6.5.10

Personal vs. Professional

The so-called professional and personal are, to use a common phrase, two sides of the same coin. They might stick to each others' backs, but they're as different as, pun intended, head and tail.  
The professional is what we project... It's like a magic trick. You climb up a stage, show your audience your little trick. The catch is that the audience already knows it. They know what you're there for. They know what you're going to do. What they don't know is how. That is where your real test begins. If you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and that's your reward. The wonder.

We're all show-mans at the end of the day. Shakespeare knew it when he said "All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely players". So, where does the personal come in? And how do we separate the two? I would say we don't. But that doesn't mean we let the lines blur. That would be stupidity, suicide. A great professional, like a great magician, does not show his trick. He lives it. 
So, at the end of the day, you can only choose 'heads' or 'tails' to play your gamble, to take you shot at winning. There's no guarantee you will, but this great gamble requires a great sacrifice. That of the other. 

And here, Sirs and Madames, must I rest this discourse.



*****

Yes, this is quite random, I know. I was discussing the matter with this gentleman when I realised that I would like to take this discourse further. So I've brought it to all of you:


How many of us try to keep the professional and personal separate? Some succeed too. But does that constitute a success really? Living two lives, dissecting yourself and everything you know in two halves so you can have the best of both worlds. But can you really? For those who strive to achieve a balance it might be true. But for others who aim to excel, a balance might just be one stepping stone.
Indeed, it IS like a balance. Think of an old two-pan balance. The kind that vegetable vendors still use here in India. The professional rests on one pan, the personal on the other. A balance can be achieved, almost perfectly at that but that is just half the journey accomplished. For someone who aims at success, one who wants to climb the highest pinnacle, must destroy that balance. For one pan to rise the other has to go down.
                      

This is my personal belief. I would love to hear your takes on it. 

*****

P.S: For a change, we don't have a depressing or morbid post on this blog. :P

11 comments:

Onward said...

Woh kya tha? :P ....all serious serious!! :P....I m with you on the professional vs personal balance actually...to make it big one defintely has to override the other...most of the successful businessmen we ve seen all have such torrid personal lives...so i guess thats the path to follow...utter professionalism...wat say?

luv
Amith

ravish yadav said...

really a nice one,,,,and as said yes we can never separate both from what we call life,,,,

ravish yadav said...

really a nice one,,,,and as said yes we can never separate both from what we call life,,,,

AP said...

There is some sense in breaking dichotomies and bridging the divide engendered by their presence; indeed, in doing so one does, or so I believe, go farther in tackling and ultimately avoiding much of the repression that characterises and is contingent upon our interactions with and perceptions of the world at large, the micro and the macro.

Yet, I would not - for reasons more personal than professional perhaps - agree with your hypothesis. To divorce one from the other is in totality to loose much and while ambition may so demand it, the temporality of life, and the shadow of that great leveller, death, must remind us of the vanity and ulitmate futility of ambition uncurtailed. Alone one goes, ay, but to soar above all others is to be furthered in isolation and, inspite of riches, die a confounded hermit. The same, I dare say, applies to the opposite: to live for and in others is then to stiffle the heart beyond desire and repress it to perversion. A balance, ay, a balance, that is what one needs.

Which, as you rightly claim, is easier proclaimed than achieved. Ay, so it is, and so it must be, for to have it so easily would be to deny the struggle much of its flavour. Would I that untrammelled ambition went out of the human heart and content and healthy curiosity guided our actions- so would we be rid of much that ails us.

Yet, 'tis but an idle man's fond folly, and so we must continue and so strive and so fall and pay for each the blood of our brethren and our own sinews. God is but dead and immortality on the horizon and thus must this race be stuck, stuck in this masquerade...

Kriti said...

@ Amith

I believe this but I don't quite know where I stand right now. I wouldn't want to give up on the personal entirely. But yes, the scales do tilt towards the professional. :)

Kriti said...

@ Ravish

That is true, yes. :)

And thanks for dropping by. Hope to see you around more. :)

Unknown said...

oh..honestly dis is d most debatable topic u cn engage urself in!!...no one cn figure out the true value of the success u gain once u drop d weight in one of d pans!!!
d oder side of d story is dat "hw do u exactly define success!!" v all hv our own definitions!!...it is indeed true dat mixing professional wid personal cn cost u a lot!! most of d ppl we noe consider mixing dem up inappropriate!! but wat about happiness??? wat about being satisfied!!...give it a new dimension... dat myt help!! :P

Kriti said...

@ Anubhav

Thank you for the epic comment. I shall now spend that one hour when I'm super drowsy replying to it. :)

I'm glad you didn't delve into the 'breaking dichotomies' part. I personally do not believe that is possible. If you break some, you end up creating new ones. To let those dichotomies govern you, as this discourse indicates and as you have manifestly construed, unavoidably results in loss. The key, as I know you would've said (and did), is in striking a balance.

Yet again, the nature of this balance is further debatable and a particularly subjective matter.

PS: I love you.

Kriti said...

@ Mansi


Yes, of course! The attempt here was not to define success. I can't. For myself, perhaps, but I do not believe that an objective definition of success is possible.

I was just trying to assay the nature of the possibility of maintaining a distinction between these two (and just these two) aspects of human life. We say the key lies in striking a balance, but then, like I said in the previous comment, the nature of this balance is notably subjective. Further, the ideas of happiness and satisfaction are specifically abstract and prejudiced. So, to treat them as benchmarks for something would be quite inappropriate.

rainboy said...

Someday u are more pro and someday you're more personal.

It's just what works for you...never make a strategy ...just let it be...


as someone said ... Don't be the magician be the magic. :D

take care n cheers

Ramesh Sood said...

Well done, Kreation, a beautiful question this! After a good journey of about 28 years of professional life, I for one have not been able to divide myself. I think I have tried to be the same person everywhere. I mean what I believe I believe it won't change depending upon with whom I am talking..Claiming that one can successfully divide oneself into two is an illusion.. one is only deceiving oneself.. To say that something not right as per personal values could be OK professionally but wrong in the personal life.. it appears so funny..no, I think final goal is happiness and that will come only if the professional and the person are ONE. Expecting otherwise is the biggest folly one can indulge in.. Crux is being HAPPY.. I have always maintained whatever may be one's achievements, one is not happy if one is not successful..What do you say..your visit to my page is due..


Well, I fell in the trap.. but