Berlin Tegel Airport – not sure if invites me yet again. Finishing my assignment, here I move on to the next Journey in my career. In the last four years, I had made some visits to Berlin every year. Beyond just being here for Business, I always felt like a second home. Never felt alone as this is where I learnt and gained quite a lot of experiences.
Being just a department change within the same company, I did not initially feel this as a bigger change. As my last days in the department was fast approaching, my heart palpitated and I felt a gush of hot blood flowing within my spine. My last week in the department was in Berlin.
I was looking forward for the change and recollected lovely memories from my current department and the path I walked through. It seemed like a video playback and I could visualise all colours including black and grey. There’s nothing as smooth as it seems to be. I do admit the “not so good moments” as well while I walk down my memory lane. Well, life is a bed of roses with thorns and petals! I did experience both for sure.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I drafted my farewell email to my department. Didn’t imagine I’d get that emotional as this was my decision! I walked to the rest room to hide my emotions and cried aloud.
I was interviewing some candidates to be my successor and also felt I’m giving up something I created to someone. It felt like a separation! Like my daughter getting married and I see her moving on with her new partner!
From tomorrow, no more into these topics. No calls, no meetings – missing my little baby! – one dimension of thoughts that made me emotional.
“Would I be successful in my new position? Do I have to redo everything I did here? I had a good reputation and leaving – is this good?” some questions within! What makes me feel so emotional today? Have I bonded too much that it almost feels like a breakup?
My guardian angel from within smiled at me “The sense of belonging to the department, feeling the topics that you built like your baby, the association with work – this does not get broken up. This is a trait and this shows your dedication and passion that you should be proud about. You don’t have to belittle yourself as an emotional idiot but rather be happy that you’d now carry this trait to a new place.!” I was convinced.
For sure when you see your topics growing in safe hands, you’d feel your daughter is taken care of. Typical for parents getting separated from their kids when they’re grown. Isn’t it? But remember care has to be given when they’re still kids. Once they’re grown that they can walk on their own, you got to let them go. Nothing different at work. When challenges are solved and things are matured enough and stabilised, it should ring a bell on your head to move on and let it work.
Challenges are what gives us rebirth. In the beginning it’s ok to feel uncomfortable or even feel like an alien or fish out of water in the new place. But if we’re afraid of this change, we are only making ourselves resistant to any change. We’re also creating convenience around us that we would like to just stay comfortable always.
Often we don’t know what our destiny would be and also get associated with the past success stories and dwell on them. I remember the poem “The Road not taken” by Robert Frost that I learnt in my fifth Standard. It’s known for its ambiguity. The poet writes about the road that got diverged at a point and his choice made. He looked upon both sides as far as he could and took one. As he starts traveling on the path he took, he gets questions about the road not taken. It could be taken as he has made a choice which others didn’t prefer and this could result to a question in our minds – was he regretting or feeling good for his choice? The ambiguity remains unknown until now as he ends:
… I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference!
(Excerpt from “The road not taken” by Robert Frost)
Well, it’s upto us how we see it. Let’s look at the northern star and get motivated for the new road ahead!
Leaving Berlin with smiles on my face as I sit in the airplane cherishing the moments in my ex department!
