Suddenly, We Can See Things We Did Not Before - How?

My friend and I waited two hours outside the Louvre for the discounted ticket holders to be let in. Once inside, we ran to the Mona Lisa section - walked from one end to the other. We confirmed that she was looking at us regardless of where we were in the room; she had no eyebrows, and there was no Da Vinci signature. Then we walked back out of the Louvre to head over to Café Angelina, which had one of the best hot chocolates ever - yup, we had priorities.

JK Rowling once said, “There is an expiry date to how long you can blame your parents.” Just as something after its expiry date loses its potency, our upbringing and our past do not have a hold over us unless we refuse to let them go.

At some point, we do find ourselves making different choices, responding differently, and looking at people differently. And the change is so gradual that it comes as a surprise when you find your responses are no longer reactions. In fact, you can see the patterns that you had in yourself in others. The restraint in your responses, the awareness of your emotions, and the control of your behaviour are the status quo - no longer something to grapple with, but something to be lived and improved upon. In short, there is a new baseline.

In certain belief systems, seven years is considered the period when a life change happens - now, I am not so sure about seven years. Still, I do believe that if you have worked on yourself, conspired with the friendly universe, been a student (good or bad) in the school of life, knowingly or unknowingly, you will get there. Whether you want it or not, change is bound to happen. Think about it - look around you, is there anything permanent? The trees, your carpet, car, your hair, skin, clothes, food - they all have an expiry date and are changing every second. I mean, we do get older every year - how does that happen? Time does not stop for anybody, but what we do in the time given to us does. The blog that I am writing now, the words that you are reading right now, are charting the course of your future path. We don’t know now, but we are putting the dots that we can connect only later.

Almost five years ago, I took on the role of application product manager for my company’s analytical data assets. And before that, all I knew about data was relational databases that you connect to from Java using ODBC or JDBC, and how to insert/modify/delete data and tables using code. But, in the years since, bit by bit, I got to know about massively parallel processing platforms. The fact that computing was how they made money, not storage, was a revelation to me, and now it is like, why is that surprising anymore? The fact that is not surprising is the surprise. All this to say that while I was learning one single piece of information at a time, I did not know that, five years later, all those bits of learning would make me, by some accounts, a data expert. It would not only make sense but also be something that I am passionate about. Not only in the technical space, but things that I could not see before are also clearer now. Acknowledging that challenges exist does not mean you cannot surmount them. Saying, ‘We are upto the challenge, ’ does not mean it won’t be painful.’ The ability to stand the thought that change is hard instead of glossing over it because it is too painful. I am grateful for the grace the friendly universe has bestowed upon me.

If I go with my friend to the Louvre, I wonder whether we would wait in line for the discounted tickets and whether we would see more than just the Mona Lisa. I wonder if we would see something else in the Mona Lisa.
Are you seeing something that you have also seen with new eyes?