When one door closes...

Failed endeavours and friendships

Hello to all my dear readers,

How was everyone’s Dusshera? Mine was spent away from family as they visited my hometown Dehradun to attend a wedding and I stayed back because I had to attend college. This was probably the first time I was separated from them during Dusshera and it would also be the first time I did not have my usual dedicated 10-day long Dusshera vacation. This was an ‘oh my god I am a college student so I won’t get my usual school vacation’ moment.

Moreover, just after my Dusshera break, I thought I would be in a different city presenting my research paper at a Symposium. Confused? Let me begin from the start-

A few weeks back our professor informed us of an opportunity to present a paper at an International Student Social Workers' Symposium. I had no idea what it meant or what I needed to do but I live by the quote-

“If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later.”- Richard Branson

The Theme of the Symposium was ‘Sustainable Development’ and ‘Initiatives and Practices for Smart Villages’, both of which were very interesting to me. I picked the topic I wanted to write on- Work-Life balance for Sustainability. This is one of the first drafts of my abstracts.

“So, Work-life balance (WLB) research and practice focus on how people balance the demands of paid work and personal life. In other words, WLB considers life to be predominantly centred upon care for self and care for other people. The line between work and personal life is blurry for the people in a village due to most of the villagers participating on family-owned farms or land and also a lot of family roles like being a spouse, caretaker and parent; managing daily household chores, and providing services to the community and society. These people also take care of their own health and other personal activities, which are often neglected because of role overload as well as time limitations. Due to the workload of everything else, they are deprived of personal time. Thus there is an imbalance between work and life.”

I had begun my research with my focus predominantly on women's work-life balance in rural areas. I had only reached the surface level of my research when I realised that I read the location wrong! I thought the event was in Bangalore when all this time it was actually in Mangalore! Thanks to my lovely college friend for pointing that out or else I would have booked my tickets for Bangalore! Pro Tip- please read the important details of the event like the venue, it will be very helpful in the future.

Due to the short time frame, the misreading of the location which I was frazzled by and the Dussehra price hike, the tickets and timings were quite inconvenient. So, after an exciting few days of brainstorming and research, I had to drop out. I was bummed but at the same time, I was happy with the journey that I had begun nevertheless it ended early. Who knows maybe I will research more about work-life balance. I found the research quite fascinating because I had never thought about work-life balance as a concept for rural areas. I went down multiple rabbit holes of thoughts and ideas on the direction I could take. The terminology seemed quite urban. I also pondered how the work-life balance among the younger generation is imbalanced due to the hustle mentality. However, this is where this expedition ends for me.

When one door closes another door opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.

This famous quote by Alexander Graham Bell helps me segue into the next part of this newsletter as this ties into the second theme of this newsletter: Friendships.

It was my best friend Sunidhi’s birthday over the weekend. Unfortunately, she is off to college and for the first time in 9 years, we were not together for her birthday. All the memories of the times we spent together came rushing in. Nostalgia hit me hard and made me reflect on the past few months.

I am sure a lot of you relate but friendships after joining college have changed a lot. I have lost touch with many of my friends Since being nearby and seeing each other every day was the base for many of them. We all are busy adjusting to our new college lives and meeting new people so it is difficult to keep up with all your previous relationships.

All opportunities do not convert to success and all friendships perhaps don’t last. We shouldn’t dwell on these or even term them as ‘failures’. If we dwell on lost friendships and opportunities, there are chances we miss out on new ones.

I am thankful for all the friendships and opportunities I have spent my time building and working on, even if they “failed”.

It has all contributed to the person I am today and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Thanks for being a part of my life! I love you.