Life..

He looked at his watch as he started from office. It was 7:30 pm. A grueling 12 hour day at work as usual. The work had increased exponentially in recent times leaving little time for any other pursuit. In the morning he had a fight with his wife for missing their son’s annual school day function, where he was awarded the best student of the academic year. But then he had no choice, as he had to attend an important client meeting around the same time. He made a quiet promise to himself to make it up with an exotic vacation next year and things would again be fine.

He shut down his laptop, packed his bag and rushed down the stairs to get out of the office. There was still 20 minutes left to catch the next train home, so he made his way to the local florist. His wife loved red roses. Maybe taking a few of them home would lighten her mood up a bit, especially after what happened in the morning. The florist round the corner was still open. He quickly got a nice bunch of roses for his wife. Then he rushed to the shop opposite the florist to grab a bar of chocolate for his son. This was his own little way of compensating for the missed annual day function. 

The time was 8:20 p.m. He quickly made his way to the station, just in time to catch the 8:27 local back home. The train arrived on time as usual, although with lesser crowd as the peak hours had passed. He quickly grabbed a corner seat near the window and waited for the 20 minute journey back home to end.

Life over the past few years had become very hectic ever since he was promoted as Project Manager. He was given 3 huge accounts to manage and was under constant pressure to achieve targets and show results. Even his weekends were spent on preparing presentations or responding to e-mails, barely leaving time to do anything else or spend time with the family.

He recollected that his father was complaining for a long time about his eyesight growing weak. He had promised to take him to the eye specialist but that was close to a year ago. Now his father had lost eyesight in one of his eyes. His mother wished to go on a pilgrimage and as a dutiful son he had promised to take a couple of weeks’ vacation and take her on a tour to the holy lands. There was no time for that either and his mother he knew had quietly resigned and reconciled to the fact that she will never be able to go on a pilgrimage. He barely remembered visiting them over the past year although they stayed in the same city. Conversation mostly happened over phone and even that would be done in a hurry as there would always be some important call waiting.

As he sat near the window taking in the cool breeze and thinking about his life, a change began to happen. This was not his life. This was not the way he wanted things to be. A few years back, he was in love, married the prettiest lady he knew. Then they were blessed with the most adorable kid on the planet, and there was no end to their joys. Weekends would be spent with his parents, and the little kid would have a whale of a time with his grandparents.

But then this raise happened. Promise of a huge salary raise, along with employee stock options and power to bring in change was tempting. Now he was making a lot of money, but was missing out on the important joys of life. Every weekend he would promise his son that they would go on a picnic only for it to be postponed for the next weekend. His son had now stopped asking about the picnic anyway. To get rid of the guilt feeling he had occasionally resorted to drinking and that was beginning to show on his health. 

This was not the change he had bargained for. This was not the kind of life he wanted to lead. He wanted to get back to the days where he would help his wife in the kitchen, those days where he would play cricket with his son, those Sundays which were spent with his parents listening to their experiences and watching the joy on their faces as they played with their grandson. The good old days. 

His station had arrived. As he got down from the train, he made an important decision. He decided to put an end to this. This month would be his last day at work. There was no point taking up so much stress and making all that money if he was missing out on all the important things in life. It just did not seem right anymore.

He decided to head straight home and inform his wife about the decision. Then call his parents to inform then that he would be coming over with the family on Sunday. He made a note to book an appointment for his father with the eye-specialist. And the first thing he would do after quitting was take his mother on that pilgrimage she yearned to go on.

Yes, he had decided. He was going to change his life now. Excited, he walked as fast as his legs could carry him.

Just then his phone beeped. It was a message from his wife. He kept on walking as he read the message. ‘Come home soon, have made your favorite dish, love you’ it read.

He smiled. He barely realized that as he read the message, he had stepped on to the road and had failed to notice the speeding lorry fast approaching him.