Rejection slips

It has been exactly 2 years and 4 months since I last posted on PushBottonThinking. I was gainfully employed with Star TV when the last post about whole wheat bread was done. In the time since then I quit Star TV (disputed as usual) and joined Reliance Jio. Been quite some ride(No I will not write about my work). I bought a new car, cleared two loans, invested in some more, finished 4 courses on Coursera, been a decent father to my 7 year old girl, cooked every Sunday, drove 20000 kms. in 8 months, took two holidays in as many years, struggled to find my feet and give back as good as I got.

Somewhere along I got lulled into a rhythm - salary comes in every month like clock work, loans get repaid on time, jokes can be made about the 'two punch, one lunch' dejavu every day 6 days a week. The challenges of work are nice, finding my way around issues, people, politics and situations keeps me going back but that hunger goes away. Took up a challenge 14 months ago of beating the living daylights of my diabetes - I won by simply remembering to walk up 13 floors twice everyday and do 25 minutes of assorted stretching. Gamified the monthly spends and now I know exactly how much is required in any week and can plan things accordingly. In short there are no great insurmountable tasks that remain (barring bringing up a daughter).

And as is my habit I cribbed about this to a couple of friends and one of them (you know who you are, lady) reminded me about this blog and a novel that I have been threatening to write for the last 10 odd years. So over the next 3 weeks I will try to write 1500 words everyday. If I am able to put together 30000 words in these 3 weeks I will go on and finish the novel. And send it out to experience rejection. Its been sometime since I pitched anything to anyone. The last time I got rejected was because the person wanting to fund me found an excuse that my reputation was not clean. That cleared my senses and made me look for a job, that was almost 4 years ago. I am grateful for that rejection slip in the form of an email. It made me see reason. It made me understand that rejection slips are needed, the are divine love notes that slap you out of your hubris.

Coming back to the novel - if I am able to write and get someone to publish it, I would be making peace with myself. I will start believing again that big things happen in small ways. And maybe I will be tempted someday to start something new. ....maybe even write 2 posts every week here.

S