Life Is Not Bed Of Roses

By Dr.Anubhuti Gupta

Dear Anu (my younger self@ 25),     

                                                              I am writing this letter to you after such a long gap of 26 years of life, but it is better than never. Honestly speaking, why I am writing this as I now realized that sometimes life must be understood backwards. It gives you a new dimension and a new perspective.

Life in these 26 years were not so easy, but yes who said that life is easy. I just laugh often from one incident of the past which you too must have remembered. Yes, you are right. I am talking of that incident only (your guessing power is good!). In English paper of Board examination, I got a paragraph writing on, ’Life is not bed of roses’ and was not able to right  a single line as I failed to understand its meaning and said to myself that God knows what it means and I skipped the question and started doing other questions.

Now, Anu, in these 26 years I have fully understood it and I can write series of novels on it, rather than writing a paragraph on it. I will be letting you know some of the important incidents of which you are not aware of.Yes, I got a job when I was 26 and had to struggle for a year after completing MBA to find one .There  was nobody to guide me as I was the only one searching for a private job and you know all our  relatives are in government jobs or are businessmen.  I had to find my own way by hit and trial. Finally, I did get a job at a pharma company, but it was a disaster for me.Yes, your plan for working hard as a student and taking rest as a professional went wrong. I did not update myself according to the job’s demand. Pharma is a vast field, and you should be knowing all nuances of it.

In short, due to the circumstance, I had to leave the job in 3 years. Somebody has said,” If you lose, do not lose the lesson.” I learnt my lesson that in a job, there is no clear-cut path for success as there are not fixed examinations like schools and colleges and only one formula is there to beat this system is to constantly upgrade yourself and work smarter. Now, upgrading my self is my biggest priority.

After pharma, I joined education sector and did well there. Yes, I know you know the reason…teaching is in our blood. Occasionally I used to procrastinate that those 3 years of my first jobs are a waste, but they were not. The industrial exposure gave a better insight of what I was teaching and that is why in education sector faculty with industrial exposure are preferred. One important thing I have realized that in life nothing is a waste, everything adds on in your experiences.

During those days, I shifted back to mummy papa place at Lucknow and days were getting better, but in life nothing is permanent, not your happiness or sorrows. Anurag who was living in USA (yes, he went to the USA in 2007 and got citizenship there) got married in India. Just after his marriage, he returned to the USA leaving behind his wife in India as she needed a visa to be there and it was a lengthy process.

Things started changing at home amazingly fast. Earlier I was the centre of attraction, and I had been given the best things by mummy and papa. Now, the whole energy of the house shifted and somebody else became the centre of attraction. Yes, your guess is again right, it was his wife. There was a strange feeling inside of left ‘all alone’ or ‘nobody wants’ me. Some feelings are there to be felt, they cannot be expressed in words. My feelings were validated when Ashok Mama ji in one of the conversations said to me that you do not have any space left at your home.

 It was an incredibly challenging situation for me, but a good advice of Abha (that is why you too liked her a lot) came as a saviour. She suggested me to find a job outside of Lucknow as distance can heal many things. I shifted my focus and all my energy to find a job outside and finally got one after 11 months of searching.

I joined a leading university outside Lucknow and do you know Anu how long I worked there? 11 years…yes 11 years and these 11 years of self-independence taught me to respect my priorities, my likes and dislikes, my interests, and my hobbies more deeply. Now, I have become much more confident and outgoing.

Dear Anu, if you see me now, you will not recognize me. One thing I have realized in life that there are no good or bad experiences, only lessons. If 

you cannot learn your lessons well; life teaches you again. So, it is better to learn them in the first time. Abha was saying life teaches you lessons but who wants to learn them…she is so funny…like you.

One more thing I want to mention that not every crisis in your life comes to break you, it is up to you how you react to it, and it may make you stronger and smarter.

Now again I am at Lucknow…yes you are reading it right. At time of leaving Lucknow for another job, I made my self-clear that I would not be coming back to stay at Lucknow ever. I did visited parents in 2-3 months but never planned to return. If you want to make God laugh at you, tell Him the plans. Same happened me. Due to some unavoidable circumstances, I had to come back. Once again, the circumstances are not so favourable as Anurag shifted to India during Carona.

 I am slowly learning how to face these as I have found my solace in writing. Whenever, I want to cry, I write a paragraph on how I am feeling and what are the practical solutions. Today too, I wanted to cry a lot but instead decided to write a letter to you as I still remember that how in any bigger problem, you had a habit to read motivational books. I have taken inspiration from you only and I have started writing and writing is helping me to stay focused on my priorities, my goals, and my life. Yes Anu, crisis can be a bigger opportunity for rediscovering yourself. With this I am signing off. I will write soon about new experiences and new lessons from the book called life and it is True Anu that life is not bed of roses.

                                                                                                                                      With Love,                                                                                                                                        Anubhuti

By Dr.Anubhuti Gupta