Retrospection

Sravan Kumar
Nov 4 · 2 min read

It’s been some time since I have written something concrete and good. So, I have decided to write on a particular thing that is making me restless for one year or a couple.

Before that, let me share a short memory.

When I was in high school, my father had taken this Ayappa Deeksha ( Hindu religious ceremony), which spans around 41 days, and one should visit the pilgrimage in Kerala, Sabarimala, to mark the completion. At the last minute, I had to accompany him on the trip. To reach the temple, located in a dense forest (also a Tiger reserve terrain), one has to walk through a steep forest path without any footwear for 7–8 km. The journey is laborious, but it also offers many picturesque views.

So, on the day of Darshan, we started from the origin point in the morning. My father had planned to reach the temple as soon as possible and take rest before the actual Darshan. So, he had put everything in him and was maintaining a good pace.
Whereas, I had to keep my pace slow as I was skinny back then and didn’t want to get dehydrated in a place where one cannot imagine medical services. But on a brighter side, it helped me in having conversations with strangers, taking short breaks to enjoy the views.

After around 50–60% of the course, I found out my father resting at some point. He was drained by the blazing sun (they were not supposed to eat on that particular day) and eventually, he had to travel the remaining course with us, little weaker than me because he had put all of his efforts in the first part of the journey itself.

On that particular day, I had realised one of the most some essential lessons.

**Always plan your journey appropriately and according to situations.**

So, let us come back to the actual point. In recent times, I had several conversations with friends, in retrospection, only to realise, all the time we were discussing early retirement ( by early ’30s) and the pace at which are progressing through our career’s. Thanks to the social media too, our circle’s gotten bigger, and we are comparing ourselves to some strangers whose situations are unknown.

So, I have started reading articles from different sources and realised, the pattern is widespread among all the recent college graduates. We are running and trying to achieve everything in a night or short span as if we are running out of time. One has stopped enjoying the course and aiming only at the destination point (which never exists in the first place!).

I have extrapolated this pattern to the story I just shared.

We are trying to achieve everything in a short span and eventually putting ourselves down because we are unable to do so…
Isn’t it the same thing where one has given all his efforts in the first part and eventually got drained in the halfway?

Isn’t that the same lesson I have learnt around a decade back?
Maybe it’s time for us to retrospect how we have planned our life and keep ourselves more engaged..