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 Our gift in the form of personal presence and attention,....... having the patience to allow the person to do anything which he/she is capable of doing, not trying to help, being available, not advising, .....and active listening. A friend highly qualified, 65 years in the social work field, being incapacitated after a fall at the age of 86, shifted to a home for people who cannot look after themselves, with all her complaints,  wrote her autobiography over a three year period, which was published by her Alma Mater, which honored her by making her a Hon Professor at the age of 91. Recently passed away aged 93. Was a period of transformation for me.

 I started my career with the career counsellors saying there is a major problem "LACK OF AMBITION". To the question whether they were relating it to money, they added, " that is an issue and if you are not bothered it is quite OK". They also suggested to chose a career where you get into a staff function rather than a line function.Worked for 11 years in an Institution promoting Industries, a very satisfying career, promoting industries, supporting industrialists with any and every issues, handling/volunteering for anything which nobody else wants to handle, bottomline was to make life interesting and great experience. Money was never an issue (Lucky to have a wife who genuinely believes in simple living), with something spare available to support causes. Quit service the day I was 35, and became footloose and free. Objective was to make life interesting thro' ENCOURAGING AND SUPPORTING  DOING.  The firm idea was one need not work 5 days a week to earn a decent livelihood and also not to relate money and doing. It is said TIME IS MONEY and over the years the time value of money went up to an extend that a decent livelihood (inflation adjusted) could be earned doing 1-3 days of money related interesting work per month. Never related work (doing) and money over the years.  I am 68 now, and over the past 45 years was blessed with unimaginable generosity from known and unknown sources and have led a very eventful, interesting life as a sounding board / advisor to Industry and also involved with a whole range of social causes.        I BELIEVE SUFFICIENCY  IS PART OF THE UNIVERSAL DESIGN.

Dear Sister,
The issue here is of ownership. As long as one does anybody's business whether one's own, loved ones' or god's as one's own, one should not feel the heaviness.  If one still feels heaviness, then there is some inauthenticity sitting there and one should introspect and get back owning up whatever one is doing, bringing back the same committment. Can we say "DO UNTO THE OTHERS AS YOU WOULD DO UNTO YOURSELF".  

 I feel it is not about staying in your own business. As long as you accept the other's business or even god's business as your own business and deal with the issues without being judgemental, and with full committment, and responsibility, there is no distress or disharmony. It is a matter of owning up and life flows. It is part of growing up to be a leader. 

The article is very thought provoking and made me revisit my own life. When I graduated in 2000, i was sponsored by my college to go through a career guidance programme conducted by the University's Psychology department and the HR department of the management Institute. End of many tests and lectures and awareness programmes, before the career guidance session,  the heads of  departments observed that there was in me, a total lack of drive and ambition. To my question whether their observation was based on their idea of achievement and money and whether it matters in life, they smiled and said that as long as it does not affect you, it hardly matters. I modelled my career as per their guidance and had a fulfilling eleven years of my initial career with a corporation involved in industrial development of backward areas of the state.I had an unwritten agreement with my boss where I would do anything he wanted me to do (on priority), with a proviso that he will never ask me not to do something which I wanted to do. In the process I started to encourage and support DOING  and moved out from a commercial space to  service space. The shift was such that out of 8-10 hrs of working, nearly 3-4  hours was spent in doing things interesting, not directly connected with my work but which was indirectly benefiting the organisation. I left service the day I was 35 and became a free lance Industrial Advisor encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship including social entrepreneurship.. I was earning around Rs4000/- per month more than sufficient for a decent livelihood  spending as little time as possible for livelihood earning and spending the balance time making my own life interesting. Over the past 30 years I have moved from earning Rs5000/month working two afternoons a week to earning Rs60000/- working one afternoon a month. In between some interesting assignments  were also taken up where the fees was left to the beneficiar... [View Full Comment]

The article is very thought provoking and made me revisit my own life. When I graduated in 2000, i was sponsored by my college to go through a career guidance programme conducted by the University's Psychology department and the HR department of the management Institute. End of many tests and lectures and awareness programmes, before the career guidance session,  the heads of  departments observed that there was in me, a total lack of drive and ambition. To my question whether their observation was based on their idea of achievement and money and whether it matters in life, they smiled and said that as long as it does not affect you, it hardly matters. I modelled my career as per their guidance and had a fulfilling eleven years of my initial career with a corporation involved in industrial development of backward areas of the state.I had an unwritten agreement with my boss where I would do anything he wanted me to do (on priority), with a proviso that he will never ask me not to do something which I wanted to do. In the process I started to encourage and support DOING  and moved out from a commercial space to  service space. The shift was such that out of 8-10 hrs of working, nearly 3-4  hours was spent in doing things interesting, not directly connected with my work but which was indirectly benefiting the organisation. I left service the day I was 35 and became a free lance Industrial Advisor encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship including social entrepreneurship.. I was earning around Rs4000/- per month more than sufficient for a decent livelihood  spending as little time as possible for livelihood earning and spending the balance time making my own life interesting. Over the past 30 years I have moved from earning Rs5000/month working two afternoons a week to earning Rs60000/- working one afternoon a month. In between some interesting assignments  were also taken up where the fees was left to the beneficiary to pay as per their assessment of value received. Most of the times there was no scope of work defined nor  fees discussed with emphasis on involvement (have been involved with anything and everything one can imagine) with a high level of faith, all the while encouraging and supporting DOING and promoting and supporting social causes .  In this process over the past 30 years I have come across interesting people (from all walks of life), great relationships, interesting projects, and has been the recepient of unimaginable love and generosity, In fact I could with pride claim that I have more than 100 years of experience and the wealth generated in real terms as also in terms of time value of money for the time spent between the livelihood earning periods is beyond anybody's imagination. I am  67 years  and still believe that LIFE STARTS NOW
WHO SAYS TIME IS NOT MONEY!!!

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Years back we were tying up machinery for brick manufacturing from a Belgian company. We had taken with us some of our handmade bricks, field fired,  which in our eyes were bad quality. The Belgian bricks were strong and of standard size while ours was absolutely nonstandard and of low strength. While we were feeling ashamed of our bricks and regretting taking them with us, the Belgian architect  was thrilled with the brick samples and remarked that they were like god made, each different from the other, unique in all respects. He also mentioned that strength was not all that important since they will be used as partitions and for pointing for elevation. He was so thrilled with the bricks that he ordered a container load of bricks at a very exorbitant price. like they say beauty in the beholder's eyes and prfection is many times disempowering.