Alice in Wonderland

'Alice in Wonderland', a fairytale full of fantasy. A story told multiple times by generations to generations. Did you ever wonder when was it written? 20 years or 50 years back? actually, nearly 150 years back!! it was written in 1865 by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. 

A girl falls in a rabbit hole and reaches to a wonderland where she meets many creatures. Tale plays with logic, enjoyed by children and adults alike.

Why on the earth am I talking about something talked about numerous time? No, it is not about the critiques or praise or anything of that sort. What I kept on thinking for past few days or weeks or probably on and off, for a real long time, that don't we live in wonderland too? so what if it is not-so-defying-logic, so what if it does not look like one? To me, it is named as corporate world.

Let me make one thing clear here, I am not thinking about it with any per-conceived notion or in any wrong sense, just trying to understand, when and where does one stops? Can anyone really stop?

At some point in time or other, we fall from rabbit hole (something really tough to get out from... first job?) too and lands on in corporate world. Well, may not be all of us took that route or reached at the same world. But most of the time story remains same. Let me elaborate a bit more why I think so? A dialogue which, for me, sums it up (from the movie) - "You have to run faster and faster to stay at your place." This is true more than anything, more than anywhere else but at the corporate world. Being good is no longer good enough. One must keep trying for higher and higher, more and more, faster and faster.

If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got. It is not that something is wrong, we never felt it as wrong, we are so used to it or probably competition at every level has gone so fierce that earlier it was said that there is always room on top, now that room has got smaller and ladder going up has shrunk. 

How far an individual can rise with fair means and more importantly being honest to oneself? Probably there is no limit to this, but to my imagination only.  One more thought came across me, 'Everyone rises to one's incapability.' ... make sense, I think. 

This eventually turns out to be a rat-race as one of my friend put it as, aptly. Point here is, why there is always a distinct differentiation between doers and achievers? Try to list down 5 or 10 (big-shots, successful, racks to riches types) people who you can recall instantaneously, chances are 9 or more people in the list would have a history where they dared to break out from this dilemma and took some drastic decision, with an entirely different vision. Minute I realize this (which happens so many times, sad, again), an itch starts somewhere within me. Unfortunately, it dies so soon that I could not do much about it. Following passion is probably not as difficult as identifying it at the first place. What kills it? system, environment, Monday blues, laziness, fear of uncharted territory, fear of failure, society at large, upbringing, loads of responsibilities? what??

Do I have such spark? what that spark is? How do I change myself? How do I get over from this uncomfortable feeling of running faster and faster without making any real progress? Probably I, myself am holding it back, tightly, from within.

Ah... yes, this is very much mid life crisis... MY MID LIFE CRISIS...