When you wake up apologizing, and apologize before going to bed, and moments in between are filled with regrets, what kind of life are you leading? A friend, more of an acquaintance really, recently made this comment when I talked to him about 3 weeks after I met him for lunch. I was startled by the comment he made in our conversation. He is an analog designer, a rare breed in the chip design world, akin to a hacker in the programming world. Happily married with children, has his own company, and liked by all. My first reaction was a typical one. The usual platitudes about how lucky he is, he needs to bootstrap, etc., etc. Fortunately, my own realization about personal demonsand the need to slay them alone (My melancholic days #3) stopped me from blurting those out. I felt he is sharing his feelings with me, a mere acquaintance, because he had enough of those bromides from those who were close to him. It was perhaps like talking to a stranger at the airport bar. Though he has to deal with it alone, is he also lonely? I felt like I was given an opportunity to redeem myself. The gent in the photo below was captured on a trip back from Davis, after visiting my son. I wanted to buy him a cup of coffee and have a small talk just to let him know that he is not alone, but alas, I was caught up with other things and forgot to buy him a cup of coffee.
I asked my friend why he thinks he is such a failure when appearances wise everything is going well. It was not a rhetorical question, I assure you. What he said had resonated with me to some extent. He is an only child and his parents, who came from a modest background had great expectations of him. At every inflection point in his life (high school, junior college, undergrad, graduate degree) etc. he has barely eked out. Though he has a successful career, financially (almost) independent, and has own startup, they were not enough. His parents had to live with the disappointments at the critical junctures in his life and he failed miserably in providing them any opportunity to brag about their only child. Those of you who were brought up in India would surely understand the pressures of providing such appeasement to parents. Barely passing his 10th grade exam, while his friends were ranked in top 50 for example, and when he mentioned it to parents, the disappoint on their faces, albeit for a brief moment, he said still haunts him today. Ironically, what’s was worse, according to him, was their unconditional support and encouragement to pursue his next steps. For those of you that did not grow up in India, the academic milestones were pretty much the inflection points that foretold the future of a young person, that is for those who could afford education.
Now I am a tad concerned. I was debating if I should reach out to a mutual acquaintance, or his family about his emotional state of mind, or simply stay out of his business. I feel his pain, but not qualified to discern if he needs professional help. His suffering I felt is not that different from how this pelican felt, I suppose.
I talked about him in my previous article. I met him a few days before I went on a trip to Cancun, Mexico to participate in a destination wedding. The wedding was a blast, had tremendous positive energy and life affirming. All through the weeklong celebration, there was this gnawing feeling in the back of my head, thinking about the comment he made about his parents (please see my article #29). After struggling for a while, my head won over my heart and called a mutual friend and asked him to intervene.
The “bad sign” is an astrology reference: if you’re “born under a bad sign,” means the stars are aligned against you from birth. It was the song’s co-writer William Bell who came up with the title – he wanted to do a blues song about astrology. The phrase became a lot more popular thanks to this song ( Born Under A Bad Sign by Albert King – Songfacts ). You can hear the song (my favorite version) here: (759) Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan – Born Under A Bad Sign (HD) – YouTube
P.S. I am relieved to know that my friend is doing well after he and his wife receiving some professional counseling on dealing with his situation.
