KEEPING HAPPY Raj Kaza is a great friend and currently works as director of HR in Microsoft, Hyderabad. We hadn’t met for some time until recently, when I went to Hyderabad for the Diwali vacation. We sat at the Café Coffee Day outlet near Panjagutta with our sugar-free black teas, and talked. I saw a big change in Raj. He had lost about twelve kilos and looked in great shape. He told me that he had traded in his big car for a Santro, cleared most of his loans and liquidated a few real-estate assets. He felt free. He laughed more and had a zest for life. This was not the Raj Kaza I knew a few years back. Raj is a type-A personality, highly motivated and likes to be in control. Type A people are very competitive and determined to succeed. They like scaling challenges and are avid problem-chasers. They are unsatisfied in an environment that does not challenge them enough. They keep changing jobs in search of the perfect place where they can prove themselves and feel good about their accomplishments. When I had met Raj a few years back, I told him that he looked healthy, a euphemism for being overweight. He sported a double chin, had a great-paying job, was building his assets and working hard to climb the corporate ladder faster. He traveled a lot, drank umpteen cups of coffee and looked visibly stressed. Since we all want simple shortcuts and formulae in life, I wanted to know how he had changed so much and so quickly. I wanted to know the secret to his happiness. I asked, ‘VLCC?’ He just laughed and said, ‘No way. Didn’t want to spend money to lose weight.’ I said ‘Which method, then?’ ‘Self-driven,’ he replied. When he saw my amazed expression, he explained, ‘There is no secret recipe. I approached my life holistically. I did a few things which I thought would help me feel better.’ ‘Like what?’ ‘First I took a call and liquidated some real estate and paid off most of my home loans. That was a big burden off my chest. I was really uncomfortable carrying those big loans on my head.’ I said, ‘But you have a well-paying job, you could have returned the loans slowly. What was the hurry?’ ‘No hurry, I just didn’t want to worry about loans; it was as though they were pulling me down. I was beginning to lose interest in my work. I felt the only reason I had to work every month was to service my loan. I didn’t like that. I wanted psychological freedom, so I cleared it. Now, I don’t have any fears about job security. I work because I am passionate about what I do.’ He then smiled and said, ‘I wonder if not having any EMIs increases one’s enthusiasm for work.’ I didn’t know. ‘Probably. What else did you do?’ ‘I sold off my big car because I could not park it anywhere easily and the traffic is bad anyway. We are a family of four, so I bought a small car. It is easier to drive and I have no trouble finding parking.’ I asked, ‘Won’t you need a big car when you go on holidays?’ He grinned and said, ‘I get about twenty-one days of vacation every year, ten national holidays and fifty-two weekends. That’s 135 holidays, about one-third of a year. Of this one third, say, 20 per cent of time I go on vacations; that’s twenty-six days, out of which we use a car for long drives only half the time. That means, in a year, I need a big car only for thirteen days. I will just rent a car then. Isn’t that simpler than owning a big car for the whole year? From a status perspective, it doesn’t make a difference to me whether I drive a big or a small car. My family is happy and I am happy.’ We drank our tea in silence for a few minutes. A group of foreigners carrying powerpacked cellphones entered the café a little later. Raj looked at one of them and said, ‘Look at those cellphones. Each of those has fifty to seventy-five features. Now, how many features do we actually use? Contacts, calling, SMS, calendar, photos, music, alarm, e-mail and games – nine. That means we don’t really need a cellphone with fifty features. But can you find me a cellphone with these nine features in the range of Rs 1000 with a qwerty keyboard and a decent screen? No! Every business is pushing us to consume even when we don’t want to. The more we spend the better it is for the economy. So, if we take a credit and are buried under loans, the country will do well. We’re becoming a spending society.’ I said, ‘Basically, you’re on a simplification trip.’ ‘No, not on a simplification trip,’ Raj replied. ‘I am on a keeping-happy trip.’ ‘Keep your needs basic and life will be peaceful.’ He nodded. ‘The same applies to eating. Keep it basic. We sit at our desks most of the day. We have sedentary lifestyles. We just need half the calories we consume every day. I didn’t join a crash course to lose weight. I just reduced my intake. I thought I would faint if I ate less, but I actually became more alert.’ I said, ‘So, the secret to keeping happy is no loans, a small car and eating less?’ ‘Yes, these are good starting points. Happiness is a relative concept. Find out what makes you happy and do it. If you are not happy with your job, quit and do something that you like doing. If you are not happy with the company you keep, move on, make new friends. If you are not happy with the life you are leading, then bring changes to your lifestyle. Happiness is an internal stimulus, irrespective of what happens externally. If you choose to be happy, nobody can stop you. I chose to be happy.’ He continued, ‘There are so many things we can do to be happy. Make it a point to spend more time with the important people in your life. Just like the way we eat to sustain our bodies, we have to take holidays to rejuvenate our minds. Combine Friday with a weekend and get out of town. Pick up a hobby, build a life outside work.’ I said, ‘Yes, easy to say, but implementing is tough.’ ‘I am an average guy,’ Raj replied. ‘It’s working for me, I am sure it will work for others. All it needs is a little self-control and people will be a lot happier. Once you start cutting the strings that pull you down, you will automatically soar. Trust me and try it.’ I smiled and said, ‘Yes, I will.’ And I did. The first thing I did was clear all my loans and I truly felt as if there was nobody in the world who could hold me down. Next, I put aside a small amount for emergencies, stopping griping, quit a well-paying job, became a consultant, started writing, and began spending more time with my son; you have no idea how happy I am. Life really is beautiful. The other day, my friend Zafeer Ahmed told me that he’d bought a house after taking a loan – Rs 50 lakh – from the bank. ‘How will you repay it?’ I asked him. He said, “I have to pay installments for the next twenty years.’ ‘So, you will work for the next twenty years.’ He thought for a while and said, ‘I never thought about it. Now you are scaring me.’ ‘I am not trying to scare you,’ I reassured him. ‘Make sure you plan in such a way that you repay the loan as quickly as you can… maybe in the next five or seven years.’ Zafeer nodded. ‘Yes, Prasad. That is a very sensible suggestion.’ He has now come up with a plan where he is planning to pay a portion of principal every month and this is in addition to the EMI. Plan it out and make life easier. After all, we all have only one life to laugh, enjoy and make the best of.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 06:17:21 +0000
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