Go Broke When Building Yourself Up & Living a Life of Purpose! Dont Go Broke Showing Off!

Today morning at around 9, I happened to read an article by Gayatri Jayaraman and published by friend Shreedhar Bhat on his wall titled “The Urban Poor You haven’t noticed..” I was sad reading this article on the youngster Gen Y, the millennial.

The young people(even freshers) of today whom we interview, live in an imaginary world of the glorified start-ups, they read everyday and expect a salary which is high enough and very few (Read: almost nobody) want to know or to try themselves the difficult path to that glory. It also triggered those days when I was a young girl with lot of dreams and came to Bangalore alone to try my luck, leaving a well paid and settled job in Kolkata after my management degree. It was thirteen years back and I had this job of a call centre exec in Bangalore with a salary of Rs.12k. Soon I left it for a job in media(where my passion was) with a lesser salary (that paid Rs.10k). Never did I miss out on the food, they used to be vegetable rice, sambar rice, dosa, idli or dal roti. To & fro office, I walked long roads to save few bucks in auto and in the bus. My paying guest accommodation was inside the newly built and mostly under developed HSR layout in Bangalore and there were no bus service available inside. Hence from Madiwala-Silkboard, it was a direct walk of min 2–3 km daily. Well, it was unsafe specially during night; Soon after my PG mate realised this, I got lucky and I started getting the pick ups and drops as much she could in her scooty. The friend circle started to grow in Bangalore. As a young girl, I never had the wish to be seen at the costly cafes, hotels and to be at the pubs to enjoy life and friendships. Thankfully, my friends had similar mindset. We had been to the parks, malls, we had drank coffees at Shanti Sagars and A2B, and watched movies in the weekends and drank beer at home. But yes, what an amazing time we had spent together. I still remember I did not even spend on buying a camera. My friends, mostly engineers, all had the imported digicams and I was happily enjoying clicking pictures with those cameras. In fact, in the young days also, I did not suffer from the syndrome (now an epidemic among the millennial) what if someone would not like me. What if someone did not talk to me. What if someone found me fat. What if someone found me cheap. What if I am perceived among my peer network as UNCOOL. Now, they even commit suicide if they don’t get Facebook likes. Thus confining and living in an imaginary world of shame and fear!

Later, work has taken me to all the cafes, eateries, pubs and hotels and I have enjoyed everything at the right time and in between found an honest person as my life partner. I have everything today what you attach for someone to be in the race. Very recently, when I was quitting my highly paid job as group manager at an agency in Bangalore to start Sponsor Source I did not think what would happen as I could not be able to afford my luxuries I was habituated to, afterwards, Or what would others think. Even today I bring food from home to office at BTM Layout, Bangalore. I still don’t have iPhone or iMac. Coming from a middle class family, I had learnt to live frugal from childhood. My parents have never done anything to show off to others. In fact I was taught not to attach happiness with showing off what I had. May be that’s the reason, I have come across mostly genuine and authentic people, who value me as a person and I have made few genuine friends along the way. Even at the tough times of business, these are the people who are there with me. The ones who stick only in your good times are filtered out. There is no point even being a CEO - starved for happiness, health and honesty. In the article, Janaki writes, “we’ve built a culture that places such immense value in appearances that we’d rather spend a lot to appear full than spend a little bit to buy food.” This is sad, indeed.

Right now, every month my personal cost is minimal, Yes, its true that I cannot afford many luxuries now. What matters is I live a positive, healthy, meaningful life of happiness with a purpose, focussing on the present and working for the future. Today, its a life which is prudent and minimalist. I am disciplined with my spending habits. I have got back my twenties energy and spirit living it. There are many ideas which I cannot wait but give them shape and see them mature and successful. I have definite goals in life today which I will achieve.

To the Gen Y ~ Don’t go broke showing off to others; in fact don’t even bother to show off, and never be worried what others think or say about you as individual. If at all you have to go broke, do that for building yourself up, building a company, learning something new, living your passion and for new experiences, Then you will get something worthwhile in life in return, that will push you upwards as a better, mature human and you will grow immensely and limitlessly. To your growth! Cheers.