Come the end of this month, I would be celebrating 2 anniversaries; one – 5th anniversary of my blog, two - first anniversaries of my return to Hyderabad. This city offered me two new weapons on my return, which I wasn’t offered during my stay of about quarter century. Few years ago I posted about “Corporate animal”, never realising that I might end up being one.
The last one year has brought a huge transformation in my way of thinking. I took me few months to realize that I was back in Hyderabad, in fact few of the regular readers of my blog even said they were expecting a blog on my return to Hyd. But, all that I could think of was WORK. People back home wouldn’t have realized either that I was back in Hyderabad, since I spent almost entire non-sleepy hours thinking or talking of work.
At the end of my corporate training, a close friend of mine at Mysore once told me ” You lost all your charm and the energy that you had when you joined the training.” In a typical Hari style (never serious), I replied “May be I am becoming a professional.” Least did I realize that what I said was true, I was in fact losing most of my personal space apart from my hair 
Few months after my return to Hyd, realised that I was struggling with severe pain in my neck, that had gone unnoticed by my ever pre-occupied workaholic mind. If not for the fact that I was yet to pay the physio bill, the physio would have literally killed me for my carelessness. Gradually, as I was buying time to get my neck back in shape, I realised I can manage to handle the weapon of saying NO. Though I wasn’t so adamant or would shy-away from work and responsibility (both at professional and personal front), I realised there was a real need to learn the art of saying NO across the various roles one plays in one’s life.
Few of my friends used to point out, that when they approach me with some request, I would always start off with a denial if it was too demanding. But would end up doing it for them. The art of saying NO was well within my nature, but the art of sticking to the NO was not. As I started building this nature as well, I was able to think beyond what to do, since I was able to get rid of un-warranted baggage that I carried. I found more time for myself and found that I was pretty un-occupied most of the time.
Some one on Facebook asked me my New Year resolution and I replied “Last year I learnt to say No, this year I want to learn to say ‘I don’t Know’ ” (this statement was pathetically misquoted just to strengthen my will to say NO and I don’t know). In Indian scenario, it has remains a taboo to say ” I don’t know“ because it was against one’s false pride to confess being naive. I came across few people at work, who would treat ignorance or discomfort in doing something as a pretty natural and normal issue. I had always admired that quality in such people, but seldom tried to induce it into my own nature.
When I stared saying NO to baggage, I found enough time to think of things beyond daily routine and yet not disturbing my routine at work and personal life. Movies on every weekend with Srikanth (thanks to his delayed VISA to return to US) was back into my routine. When the whole World was nearing the New Year, I found I became an Uncle….! now that the art of saying NO made the day look so long enough to accommodate many many things in life, I found lots and lots of time to play with the new-born boy. I was pretty much on time to work and then back home as well.
With the advent of New year, I started practicing the art of saying ” I don’t Know”. Back in Hyderabad, I met 2 colleagues, pretty new to work but plenty to learn from. One of my ex-managers ones told me that he learnt from me, few tricks of handling situations. I felt that was a cliché statement to motivate younger folks, but after meeting the 2 folks, I felt younger folks bring in newer thoughts and style of working. I could very well describe their attitude, similar to how Paulo Coelho describes his master in Valkyries. Though they were technically well equipped, they always presented themselves as people with questions to know more. A very polished way to say ” I don’t know” also proving that there is always an exception (because my belief was that “Corporates had more politicians than Politics”. Their company strengthened my art of saying ” I don’t know”. This gave me more time to look back and shed away the false assumption that I knew it all.
The art of saying NO gave me more time to accommodate few more things in the day and the art of saying “I don’t know” gave me opportunity to learn new things. I started to plan my future and to start off planned my own house !. Living up to my reputation of being creative person, I started making the floor plan of my house on MS Paint. Once this plan got finalized, I moved on to draw the elevation of the house, just to realise that I wasn’t as good at drawing like I was few years ago, giving me yet another opportunity to say ” I don’t know”. I then decided to join the painting classes at office that coincided with my interest at that point. But then, I hadn’t mastered the skill of saying NO, so had to miss the classes, as I couldn’t steal time. At the next schedule (I had mastered the art of saying NO), I joined Sketching classes, post office hours. My strokes were getting stronger, gentler and finer. I was finally able to design the elevation of my house, giving me a life-long opportunity to claim, I planned every inch of my house.
Days were longer enough to let me go out with Ravi after office hours on shopping spree for his wedding and to invite people. It had been ages, since we both would have zoomed every inch of the city and nothing gets better than this. I also got a change to watch a 6:45 show of movie after office with my batchmates, wow, now that was a real killer of a proof to show the change that the art of Saying No had brought in.
The 2 weapons; Art of saying “NO” and “I don’t know” are to be handled as carefully as a sword without dagger hanging around one’s waist. One may end up in an awkward situation where one’s No can offend people or might end up branding one as a person who would shy away from responsibility. The “I don’t know” can very obviously end up one being branded as a dull headed person.
