What’s Love Got to do with it?

“If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; it will be waiting for you when you start doing the things you love.”  - Anon

So I have been making a list of the things they don't teach you at B-School. They don't teach about love. On how to love someone. Or how to handle fame. How to manage being wealthy, jobless or poor. They certainly don't train you on how to walk out of a loveless career or relationship. They don't educate you on probing minds or even mind control. They don't advise you on how to cope with grief, loss or death. Funnily, I realized that I learnt nothing of real value from B-School that I would need for the next 5 decades of my life!

So on the eve of Valentine’s Day I decided to go down memory lane, explore deep within my heart, and pen down an essential checklist based on life experience drawing parallels between love, career and life. You may ask “What’s Love got to do with it?”....Well, read on...

1.     Do only what you truly love – In my twenties I was too caught up chasing deadlines and climbing the corporate ladder to even try to become the kind of person others would want to be friends with or even in a relationship with. We were taught to be aggressive, accomplish targets and generate phenomenal ROI’s, but we weren’t trained to be nice genuine people. On looking back, I wish I hadn’t raced so mindlessly in my 20’s and 30’s. Thankfully fate intervened and sense prevailed in my 40’s. I learnt to pause and finally develop into the human being I looked up to. I learnt to balance the pie chart of my life better, meditate, get to know myself better, nurture my skills and talents, explore new avenues and hobbies, only take up jobs that excited me, and take advantage of diverse opportunities that I never had time to pursue. Slowly but surely, this set a reverse cycle in motion and I started attracting the very kind of people I always wished to meet and befriend.

2.     The Law of Attraction - You are most attractive when you’re fully enjoying yourself in the present. Your joyful laughter, self-expression, and body language are naturally beautiful! In contrast, any anxiety you experience as you strain to find happiness, growth and romance pushes against the stream of life. Strain comes from a place of trauma and fear, with an underlying worry: “Maybe I won’t receive this! Maybe I am not deserving of this!” That fear then attracts the very thing you fret most about. Stress creates wrinkles, health issues, an irksome vocal tone, a cold harsh personality, and a host of other unattractive characteristics that repels every person and career from you.

3.     Cherish the Reality, not the Delusion – Follow your passion. Be it a person or a career, ensure that you are truly in love with the real thing and not the dream that you have unrealistically envisaged. As long as your passion is pure, don’t give a hoot for the views or comments of the external world. It’s your life, and you will know you have made the right choice every day as you head to work with a spring in your step or return home with a big smile on your face to see your beloved.

4.     Take your time – Be it a career or romance...nothing brews in a day! If it’s a job, do thorough research. Check around, ask key questions, work part time, view customer and employee testimonials before you chuck up your current position for this post. And if it’s a personal relationship, have patience to wait until the rose-tinted glasses fade out and you can see the person for their true colours. Be patient and prepared to wait for the right job and people to come into your life. Yes, trust me, they do exist!

5.     Don’t ever be forced to say Yes – An empowering life lesson indeed, and one that takes years to learn. And the only way you can reach this point is by knowing who you are, what you want, what you deserve, and demarcating your boundaries. It’s not an easy gamble, but it will pay off. You need to have faith and stand up for yourself when a disagreeable situation presents itself.

6.     Forgive – Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you’re endorsing someone’s bad behavior. It’s more a detox that states “I’m no longer will­ing to carry any further toxic energy within my mind and body with regard to this person or situation.” This is much needed in an age where careers are chucked up in the most ungracious manner and relationships end on a sour note. When you find inner peace with your relationships, you’ll no longer attract unhealthy relationship patterns and partners as a way of healing emotional wounds. And above all, the relationship you have with yourself will benefit.

7.     All Good things take time – The impatience levels of the current generation boggles me. If you fall head over heels in love in a matter of seconds, you might want to rethink. Be patient getting to know someone who may gradually turn out to not be what you expected. Similarly, when starting out on a career, you will you normally find yourself at the bottom of the pack. It takes time, effort, persistence and loads of patience to harvest the benefits. Take adequate time to put in the effort, but also check out if your loved one or your office is willing to meet you half way and wish to put in the effort to get to know and reward your toil.

8.     Have Faith in Divine Timing – Yes, Divine timing does exist and is a Universal Law that is always in action. It is the flow of life and everything around us. If we try to impose our human will and force things to happen, we become out of sync with the universe and experience obstacles. Similarly, if we fret, “When will I meet my soul mate?” or “When will I get my promotion?” we put out “worry” energy into the universe. Keep your faith and follow your heart, even if it doesn’t co-relate to the logic of your mind or the counsel of your peers. Your sixth sense is like a guide dog, leading you along the path of answered prayers. Follow your intuition and trust in the timing of the relationship.

I am sure that that these lessons garnered on the parallels of love, career and life will continue to accumulate as long as I live, and what better than Valentine’s Day to share it with all of you. In a nutshell, remain true to yourself no matter what. A person who lies to himself and believes his own lie reaches a point where he can’t distinguish the truth within or externally, and so loses perspective and respect for himself and others. And gradually he ceases to love or live.

I hope these insights help you seek out the love you so deserve in the year ahead!