Vocation - Universe going VOCAL for you

A major time of our life goes in dreaming, aiming, planning and executing the goals we DERIVE, DETERMINE & DRIVE as part of our work. Many of them leaves us excited, some turn us anxious, few of them make us feel helpless leading us to the sense of failure in life. Very few welcomes us with SENSE OF SUCCESS. Here is my brief sharing on how I see vocational ride of life -

VOCATION - A VOICE OF UNIVERSAL GUIDANCE

It is the ups & downs, lows & highs, many & many falling down and few getting up which has helped me realized how divinely the vocation has helped me to evolve as the person I am today. And I have keenly observed it applies to everybody around me how everything which comes in front of us as choice of work is no less than laying the PATH OF GROWTH uniquely well aligned for one's growth.

And how deeply I now can relate to wonderful words -

A vocation is the backbone of life - Friedrich Nietzsche

With my words in this write up, I wish to extend with you all how I have correlated my growth with the kind of challenges seen as WORK disliked initially by self but seen as the best opportunities of life so far. I have equated each learning as my personal growth in life. Hoping by the end of the read, it leaves many more to EQUATE WITH EASE to their vocation.

What Drives & What Survives

What drives us in turn PUSHES us while what helps us to survive are the factors which aids us to PERSIST. Both are essentially contributing to our vocational journey. In fact, they complement each other and acts as balancing factors in the world we live in as human existence.

DRIVERS act as -

• Source to avail resources of livelihood - INcome
• Status Symbol to reflect ability to gather in society
• Sense of Success as human race to sustain and support people around

SURVIVORS exist as -

• Passion to feel involved
• Value Add & Contribution to find the work fruitful for community
• Personal Growth to sense moving ahead in the path of life

Not every one can have similar drivers or survivors and hence we fall into places & situations differently which leads us to growth.

Being Vigilant While Securing - My First Universal Call

The happiness of becoming financially independent, being able to assist and do something for loved ones last little lesser than we think of. What really gets dominating is the fresh challenges we take as new role in life. For me it was 24/7 operations. My first job role was as security consultant working as managed security operations team which operated round the clock 365 days. Undoubtedly what operates round the clock has to be something critical and this kept me on toes each minute I was at my desk. It used to get tiring some days to be AWAKE WHOLE NIGHT staring keenly at monitors to ensure I don't miss any alarms for customer in turn to ensure safety & security of their network. Those TIRESOME non-stop monitoring and actionable of alerts though taught me something valuable in life. It became part of my PERSONA in the form of -

1. That attentiveness all the time
2. The time bound response as part of service level agreements
3. The swift decision making in critical times ( severe alerts )
4. Sense of ownership to safeguard my clients while they continue their main business
5. Responsibility of DEFENSE
6. Being Global child of world as family while serving customers across globe

As journey grew, the next knock on the door & I opened as ...

Being Remote Enabler - The Second Chance Of Evolving

My wish to balance personal space of rest at night and focusing at day time, I landed up with another beautiful chance to serve just ONE focused customer for security Infrastructure along with owing the operations. This time I was direct part of the team but operating remote as third party. This enabled my capabilities of being a REMOTE HELP in this ever evolving digital world. Initially it was tough for me to visualize to be there for someone without talking directly, handling Infrastructure with being such distant. But the adaption and challenges with keen grip on ensuring uptime, health & security of customer, I learnt a lot as a human survivor -

• Distance does not matter if intent & objective is strong
• My sense of EMPATHY increased due to focused ownership. I owned beyond service level agreement this time. Owning the complete Infra, I could sense the pain of loss of reputation or any theft even more.
• One to one connect taught me the value of customer satisfaction and I learnt how CUSTOMER DELIGHT feels. It enabled me to see FAMILY beyond the friends and colleagues who sit around.
• Facing audits for the clients enabled me with sense of ANSWERABILITY

Growth brings appetite for more to EXPLORE and here arrived next episode ...

Being Creator - Wonderful Window Of Inceptions

Maintenance made me confident enough to feel the hunger for creation. And there knocked the opportunity or creating something BIG - Don't ever doubt, mother earth is always SENSING YOUR HUNGER. And she shall feed on time. Researching, Finding, Evaluating, deploying, creating the needed system around the deployment, creation of talent pool and ensuring the ongoing evolution & enhancement of the creation much like a CHILD. And this journey enabled me to be -

1. A creator
2. A nurture of the creation with complete ACCOUNTABILITY
3. Tough decision making for betterment
4. Facing CRTICISMs on Creation
5. Handling the pain of troubles of creation
6. Extending the creation with more creations BEING IMPARTIAL
7. Valuing each creation for its UNIQUE VALUE

My hunger of creativity was met yet I felt more vulnerable for each of the creation I had hands on and it made me meet the natural human side of existence in depth. I learnt a lot about VULNERABILITY.

And here was the next phase of living it to the full ...

Being Leader - Special Phase Of Guidance

With more & more time of work on a subject, we are bound to come across people who are new to the subject and we are ought to guide them, nurture them and upskill them so that they can aid with helping hands in the expanded area of work.

Here started my journey of mentoring and enabling two young minds. First time for anything leads to nervousness and cluelessness. Starting with & driven by the NEED OF THE HOUR inculcates the right directions in our minds and pulsing the situation & people around enables us for the needed steps. Keeping the objectives in mind, kept taking the next moves & today I see the young minds themselves leading more young minds.

Leadership taught me -

• The magic of rippling effect, you are the CASCADER as a leader
• How being watched feels & hence I got more cautious of my actions
• How heading a family means
• How growth of others if growth for self
• Ability of thinking LAST OF SELF - it becomes by default as leading people
• The power of love of people
• INCLUSIVITY - As there is no option for FILTERS

And much more ... but it also started invoking an inner voice which was not easy to ignore ....

Being Independent - Free Bird As Freelancer

As we grow in life, we get to hear & sense the inner voice louder & crisper. It becomes tough to avoid the voice and it is the call of some areas suppressed from growth since a while. The space filled with cluelessness yet clear enough to be taken. And without fail Universe plays its role in creating situations to enable you to take the path of explorations more focused with INNER SELF. I explored my abilities as freelancer for my overall abilities & attributes & I grew in my own space as -

• A WRITER
• Rekindled my passion for ARTS
• Met my half lived Dream Of Dance of childhood
• My philosophical side which earlier took a backseat
• My analytical side and futuristic visions on things got more SPACE
• My hobbies became some of my content

I felt like a FREE BIRD and I am glad I could FLY - Not sure high or low but I embrace my precious flight immensely ...

And I DONT STOP HERE ...

Have A Long Way To Go

As I visualize my future as an inherent human tendency, I tend to STOP myself and remind myself - whatever is best aligned for my current path of growth would fall in place if -

• I feel confident to take up the opportunities
• I sense my alignment of interests & strengths
• I recognize my weakness to be refined better
• And most important - IF I BELEIVE THIS IS GOING TO WORK IN MY FAVOR as it's stitched by another than UNIVERSE

Let us admire each everyone for where they stand in life with respect to their WORK - at home, on field, in firm, as service provider, as manufacturer, as enabling units of society, as supporting entities or as governance - EACH ONE IS EQUALLY GROWING AS WELL PLACED & SUITABLY TIMED. Enjoy each bit of it as bite of your growth.

And as Aristole said -

Where your talents and the needs of the world cross; there lies your VOCATION