The Rewards and Challenges of Multiple Simultaneous Projects

‘किस पथ से जाऊँ?’ असमंजस में है वह भोलाभाला,
अलग-अलग पथ बतलाते सब पर मैं यह बतलाता हूँ –
‘राह पकड़ तू एक चला चल, पा जाएगा मधुशाला।’।
(हरिवंशराय बच्चन)

And so I have been searching, what is that one path that I must walk on…

Ideas keep popping up in the mind. There are multiple projects in progress simultaneously. Everything moves forward slowly, often it feels like nothing is reaching anywhere, and the mind feels overloaded with so much in the RAM.

To counter this, Marie Forleo suggests that we must commit ourselves to one project at a time. Henry Miller suggests the same. But “they”, as in all the combined wisdom of the universe and all times past, also says we should look inwards for authentic answers.

The more I look inwards the more I find that I can’t work on just one project.

Right now, for 2019, my biggest agenda is the book that Kaavyaalaya is producing. That book is utterly crucial for myriad reasons. It will give me a deep sense of satisfaction when it reaches people’s hands. Even today as soon as I got up every bit of me was planning what the book landing page would contain. And so even though I had planned to devote Saturdays to writing, I thought that my inside is telling me to work on the book landing page today, so that is what I must do.

Then I reached the office, I liked the quiet and peace here, my inside again felt like writing. So here I am, writing instead of working on the book landing page.

Instead of writing or producing a book, this Thursday and Friday were spent doing something else altogether – software development: working on porting the Geet Gatiroop website to Laravel 5.4 – even though I had promised not to think about these things this year. I had promised myself to only focus on the book and sundry matters that are required to keep the show going on.

This book is being produced in collaboration with Dr. Tewary. He is not available right now. This made me tensed – there are so many things to discussed, planned, and executed. Frankly speaking, I am feeling tensed even now. But I have no option, but to wait patiently and trust higher powers.

For a few days, I used the empty time created by Dr. Tewary’s unavailability, to work on a bit of writing and software development. It felt good. It blurred the tension a bit. The sense of fun made an appearance again.

Producing the book with tension is no point at all. Fun during the journey is an integral part of the agenda and I felt having multiple projects of different kinds actually helps. It seems beauty and energy is reinforced by being reflected off of one project onto another.

And see, this is not just about a collaborator not being available. It’s my inside too. I try to be systematic, I plan things, and my inside goes on another trip altogether. I have experienced this again and again. It made me think about the book landing page, and now it is making me write.

However, my inside does not sabotage my intentions. What is to be done, gets done, but the true inner story turns out to be something else. For example, when I had gone to Iowa to study Masters in Computer Science, I got the fun of knowing other aspects of Computer Science that my work experience had not given me. Stuff like Computer Graphics; Embedded programming that powers elevators, microwaves and such; Geographical Information Systems and the unique fun of organizing and computing spatial data into data structures and algorithms; algorithms for Distributed Systems that power chat and messaging systems like Skype – all this the Master’s program gave me. My agenda was fulfilled. But unknown to me there was another agenda at play.

I had been accepted by Singapore and Iowa for the Masters, but I chose Iowa. Thanks to having landed up at Iowa, MS was diagnosed. Some sense was formed of perplexing issues I had been increasingly facing for the past few years. And I also got to know of Terry Wahls, I got to meet her – as an answer to that diagnosis. This seemed to be the hidden agenda my Inner Guide had planned.

One thing is for sure: my Inner Guide is a good sort. I am in safe hands.

So even though I have been typing this, and have been simultaneously thinking, “Stop typing! Work on the book landing page!” –the book is in good hands.

Since I have spent time typing all this, a bit more time will have to be invested to put it on the blog, put it in Mailchimp, put it on Facebook. Well ok, do whatever is to be done, and do it quickly, so you can get back to your main agenda for 2019.