April 30, 2008

Living Multiple Lives In One Lifetime

For you to be at peace with yourself, you need to be at peace in each of the multiple lives that you are living.

We live multiple lives in our lifetime. Whereas at a subconscious level we are aware of it, we seldom look at it from this perspective. We broadly categorize our activities and environment as personal or professional based on whether it is home, friends, work or non-work related.

I want you to consider for a moment that the differentiation in your personal and professional life is not only external but is internal as well; i.e., you are a very different person in each life. In fact, if you isolate your personal and professional life and look at yourself from a third person's perspective you will see two very different individuals.

I would also encourage you to observe carefully and identify the multiple primary lives you are leading, rather than just classifying your activities as personal and professional. For example, I live three primary lives; a family life, a product manager's life, and a writer's life. I am a very different person in each of my three lives. My focus is different, my way of dealing with others is different, what defines my success or failure is different, what excites or depresses me is different and the way I conduct myself is different.
As a family person my focus is primarily on the well being of my family, taking care of financial and emotional needs, making sure that my child grows up to be a fine individual, going for holidays and outings, celebrating festivals with extended family and friends, getting a life insurance to help my family even after my death (something that you only do for your family), building assets for post retirement security, etc.

As a product manager, my focus is on ensuring long term sustained revenue and growth of my product. Understanding customer needs, competitive landscape and emerging technologies. Speaking at conferences, listening to customer complaints, reviewing product bug list with quality assurance and engineering. Defining the future roadmap for the product etc.

As a writer, my focus is to deeply observe life and people and to share thought provoking insights through my writings. Interacting with readers, from over hundred countries, having extremely diverse backgrounds and cultures. Discussing feedback and comments. Marketing and promotion to reach potential readers. Learning technologies that help me make my blog more attractive and pleasant, etc.
For you to be living powerfully, you need to make progress and be at peace in each of your multiple lives. Making progress in one life at the cost of others will lead to unrest. You need to balance your time and energies between each of your primary lives. Identify your primary lives and evaluate each life in isolation. Do what it takes to be at peace in each of your life.

11 comments:

Brenda said...

I suppose I do behave someone different between at two of my lives; I tend to be no nonsense and goal-driven on-the-job but when it comes to family life, I find a patience I don't have at work. I agree that it's important to balance these different parts of our lives.

Marja said...

Hi recently discovered your interesting blog. Loved this article. I find that I develop different parts of me in my different roles and the gains in each area transfers somehow to the
others. It is good to be aware of your multiple lifes. Thanks for your article

.............................. said...

Hi ..its very true tht u hve to b at peace at each your multiple lives..else one's unrest ruffles d others... nice post..

Anonymous said...

An interesting thought...
Just got opportunity to read your blog again....after a long time gap (was tied in couple of things)
Really enjoyed reading it....Thankyou!
Actually ...identifiying things or quantifing roles help you do self analysis and gives a better picture of your problems and find an answer to it.....

Anonymous said...

Thought provoking insights indeed! :)

You produce some thoughful stuff and have a nice writing style. Your articles have substance, I appreciate that a lot..

Keep going!
- Wakish -

Aseem said...

Thank you everyone for your kind compliments. If you like my insights, do subscribe to my blog, and also share the same with your friends, family and network. Thank you. Aseem

Unknown said...

Nice, thoughtful post.

Best wishes.

Sincerely,

-Liane Schmidt.

Patricia Rockwell said...

I see what you mean, but I would call these "roles." We all play different roles--parent, child; employer, employee; teacher, student. Sometimes, we play numerous roles over the course of one day and our behavior changes accordingly.

Anonymous said...

I have found peace regarding the different lives I live. However, I have not found peace in the fact that none of those lives is the life I want to live.

Ranjan said...

One prospective,
You may be living more then 3 lives, let me split your family life, a son , a father, a husband, a brother etc etc.

In a 24 Hours day , you execute many tasks based on your role , you may start teaching part time to kids that doesnot mean one more life is added in you. We may say one more role or skill is now part of your life.

Anonymous said...

thank you

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