a) Run the NYC Marathon
b) Write a book
c) Produce a play on Broadway
For a kid who used the G-3 bus to get to Regal chowk for high school and W-18 to get to campus on Bhains colony, these were all moon shots.
2/ I knew they weren't real and it would take more than an alignment of planets to get me to a stage where these would become more than wishful thinking.
But I continued to dream and added more to the list.
Might as well be a traveler of the world, in business class, no less.
3/ The NYC marathon was an evolved version of an earlier dream.
One that involved running track for the national team.
Once I figured that I was too old for that to happen, I accepted a simpler version. I would be happy running a marathon. NYC would do just fine.
4/ Interestingly enough a few years later I found myself living in NYC. The dream was within reach.
We went looking for shoes and ended up spending $100 on a pair of gel-soled cutting edge @Reebok that looked as if they had been designed by a pair of rocket scientist on Mars.
5/ It was a fortune for a student family living on borrowed finances. But for a good cause.
A shot at making something happen that I had dreamed of since my pre-teens years.
That day I went for my first run on campus. It was February we had just been hit by a blizzard.
6/ The indoor gym at @Columbia had an elevated track. It was the only option possible in that weather.
I had been an outdoor runner all my life. I hated it.
This wasn't what I had dreamed of. A few weeks later, the class schedule went ballistic and the shoes were put aside.
7/ @Columbia also had Miller Theater on campus, right on Broadway. Over the next year we try three times to put together a team that would produce one of my favorite plays "Harvey" by Mary Chase.
We make it through casting, reading and rehearsals but fail to see it through.
8/ By this time I had figured it out.
Every dream has a price. Whenever we are ready to pay it, dreams become real.
If we get distracted by life or work schedules, they don't.
I couldn't afford to chase dreams when I had debts to pay, a family to support and a child to raise.
9/ The Reebok's survived the next two years till the gel-pockets got punctured and leaked. But I still have our rehearsal copies of Harvey, somewhere in my storage boxes.
And I didn't even get started on the book in NYC.
10/ Fast forward 6 years.
We are back home in Karachi. Running and Broadway plays are a distant memory.
But I have a first draft of a book in my hands. It's been a work in progress for three years. Fueled by a failed venture, late nights and my course on startup failure.
11/ The book came out of nowhere.
A starved stray kitten on your doorstep nurtured by love and care into something you could never imagine on day one.
It goes up on Amazon as an e-book. Family gives the first thumbs up. @rizvee edits it, @jehan_ara reviews it
12/ In 2008, I finish teaching a class in Singapore and a student invites me to his office.
He runs the 3rd largest printing press in the region. I ask him what would it take to see my book in print.
He says send it over. And the print edition is born.
13/ Five more years go by.
I wake up one morning with a message from an editor from a 170 year hold publisher waiting for me in my mail box.
He had seen a bit of something I have written and wants to know if I would be interested in turning it into a book
This is not the first time we have been blind sided. This is not going to be the last time.
This is also not the end. Yes it hurts. Yes you have a right to feel miserable and depressed.
But remember, you are stronger than this.
2/ Stability and continuity of policy has been a national weakness since our very beginning. We are not new to this.
Handling this is programmed into our DNA. We always figure a way out. Takes time but we crack the code or get through to saner voices on the other side.
3/ In the mean time focus on your work, on what you can and do control. Don't waste your breath or time wallowing in self pity or darkness beyond tonight.
Yes it is a lousy hand, but you can't change the cards. Move on.
I grew up in an environment where failure was not looked upon favorably.
It was something that was just not done in the family.
If you studied hard you passed. If you didn't you failed.
Conversely if you failed, it implied a personal shortcoming.
2/ The first time I failed my actuarial exams, I was traumatized.
I couldn't parse the result. I had studied hard, how did I fail? Then I failed the same exam again. And again.
It didn't compute. I was 19 years old.
Something must be wrong with me.
3/ I didn't work for myself for the first few years of my professional life because I thought failure was not an option.
Once again, it wasn't something that was done. Socially and culturally speaking, it was equivalent to hanging out with the unsavory crowd, the "bad boys"
1/ All my life I have worked in cycles. Intense effort in one specialization followed by a repeat in another.
Working out different part of the brain every few months or years.
A few years with CS, followed by a few years as an actuary. Two years as an author than a film maker
2/ As I have gotten better the cycles have gotten shorter and more intense. Now it's a few month of regulatory reporting work, 15 days as a writer, a month of intense road running, a week as a trsiner and then repeat.
3/ The variety and context switching makes it possible for me to keep the output above the mean.
And it ensures that I don't have the time to think about boredom.
The problem is when burnout hits it's equally intense.