I spent a few days in Mumbai. One of them in a conference room at our firms “Annual Change Meet” and another with some friends celebrating Easter. Both days were in different ways a reminder about reinvention and resurrection. I also happened to browse through a beautiful book by Alessandra Olanow titled ‘Begin again and again and again” – Notes on the art of perpetual renewal.
This got me reflecting on my own journey, and what struck me was how differently I showed up in Mumbai, 3 months apart. A slice in time on a stage, when I had to deliver a presentation is like a time lapse video of my life. It reveals a bigger picture to me.
Every quarter we gather as a team to evaluate our performance and present a report card. We take stock of where we are in context of our plan and then charter a course of action, to help us get to where we want to be. In that sense we begin again and again and again.
In January as I stood on stage, I started my presentation with a few words of gratitude to my firm for all the support that I had received in the year gone by. The gift of time to be with by father was truly a precious one. Words failed me, tears flowed and I found it hard to speak, and yet I expressed myself, possibly more authentically than ever before.
In April, a quarter later, I find myself beginning again. This time my delivery was far more eloquent and business like. The same me, representing the same business unit and both me and the unit get a chance to begin again. Renewal. Resurrection. A fresh start. This is life.
A Saturday on a stage and Easter Sunday bring me this realisation. Like a message I was meant to receive that got crystallised courtesy a passage in this book that I chanced upon.
“Each time I stood at the edge of change, the emptiness I once feared became the space where I found my truest voice. In the spaces where my old certainties used to live, I discovered something I hadn’t expected. We are not meant to remain unchanged.
The very moments that broke me open became the foundations of something more authentic- not because they destroyed me, but because they showed me how to put myself back together differently.”
A reminder of celebration, of hope, renewal and rebirth. This theme seems to hold true both at work and in my personal life.
Reputation too is layered and fragile. It often needs to be rebuilt. Not once, but again and again and again. In the layers of actions that then get communicated, perceptions form.
Beginning again as Alessandra so beautifully points out is not just an act of survival but one of “profound creation”. It is the unfolding of my life into its whole and completeness. Me becoming me, and in this upward spiral of change, if I stay open to what life offers me, I will joyfully carry others in my orbit with me. Letting go. Letting come. It’s time to begin again, with kindness.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
