My Autobiography - Chapter 1: La Dolce Far Niente

The world is divided into AC (After Christ) and BC (Before Christ), but mine is divided into before and after 2011....

I open my eyes and am as usual prepared to rush out of bed and start one of those super busy days, yet it doesn’t feel like 6 am.

Have I overslept?

Oh. No. It’s the 1^st of January; an official holiday, I remember.

But why do I feel good? Why does it not feel like any other day?

Then suddenly it hits me and I have this goofy grin on my face when I remember: This is THE first day of my journey for self-discovery; my 6 months gap from work!!

I smile and relax. Start imagining how amazing it would be to have all the time in the world to do whatever I want to, what really matters to ME. I think about all those places I’d like to travel to, the National Team Basketball tournament I’m looking forward to, those hundreds of photos I’ll take and books I’ll read, the countless hours I’ll spend doing absolutely nothing, the amount of time I’ll get to spend with my family and friends; and believe me: nothing ever felt so good.

I get out of bed and decide to tease everyone by updating my Facebook status and saying: “Enjoying La dolce far Niente” *, the sweetness of doing NOTHING;  and run to see the loads of envious comments by my friends in the corporate slavery business BY CHOICE.

A couple of hours later, I decide to play “Eat, Pray, Love” for the third time in 3 days just for the heck of it, imagining what my 3 attributes would be during that year - knowing that eat and pray are things I constantly do, and love is just not on my list - and the closest I could get to was along the lines of:

“Travel, Play, Give”.

When I reach the “Pray” part in movie, I start remembering India and how it changed my life along with Educate-Me, then the memories of the past 6 months come flashing back. I remembered that day I cried my head off out of guilt; knowing that we spend so much time complaining about our 4 digit salaries, while people are deprived of their basic rights because they cant afford some 3 digit amounts of money. Remembered the courage I had to take that decision to go to India and the challenges I faced there, which turned out to be a true life changing experience that pushed my limits further. And finally remembered that day I went back to the office after my trip and saw that my teammates haven’t slept in 2 days and have been working over weekends and just thought to myself: “What the hell am I doing here? “

Then strive to remember each and every single detail about that BIG DAY when I decided to tell my boss about my decision; how confused I felt before and how comfortable I did right after. And luckily I do;


(To be continued)

* from "Eat, Pray,Love":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg3n9z5zuJg