate too much in the lunch I decided to stand just to avoid the post lunch drowsiness. But just after couple of minutes, my manager waved me and asked me to sit in his chair, because he had an other appointment. So back to the food coma , I sat, and tried to concentrate on meeting.
Apart from the content of the meeting, the best part in the meeting is his presentation, he always tries to make the presentation interesting. After project updates, he spoke about the Christmas vacation plan of the team and at the end of the meeting he showed a slide with colourful pictures and few lines of text, which actually attracted me,
You like Santa Claus
You don't like Santa Claus
You are Santa Claus
You look like Santa Claus
He related different states of life to Santa Claus; he said that he is between stage 3 and 4, and he is not so old to look like Santa. The room is filled with laugh. We wished each other merry Christmas and said good bye. I came out from the conference room, went to cafeteria, bought a cup of coffee to my desk and typed Santa Claus in Google.
If you ask me who is my best friend, I will say Google, it always have answers to all of my questions. It will never say “I Don’t Know”. It became a habit for me to search internet if I heard about any interesting things. Apparently the first hit redirected me to Wikipedia, there I read a couple of interesting things about Santa Claus and a poem The night before Christmasand spent 10 minutes in reading some related links, then my mobile phone started ringing and vibrating, it was a call from my office, so I closed all the windows and took the call. After the call I became busy in doing some updates which I need to deliver that evening. But the four lines didn’t leave my thoughts.
It is almost late evening, my friend pinged me “shall we leave”, I said yes, and logged off the computer and we started walking home. While walking I told her about the four lines from the meeting, she gave a pleasant smile and said “Ya, Its true”. Though its a 10 minute walk, the winter cold breeze is making us to feel like it is a 10 km walk, at last we reached the junction where we need to take diversions, we said bye to each other and moved towards our ways. I came home, cooked something and ate, filled the cup with Tropicana sat in an easy chair. I enjoy these moments of sitting in a easy chair and doing nothing.
Then a funny thought came in to my mind, how can I relate these four lines with my life. But to relate,
Have I been through all these four states?
“No”
So if I didn’t, now I am in which state?
“I guess it is between stage 2 and stage 3”
Ok, are these stages are states of life or sate of mind?
“I think they are Both”
If they are both, Can I can relate them to any one phase of my life?
“Yes, Definitely I can”
Human brain is amazing, for every thought it creates a negative thought and again creates a positive thought and a negative thought to that positive thought; and it goes on like a cycle until you reach speed breaker. and this time the speed breaker is the juice in my glass. It is finished, so I gave a break to the thoughts and went to fill the juice.
I filled the cup and called my dad and spoke with him for 5 minutes, then my dad gave phone to my mom, she spoke for a couple of minutes. I hang up the phone, finished the juice in the glass, went to kitchen, left the glass in the basin to wash, turned off the gas cylinder, closed the windows and turned the lights off in all the rooms and tucked myself in the bed.
Then I started thinking, why don’t I replace Santa with my parents in the four lines, immediately I did the same,
You like Santa Claus- when I am a kid, I liked my parents so much because they will get whatever I want.
You don’t like Santa Claus- and when I grown up a little, I don’t like them because they were asking me to go to school regularly and study.
You are Santa Claus- And as the time moved I became Santa, because I need to satisfy my parents by passing the examinations with a good score. Passing an exam is like gift to them.
You look like Santa Claus – Since I passed all my exams with top score, good score, average score, I looked like Santa to my parents. It is like getting a hike letter with the rating of “Exceeds Expectations”
The last thought filled my mind with pleasure and i fell asleep.
Happiness is not a matter of good fortune or worldly possessions. It’s a mental attitude. It comes from appreciating what we have, instead of being miserable about what we don’t have. It’s so simple? yet so hard for the human mind to comprehend.