So many things happened in the last few years. Let me try and summarize - two and a half years ago I left my cushy consulting job and relocated to Dubai to join THE ride hailing start-up of the region. Wife (W) moved after a few months. We're settled in many respects. BUT.
It’s important to reflect - and see if the priorities have changed. Two years ago priorities were different - we had just gotten married, we had minimal savings - and daunting education, car and home loans. We made some big bets early in life (and I’m super proud about it). I'm happy to say that me from two and a half years ago - would say to the current me : You did well, my buoy.
So what hereafter, what are we chasing? You probably noticed that I said ‘we’ - and not I. I'm speaking both of us (W included).
I'm not trying to say that marriage creates baggage - it basically means that if you’re married, you can have a collective vision for your life together.
(On a side note - you might notice a slight change in my jargon. I’m probably a lot more corporatish now. Side effects, you see.)
Coming back to “collective” vision : it’s a vision of how the two of us see our life together. So, what are our collective priorities - and how do our individual drives and ambitions help us move towards our collective vision. If marriage is a company, then spouses are its co-founders. The company has a collective mission - and a vision to achieve it, it requires and expects different things from each of the co-founders - based on who's best placed to deliver what. Tag team.
So, coming back to the main point - what is our collective vision? : It’s probably hard to answer in one simple statement, we’re not there yet in terms of clarity. Let me try to break it down into a few important components.
Priority #1 - Be healthy : It’s not like we are obese right now - but we need to get healthier, we need to feel healthier. Better health drives productivity > productivity drives positive outcomes > positive outcomes provide happiness. We can always do with more happiness. Everyone can.
Priority #2 - Evolve, constantly : We need to become better people in every dimension. In the immediate sense - it probably means that we will use our time effectively to improve ourselves - and enable ourselves to picking up professional challenges of higher complexity and skill .
Every time we break a barrier - we will have a moment of intermediate celebration and reflection. Then we’ll move-on to our next challenge. Having clarity of what we will call intermediate success will be the key here. We will define this individually.
Ultimate success is like infinity - you can only approach it, and never reach it. We’re aware that our whole life will be spent in this pursuit. I’m okay with that.
Priority #3 - Family comes first : We’re blessed with great families. Our parents sacrificed many things to give us the privileges that we got, and are still getting. We will love them and take care of them whenever they need us. Period.
Priority #4 - Secure the future : It will be difficult for us to do justice to priority # 1-3, if we don’t have a way to secure our future. At the moment, I can only think of a financial lens to it - which basically means that we will ensure a certain standard of living for ourselves, always. And for that - we will plan accordingly for calamities, and for the risks we might want to take evolve.
x
x
I'm aware - that we'll have to make trade-off decisions between these priorities. We will under-index and over-index on a few - the trick will be for us to evaluate ourselves honestly and take steps in the right direction.
We are the CEO of our life - and we’re clear on what we’re going to focus on. Priorities can change in the future, but this seems like a good starting point for the next 5 years.
So, for now - Paused. Reflected. Heading for execution.
