Three months and still the queasy feeling I'd but belonging, not living this place.
Three months.

The constant feeling

This feeling doesn't go away, this unsettling, incessant feeling of not belonging here. I hate it. 

Either this feeling has to go away, or I need to.

Culture -II

We continued talking about culture this week. Culture is an outcome, not a design variable, my professor taught. The design variables are team structures, team composition, processes, management styles and so on. 

The other important variable in this equation is Context. Everything DEPENDS. Yeah, that's not just the useless consultant-speak. Everything really depends on the environment, the industry and the history of how the elements come together. Context is ever-changing, and the only way to survive is adaptability. Nothing outlasts context shifts, not even the greatest cultures. Adapt, adapt, adapt. There's no point hanging on to "how things used to be". Things are continuously changing away from how they were, how they are and how they will be. 

The world is not simple! But didn't they say that on our first day? :)

The more we are different, the more we are the same

All around me people are different, but are they really?

Our basic needs, fears, insecurities, greed, dreams...they are all essentially the same. We all want love, approval, social desirability. Yes we look different, dress, eat and talk different, but if you go a layer deeper, we are all saying and doing similar things, born out of similar faultlines. Some hide them better than others. Some fight them better than others. 

In class last week, I learnt for the first time the importance of not giving in to your first instincts. A lot of my life has been about trusting the instinct and going with the intuition. But there are certain moments, in difficult ambiguous situations that need you to be courageous and resilient, when you need to hold past the first instinct. Fight or flight. It is hard coded in us. It is amazing how often I give in to those. It is amazing how often my reaction is to be defensive, to shut down, to sneak away. I wonder how life would have turned out if I had taken more risk and not rushed to the comfort zone, quietly running away. 

Culture

What is culture? Why is it so important? Who creates it? How? When?
Most importantly, can culture be engineered?

People these days try so hard to define culture. Culture decks. Structured early exercises. Norms. Conscience. Relationships. People are trying so hard to "create" these the way they want before they get formed inevitably. This is, quite literally, a battle against time.

It's probably worth a try. Cultures are hard to change. But then again, over engineering stifles natural expression. What-could-be could be better than what-you-think-should-be. Or worse.

Either way, over-engineering also leaves some people out, who feel they don't fit in. Who like to take time to settle in, get to know people and be themselves. Who don't like being judged from the first second.
Question is, do we value those people anymore? In this go-getter world of insecure extroversion, is there a place for the slow and steady?

Maybe not.

And this...remember this

http://apublicdiary.blogspot.com/2013/02/change-is-good-thing.html

What we learnt this week

• Vision without goals is just hallucination.
• Kindness matters just as much as gratitude.
• Do things for the right reasons, not right outcomes.
• Often when everyone optimizes rationally for themselves, everyone is worse off as a collective.
• Give more than you take.

Limbo

So, it has been a week. 

Actually it has been 15 days, but the first week was just a vacation. 

The first week, this country was just like any other place in the world I could have been visiting. Correction, we, could have been visiting.

The first week, I wasn't alone. We were tourists, but only one of us had a return ticket. A ticket that tells you that the vacation is over and it is time to go back home. A ticket that told me, that I couldn't go back home just yet. That I had to live here, potentially for the next two years, and I had to start calling this place home.

This simple but nice apartment in the still summery, still beautiful city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. 

And so here I am, one week after it ended, one week after it began. But this doesn't feel like home yet. And my home isn't my home anymore. As I type this, my favorite home is being packed, cleaned up and returned as a house, the way I inherited it seven months ago. I still have a home to go back to, but it won't be the same. And I can't go back anyway for a few days. 111 of them. 

I should have been excited to be here. Harvard Business School. People say it sounds like a big deal. Not to me. I am still struggling to be happy here. I do not feel like I belong. I do not like being lonely, yet I cannot stand the people here. I should be making new connections, finding happiness and learning in little things, but it exhausts me. It's been only a week, so I guess it will get better. Right now though, it's like being in a limbo. My mind is half there, and half here. Half of me wants to go back and live my happy life, half of me wants to get immersed here and find the new, different happiness. But I can't do either, at the moment. I want to, but I can't. I am lost in the limbo.

I do not intend to sound so pessimistic. There isn't much wrong with this place. It isn't like I am losing what I had back home yet. I think I just need to get it out of my system, so I can stop thinking and start living, even if in bits and pieces, again. Hence this blog. I hope one of these days I read this and laugh at being so crazy and acting so difficult. I hope this blog helps me remember the good moments and the bad moments better, because the experience is the sum of both. 

It has been a week. I am fevery and alone today. But I hope I feel better tomorrow. Or the day after. But soon enough. It would be such a waste if I spend these two years in the limbo. I want to go back home, soon, but now that I am here, I want to go back home a better person. 

Feel better, kiddo!