itna nei poocha, kei mera khud sawal hai (so many asked, that now i have a question.)

so its 3:33 am. weird that im awake. but more weird that i noticed the exact time. but i did sleep at 7:30 pm so that kind of explains why im waiting for it to be 6, rather than being grateful for three more glorious hours of beauty sleep. also its begun to rain and it will probably rain all of tommorow. correction, all of today. having lived most of my life in a deserty, summery, humidy region i wait for the rains impatiently, even though others think its gloomy - i actually love it. but after having lived here for three years at a stretch, i understand why the weather has a major affect on people, and the novelty of arriving drenched at work is starting to wear off. =)

just finished watching an episode on grey's anatomy. its not the first time ive felt like blogging after watching grey's anatomy. i know, terribly cliched. but it just makes me think. theres a line in on eof the episodes, where 'christina yang', a surgical resident, goes something on the lines of - there are no friends here, no teams everyone is looking out for themselves. i love this line. coz i think it is so true. there really are no friends. when i started working here i was very much sold to the naive idea, that i will make superb friends at work. friends, that one day will become best friends, who i will probably open partnerships with someday. friends who i can trust blindly. my bubble, like the financial bubble, has been close to bursting. sure, you are cordial with each other and are polite. but theres this undercurrent of competitiveness which tires me out. this constant of others proving to you, how smart they are, testing you on how smart you are. seriously, i get it - you are smarter than me, i dont deny that, in fact i appreciate that you are smarter - but proclaiming that to the world is just not cool. its just mean. usurping other's projects, taking it personally that someone took your project, letting in purposely through forced conversations on how you helped someone do something small, something tinier than small - not cool, taking things for granted, taking people from granted. being sarcastic for no reason. being too sensitive. thinking too much and not just being who you are. being a wannabee. being someone who likes to show off how popular they are. being someone who likes to point out of how others deem you as popular. not cool. being someone who keeps track of hos many brownie points you are being allocated by your manager. being anything but yourself. being only yourself without caring about others feelings.

but what troubles me more, other than the above. is the fact that i find myself changing too and adjusting to this. and sometimes behaving like the above. and i dont like it. case in point: someone asks me to work on something on the last moment. i have to work till 2 am to finish it - but im pissed that i was told on the last moment. normally, i would let it slide, but when that someone makes a comment that i was up late - and more of a sarcastic like so you were showing off kind of tone- i comeback with a i knew about it only on the last moment. and the person come backs with the "i told you in the morning" and i come back with a "yea but i had some other stuff to finish as well". i normally would never come back it. i would berate myself, for not thinking ahead, coz i could have thought ahead. it is end of month, i could have thought of doing it myself, irrespective of whether it was needed. i have always truly believed in competing against yourself, if ive done a bad job its not coz everyone else has done a better job than me. its coz ive done a bad job.

but i took it personally and i comebacked. and that bugs me.

it bugs me, that im not the best i can be. it bugs me, that i find myself comparing. and just staying within the lines, lest it offends someone, lest i look like im showing off, lest i make a fool of myself. it bugs me, that im resorting to cop outs. i dont like it. theres a line in some movie, i know i get all my lines from entertainment, that if you become a doctor, be the best doctor that you can be , if you become a grass cutter become the best grass cutter you can be. whatever you do, be the best at it. dont be mediocre. at my grad school dinner speech, one of my favouritest professors, said dont be average in what you do, make a difference. and dont do it for the three f's. fame fortune and family.

do it for yourself. and if you cant do it for yourself, just dont do it.