I met an old friend this weekend.\u00a0 He was going out of the country for a while, so we decided to catch up before he left.<\/p>\n
As we got talking about what he\u2019s been up to, it occurred to me that so far he\u2019s lived a pretty enviable life:\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been a bachelor all his life, and has travelled extensively across the globe.\u00a0 Never one to plan for the future, he got admission in an engineering college because a friend\u2019s mother applied on his behalf. He wasn\u2019t keen on taking up a job soon after graduation, and found himself enrolled in a Masters\u2019 program.\u00a0 A chance conversation with a friend landed him a plum posting with a leading computer firm.\u00a0 And, some years down the line, a few posts he wrote on his personal blog ensured that a top entrepreneur called him to India to help him with a fledgling project.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These days, he\u2019s busy formulating theories on how to change the world with a revolutionary approach to education, and attending panel discussions in his spare time!\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that enviable?<\/p>\n
Now, don\u2019t get me wrong.\u00a0 He\u2019s got what it takes – A first rate educational background, a Ph.D degree from a highly respected institution in the US and some (controversial) papers to his credit.\u00a0 Yet, whenever he feels like it, he enjoys the luxury of packing up his bags and leaving for the States to \u2018take a break\u2019 for a couple of months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As I expressed these thoughts to him, this weekend, I was a bit taken aback with his response.\u00a0 He actually envied my<\/em> life!<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a home\u201d, he said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd, someone to come home to.\u00a0 You know what you\u2019ll be doing in 3 years time.\u00a0 And where you\u2019ll be sleeping tonight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As \u2018free\u2019 as his life was, it did not come with these benefits we call \u2018ties\u2019.\u00a0 He envied those who had the companionship of a soulmate.\u00a0 He envied those who had a place they could call \u2018home\u2019.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t argue with that.\u00a0 Can you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I met an old friend this weekend. He was going out of the country for a while, so we decided to catch up before he left. As we got talking about what he’s been up to, it occurred to me that so far he’s lived a pretty enviable life…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-life"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}