Life creates chapters. It forces us to move on to the next chapter once we have spent enough time on the previous one. It is up to us then to do a little exercise at the end of a chapter to see how much have we learnt. These exercises are different than the exercises that we used to do in school but a lot more important. The difference comes from the fact that there are no preset questions, you yourself are the examiner, you are the student and you are the evaluator. So questions can be as tough or simple as you like. I often do these exercises to figure out what would I be taking away and what have I lost in the last leg of my journey. And I don't believe in falsely pretending that everything that happened was good or we should forget about negative things and emphasize more on the positive lessons. To me, my failures are as important and dear to me as are my successes if not more. I like to "feel" the pain of my failures.

My last chapter was called "Grad School" and it was a wonderful learning experience. Unlike many other chapters, I chose it myself. But like many other chapters, results were mixed. Academically, I achieved well over my own expectations and targets. But even then it only left me wanting for more, especially in the last few months when I lost my motivation for various reasons. Personally, I met a lot of interesting people and my sense of the world seems much more complete now. On the positive side, I met two persons that I became very close to. On the negative side, none of these relationships could survive. One of them just fell apart towards the end and the other can't be taken forward to the next chapter. Aaaaah… such is life!

Anyways, I am moving on. Joined ThoughtWorks in Chicago today as Application Developer. Frankly, it was not my first choice but is definitely among the companies that I would love to work with. I am really looking forward to it.

If you think about it, all the beginnings are alike. You don't know what lies ahead. You have same kind of anxiety, fear and excitement every time you make a new beginning or should I call it the old beginning. Ends, on the other hand are always new. At the end of every endeavor, you will learn something new; end result is always something different. I find this idea of "New End and an Old Beginning" philosophically interesting. In the words of TS Eliot:

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

It also reminds of a beautiful song sung by legendry Noor Jahan that goes like this:

Le aayi phir kahan par kismat humein kahan se,

Yeh toh wahi jagah hai guzre the hum jaha se.

Listen to it. It is worth it.