When I was working as a consultant, I longed to see the sunset, but I couldn’t.
We rarely got out of the office before 11 pm — often much later.
And even after that, my journey back home was long — a cab ride from New York, followed by picking up my car from a New Jersey train station, sometimes after removing the frozen snow on the car with bare hands.
Then, finally, when I reached home, I would just collapse on the bed. Next day at 6 am, rinse and repeat.
Some jobs are just hard — with crazy deadlines, intense hours, and a lack of flexibility.
Those days, the only thing I craved was the freedom of an entrepreneur. And I imagined that like Dobby in Harry Potter, I would scream to the world, “Dobby has no master. Dobby is a free elf.”
Today, I am an entrepreneur — I am a free elf. At my startup, HabitStrong, I have no bosses to please, no pretense to keep — nothing.
Yet, I do have a master — the customer. You can choose your master, but you can’t, not have any.
All things considered, I am blessed, but do I feel so? Nope, I take it all for granted. Only when writing my gratitude journal do I realize this privilege.
Whatever you wish for today, someday, in not too distant a future, you will likely have it. But if you are like me, you will take it for granted.
Just the way you take for granted what you already have. Don’t. Stop and savor it.
– Rajan