Strong people..

I've been wanting to write another post about "How to be a man at work." A little quirky, a little funny, a little bit of new age gyan.  But, something happened yesterday. I've been wanting to blog about it.

I'm having some really rough days at work. Yes, so rough that I don't mind giving a tiny bit of the actual picture of what's going on. I report to a particular management group (manager, senior manager, group-manager, so on up the line. Let's call this management group-A. MG-A love my work. My interaction with this group is on a daily basis. They see me deal with everyday craziness at work and they trust my decisions and actions.

Now there is management group-B. MG-B deals with my appraisals. They take care of my promotions, my appraisal ratings, my aspirations. Basically they hold the power to influence my growth in the company. But, they never get to see the great work I do. They never know how tough it is to work with a demanding client. Heck, they don't even sit in the same city and same client network.

The client loves me. MG-A loves me. MG-B who hold the power to get something moving for me doesn't care a pin for me. Add to this craziness, the fact that MG-B has some really bad managers who promise things, never deliver. They would even go to the extent of making your life hell sometimes. MG-B has it's own agenda - Help those people who you meet everyday. (Yes, I'm not a part of this awesome group whose only unique quality is they share the same office building as the managers)

To end the story, things are rough with my career growth and it's taking every bit my energy to be strong and resilient.
I'm lost in my own world with my own troubles. Now, I strongly believe Universe (or God, whatever you choose to call it) has a beautiful way of explaining things to you.

This is my story where I realized that I'm not even on the list of 'strong people.'
Here it goes... I came home yesterday and switched on the TV as usual. I was a big fan of the Oprah Winfrey show for years. Yes, I use the past-tense here. I never missed her show during my under-graduation years. She introduced me to an avenue of topics from psychology, career, relationships, world wide charities, community work, power of positivity and resilience. But later on, some how the show seemed to be all about celebrity guests who got to answer just funny and easy questions, well.. just because they were celebrities. Oprah stopped asking them the tough questions, or stopped holding them responsible for their actions and choices. It was all about fun and adulation. That did not sit well with me, nor did some of the opinions/concepts expressed by some of the guests/writers/experts, which later were proved to be wrong.

So, I stopped following her show for a long while. Recently for lack of good talk shows, I started watching some of the old episodes being aired on a new channel on Indian TV. Let's cut back to yesterday. I come home and switch on the TV and it's Oprah hour. Topic of the hour - Amazing families.

Picture this: 1. The Roach Family. The husband and wife are dwarfs. The husband is a a criminal lawyer and the wife works for NASA.(yep! you surprised that dwarves can be alpha-personalities and power couples??..) This couple overcame many limitations in education, at work and in life in general. They tried having a baby. Due to her small size, the wife delivered still born babies.. 3 times. Then one day, a friend sent them a picture of a dwarf baby, who had been abandoned by his parents in Philippines. They had 24 hours to decide if they wanted to adopt the baby..
Read about their life here..
Cut back, now they have adopted 3 children from different countries, who have been abandoned because they were dwarves. They have a house with 20 rooms, 30 feet ceilings. Basically they live in a 56000 sq.ft house(Talk about living 'KING SIZE'!) Yep, and their favorite drive is a Hummer. Oh! by the way, if you were wondering, dwarves can drive any car, with the right mechanism built in.
Watch their house and how they live here

Picture this: 2. Children with Autism.
The stat goes that: 1 in every 150 children are affected by Autism.Yes, we did not know as kids, but that little boy at school who never looked you in the eye, never had the spark and always avoided the teacher might have been autistic. To hear it in the words of the parents, "It's physically and mentally exhausting to look after him (the child). If you are not watching him, somebody else has to watch him.. all the time and let them not drift into his own shell.."
On the show there was a mother who got divorced from her husband as there was no balance left in her life, while taking care of the child. There was a family who sold their house to meet the financial expenses of their autistic child's treatment. In the mother's words "I loved that house. I remember walking out, and I just looked at that house for one last time. It was almost like looking at my life that could have been."
It's not just the parents, but the siblings of an autistic child suffer too.. suffer from lack of attention, embarrassment and always having to make sacrifices. Read about 'Living with Autism'

Picture this: 3. Conjoined Twins.
Yes, we've heard of many conjoined twins.. joined at the shoulders, joined at the head. Now try this.. conjoined twins, who have only one pair of legs and one kidney on the whole. They even learnt to crawl which was nearly impossible. The biggest decision the parents had to take - separate them. which might lead to the children's death on the surgery table. A 26 hour surgery, and the twins are separated. The mother later donated her kidney to one of the children, so that each could have one kidney now.
Read about these people who fought the odds.

Why read about all these people and make you feel like I'm telling sob stories? Well, next time when things don't go your way and you are struggling to feel strong, try thinking about them. That helped me..