A letter to my brother..
Dear Shivam,
Under the Vedic ashram system for every man to achieve the four aims in life namely Dharma (Righteousness), Artha (Wealth), Kama (Pleasure) and Moksha (Liberation) he has to go through different developmental stages in his life which focus only on one or two of these aims at a time. This ensures your complete attention to what should be important to you at that point of your life. As per these Vedic guidelines the aims for the stage of life called Tarunayauvana which extends from age 20 - 29 are Dharma and Artha in that order.
Dharma and Artha may sound very philosophical to you but let me elucidate. Dharma in Sanskrit means "a law or rule that maintains the universal balance", for you as a student Dharma is to make the best possible efforts to ensure that you set yourself up for a good future for yourself and for your loved ones and achieve Artha i.e. wealth in life.
The reason I wanted to share this with you is to make you understand that at this point in your life nothing is more important than achieving the goals that you have set for yourself. As you enter this new phase in life remember what's important and what matters the most is to maintain your integrity. We (your family) will stand by you no matter what 'you' decide to do next and will provide unconditional love, care and support to you. You are the essence of the best qualities of our parents, their discipline and dedication.
I want you to prepare yourself for some of the most grueling years of your life when you work to establish yourself as a force to be reckoned with. I am going to give you some advice which will help you conduct yourself at your workplace in a manner that will impress people around you and keep you focused on your ultimate goal at the same time.
1. Prepare a timetable for every task you get and follow it: In a work place it’s easy to get slammed with ad-hoc requests that people throw at you and eventually you lose sight of things that are important. Make a timetable for every task you get and prioritize it with others, let your managers know by emails, phone calls or regular personal updates of what you are doing. Don't feel obliged to say yes just because you are a new employee, refuse any request that you cannot accommodate. This is very important, learn to say no. This will ensure that when your performance is measured at the end of year you will have more ticks to your name than crosses.
2. Ask good questions: When assigned with work instead of just doing your job it’s important to also understand why you are doing it. It helps you to build a knowledge base that you can fall back on in the future. For eg: if you are asked to create an excel report on anything, you should always ask what does that report tell the client? Why does he need? What else can you do with it?
3. Give solutions not recommendations
4. Always maintain the personal and professional boundary at your workplace: Don't take your personal calls at your desk, if you have to take a call excuse yourself, step outside and take it in the break rooms or in a meeting room. Work at work and play at play, don't switch the two. Text messages or personal emails can always wait till the end of the day.
5. Dress sharp: Wear clothes that fit you and look good on you. Take care of yourself, use some health care products. Half your work is done when people know you mean business just by looking at you. Your shoes should shine all the time and your face should not, do what you have to do to ensure this. Have an extra shoe brush in your office drawer and some face-wash and a comb; use it when you have to.
6. Be on time and leave on time: If you can do this that means you are efficient in your work. You are getting paid for those 9 hours that you are in office and there is no need for charity by staying late. Having said this, at times it is important to stretch your work hours a little to complete tasks that are your responsibility which is completely fine but you should be able to count these occasions on your fingers tips.
7. Lunches and breaks: Here in the US people don't have lunches which go on for hours and then have more tea breaks and coffee breaks in the mornings and in the evenings. Everyone drinks tea or coffee at their desks or in their meetings and spends as little time for lunch as possible to make sure that your work is complete on time. In India, these breaks are over-rated and tend to be a waste of times, spend only as much time as is necessary on these breaks. You get paid to work not eat lunches.
8. Office gossip and politics: Don't indulge in it. Remember the phrase, "Silence is golden". In an office people often use cheap tricks to demean others to win the rat race and if you are seen as a party to it, it affects your credibility or brand. It’s very common for your supervisors and peers to hold your personal behavior against you when assigning you with new tasks.
9. Office parties: You'll have many such parties almost one every two weeks, its important to be social with your colleagues outside office so attend them but remember these parties are just an extension of your workplace environment. Anything that you say or do here affects your credibility or 'brand' in office. You will see people getting smash drunk and doing crazy things but remember you should always be the person dropping others home and not being dropped home yourself.
Just remember you are a brand that is only as good as your performance and you need to treat it with utmost care and respect. Guard your brand with your life. Nowhere have I asked you to work too hard or extra, I have just asked you to only work at work. Mind it, I am not telling you how to do your job, I just telling you what is important to keep yourself focused. Only take work that you can do and then finish it at any cost.
I don't need to tell you what you need to do to keep up with your studies simply because I know you can manage that much better than I could or I still can.
These are some things that I have learnt from my experiences and have paid heavy price for ignoring them in the beginning but I want you to start with this if you can. Read the whole thing again now and make sure you understand it. Feel free to talk to me about anything you disagree with or anything you don't understand above but I am sure Mum and Dad there can be much better teachers than I am. Learn from their experiences but make your own decisions.
Good luck,
Bhaiya
Dharma and Artha may sound very philosophical to you but let me elucidate. Dharma in Sanskrit means "a law or rule that maintains the universal balance", for you as a student Dharma is to make the best possible efforts to ensure that you set yourself up for a good future for yourself and for your loved ones and achieve Artha i.e. wealth in life.
The reason I wanted to share this with you is to make you understand that at this point in your life nothing is more important than achieving the goals that you have set for yourself. As you enter this new phase in life remember what's important and what matters the most is to maintain your integrity. We (your family) will stand by you no matter what 'you' decide to do next and will provide unconditional love, care and support to you. You are the essence of the best qualities of our parents, their discipline and dedication.
I want you to prepare yourself for some of the most grueling years of your life when you work to establish yourself as a force to be reckoned with. I am going to give you some advice which will help you conduct yourself at your workplace in a manner that will impress people around you and keep you focused on your ultimate goal at the same time.
1. Prepare a timetable for every task you get and follow it: In a work place it’s easy to get slammed with ad-hoc requests that people throw at you and eventually you lose sight of things that are important. Make a timetable for every task you get and prioritize it with others, let your managers know by emails, phone calls or regular personal updates of what you are doing. Don't feel obliged to say yes just because you are a new employee, refuse any request that you cannot accommodate. This is very important, learn to say no. This will ensure that when your performance is measured at the end of year you will have more ticks to your name than crosses.
2. Ask good questions: When assigned with work instead of just doing your job it’s important to also understand why you are doing it. It helps you to build a knowledge base that you can fall back on in the future. For eg: if you are asked to create an excel report on anything, you should always ask what does that report tell the client? Why does he need? What else can you do with it?
3. Give solutions not recommendations
4. Always maintain the personal and professional boundary at your workplace: Don't take your personal calls at your desk, if you have to take a call excuse yourself, step outside and take it in the break rooms or in a meeting room. Work at work and play at play, don't switch the two. Text messages or personal emails can always wait till the end of the day.
5. Dress sharp: Wear clothes that fit you and look good on you. Take care of yourself, use some health care products. Half your work is done when people know you mean business just by looking at you. Your shoes should shine all the time and your face should not, do what you have to do to ensure this. Have an extra shoe brush in your office drawer and some face-wash and a comb; use it when you have to.
6. Be on time and leave on time: If you can do this that means you are efficient in your work. You are getting paid for those 9 hours that you are in office and there is no need for charity by staying late. Having said this, at times it is important to stretch your work hours a little to complete tasks that are your responsibility which is completely fine but you should be able to count these occasions on your fingers tips.
7. Lunches and breaks: Here in the US people don't have lunches which go on for hours and then have more tea breaks and coffee breaks in the mornings and in the evenings. Everyone drinks tea or coffee at their desks or in their meetings and spends as little time for lunch as possible to make sure that your work is complete on time. In India, these breaks are over-rated and tend to be a waste of times, spend only as much time as is necessary on these breaks. You get paid to work not eat lunches.
8. Office gossip and politics: Don't indulge in it. Remember the phrase, "Silence is golden". In an office people often use cheap tricks to demean others to win the rat race and if you are seen as a party to it, it affects your credibility or brand. It’s very common for your supervisors and peers to hold your personal behavior against you when assigning you with new tasks.
9. Office parties: You'll have many such parties almost one every two weeks, its important to be social with your colleagues outside office so attend them but remember these parties are just an extension of your workplace environment. Anything that you say or do here affects your credibility or 'brand' in office. You will see people getting smash drunk and doing crazy things but remember you should always be the person dropping others home and not being dropped home yourself.
Just remember you are a brand that is only as good as your performance and you need to treat it with utmost care and respect. Guard your brand with your life. Nowhere have I asked you to work too hard or extra, I have just asked you to only work at work. Mind it, I am not telling you how to do your job, I just telling you what is important to keep yourself focused. Only take work that you can do and then finish it at any cost.
I don't need to tell you what you need to do to keep up with your studies simply because I know you can manage that much better than I could or I still can.
These are some things that I have learnt from my experiences and have paid heavy price for ignoring them in the beginning but I want you to start with this if you can. Read the whole thing again now and make sure you understand it. Feel free to talk to me about anything you disagree with or anything you don't understand above but I am sure Mum and Dad there can be much better teachers than I am. Learn from their experiences but make your own decisions.
Good luck,
Bhaiya
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