At the young ages, the very beginning of our career, we were so much haunted with the passion of reaching the top level positions. We look up to those successful people and would do anything to be someone like him in the near future. The eagerness, the ambition and the excitement was so much there to push us to work harder and harder. Our character changes to become impatience as the world moves much faster then we do. From meeting new people, working with new technology, learning from our seniors and their experiences, reading books, researches, to competing with the era has to be done to keep ourselves updated and qualified.  Soon we realize that we need to rush up with this, and there’s no time for fun, its either you work hard or you’re going no where higher. 

Fortunately, everything goes well and without realizing we are already in a Director level. All those hard work all these years has resulted perfectly. People started admiring and praising you for what you have reached, all your characters and achievements were much applauded. But what comes next, its never enough isn’t it ? We have to still stick to our commitment and continue building this career or the business we have already. Nobody wants to lose it one day, so we have to ensure that everything remains growing or at the least remains as it is. Again, time passes by like the wind, and we have reached our 40s with a wife and a kid always supporting us from home. Too busy with work always makes us far from family and relatives as time management is the major problem. We become a workaholic with no feelings. 

Now, imagine this way, suddenly something goes wrong with the business, and it comes to a position where nothing can be done, it was a real rough patch in our professional career. This might happen because of a wrong decision or simply bad luck. Anyway, we now find ourselves alone since everything has turned the other way round as well as the people’s behavior towards us. This is very common in business life where everybody turns their back when trouble comes on the way. The only reason for this is that we have not cultivated real friends, what we had were business associates who always shy away in these conditions. All those who had trust on us would now treat us like a plague. This includes family and relatives whom we had spent little time with during our busy hours. What is to be done now? 

It is always better late then never, for us to realize that we should have made real friends instead of keeping business links, we should have had time to built good relation with family even on our routine working hours. In the middle of our obsession in doing our jobs, we forgot our sense of gratitude for all the good things and good people around. In between our busy lifestyle, we should have created intimate relationships with others. Ups and downs in business is very common, although it doesn’t happen to everyone, but still we have to prepare for such situations. So, basically what we need to do once we realize that we have been in wrong, we should not postpone clearing the air with someone who means a lot to us. Building good relation with people who gives us confidence and comfort has to become priority. They are the ones who are going to stay with us even on tough situations. 

To improve these situations, despite of needing connections for business purposes, try to make real friends within your networks. You can start with going out or talking to them out of business events or topics, have personal knowledge of each person, try to spend some leisure times with them. Also, to create harmonist relation with family and relatives, wrap up things at work earlier and spend the rest of your hours with them, completely giving affection and attention to them. Simple living which involves fewer commitments but fulfilling all of them is so much better. We would realize that we become a better person when we are much of having a life instead of just busy making a living. There are so many ways of having a good life besides building good career and fame. Try referring to the phrase which says “Work Hard, Party Harder !”. In the end of the day, what really matters is the happiness within us which makes us enjoy this life in a good manner. Making a living does not guarantee you to having a good life, also having a life does not guarantee as to making a living. That’s why both has to go in a parallel mode. And you will admit that Life’s so much better. 

You’re surely making a living, but are you having a life?

Written by: Shashi Mulani

Taken from many sources.