Aditya and I had made some decisions that lead me to shift to Delhi, leaving my five-year stint at Mumbai. I had shifted in December and he had shifted few three months before. I was excited, primarily because the process that led to this shift was exciting and not because of the destination it was leading to. I had never wanted to live in Delhi, you know, for the obvious reasons - safety! Hailing from outside of Delhi of course, my ideology was biased by media. Which was why the city was a circumstantial choice and not an individual preference. Albeit, like I had mentioned, the process that led to this shift - thrilling experiences of sneaking away from home to spend time with Aditya, search for a house here with him, buy household products and along with the anticipated excitement about the (unknown) post-wedding lifestyles - made me want to give a genuine attempt to live in this notorious capital city.
I had no expectations about my post-wedding lifestyle mostly because I did not know what to expect. I draw blank visuals when I think about my desires in living together. And more blankness about a life in this city. I have had scattered official experiences in Delhi: joyous metro rides, unsafe street crawls at evening, yummy food everywhere (even in Gurgaon) and gigantic magnificent museums. Yet, they did none to feed my expectations. In a way it was good. Like with every other city I had lived in, I understood the capital city on the go: I learnt to handle the numbing winter where you have to layer up more inside of the home than outside, learning to converse in rude tones, which is the new normal here, started enjoying the bird visitors on our terrace (including peacocks!) and the walks in green parks, etc. And of course, unbiased now, freedom is often traded off with decisions that provide safety. I drifted through this unfamiliarity of the space by drawing decisions from the contingencies of the present, without any past-future comparison. And my lack of expectations allowed for each experience to be novel, which buttressed my discomforting unfamiliarity with freshness and pleasantness.
But this was not the case when I shifted to a new workplace a month ago. It was my first studio experience. There I was on my first day, with my bells on, only to unexpectedly travel through a serial number of days with disconcerting thoughts and activities. I lingered, meandered and fluttered through the unfamiliarity, trying to make sense of this novel and unpleasant experience. Unfortunately, I did not have the traditional tools that aid one to transition this phase. The tools being, induction and orientation. So there I was setting foot on an unfamiliar experience, with a baggage of anticipations. Based on my previous encounters I had set-expectations from the people of the company, and I had assumed their expectations of me. This concoction of expectations set a bitter taste. But it is gone now. A few conversations which I had bounced off with the right people helped me changeover to the other side of that unpleasant unfamiliarity. I have now managed to strikethrough my assumptions and expectations and started experiencing the present, unlike before when I was trying to alter my experience to align with my expectations.
Change is sometimes difficult to comprehend, and so, becomes difficult to embrace. My recent revelation is that the underlying theme of any change involves transitioning from familiarity to unfamiliarity. There are many reasons for our resistance to this transition. Like in my case, we might be hallucinating in our own assumptions and expectations that disallow positive attributions of that change to influence us, or we might fear the unknown or just not want to deal with the uncertainties on the other side, or as in most cases, we might be biased by our status quo. Whatever may be our reason for resistance, journeying through this transition is inevitable. It may be that the systemic interventions to aid us in this journey of change could be absent or insufficient. In which case, it is our responsibility to seek the aid for our own good. For, petty bickering, complaining and outright avoidance and quitting might shunt progress. It will thus keep us stuck in our unpleasant and now familiar circumstance forever, till we initiate to change.
I had no expectations about my post-wedding lifestyle mostly because I did not know what to expect. I draw blank visuals when I think about my desires in living together. And more blankness about a life in this city. I have had scattered official experiences in Delhi: joyous metro rides, unsafe street crawls at evening, yummy food everywhere (even in Gurgaon) and gigantic magnificent museums. Yet, they did none to feed my expectations. In a way it was good. Like with every other city I had lived in, I understood the capital city on the go: I learnt to handle the numbing winter where you have to layer up more inside of the home than outside, learning to converse in rude tones, which is the new normal here, started enjoying the bird visitors on our terrace (including peacocks!) and the walks in green parks, etc. And of course, unbiased now, freedom is often traded off with decisions that provide safety. I drifted through this unfamiliarity of the space by drawing decisions from the contingencies of the present, without any past-future comparison. And my lack of expectations allowed for each experience to be novel, which buttressed my discomforting unfamiliarity with freshness and pleasantness.
But this was not the case when I shifted to a new workplace a month ago. It was my first studio experience. There I was on my first day, with my bells on, only to unexpectedly travel through a serial number of days with disconcerting thoughts and activities. I lingered, meandered and fluttered through the unfamiliarity, trying to make sense of this novel and unpleasant experience. Unfortunately, I did not have the traditional tools that aid one to transition this phase. The tools being, induction and orientation. So there I was setting foot on an unfamiliar experience, with a baggage of anticipations. Based on my previous encounters I had set-expectations from the people of the company, and I had assumed their expectations of me. This concoction of expectations set a bitter taste. But it is gone now. A few conversations which I had bounced off with the right people helped me changeover to the other side of that unpleasant unfamiliarity. I have now managed to strikethrough my assumptions and expectations and started experiencing the present, unlike before when I was trying to alter my experience to align with my expectations.
Change is sometimes difficult to comprehend, and so, becomes difficult to embrace. My recent revelation is that the underlying theme of any change involves transitioning from familiarity to unfamiliarity. There are many reasons for our resistance to this transition. Like in my case, we might be hallucinating in our own assumptions and expectations that disallow positive attributions of that change to influence us, or we might fear the unknown or just not want to deal with the uncertainties on the other side, or as in most cases, we might be biased by our status quo. Whatever may be our reason for resistance, journeying through this transition is inevitable. It may be that the systemic interventions to aid us in this journey of change could be absent or insufficient. In which case, it is our responsibility to seek the aid for our own good. For, petty bickering, complaining and outright avoidance and quitting might shunt progress. It will thus keep us stuck in our unpleasant and now familiar circumstance forever, till we initiate to change.
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