One day a young Buddhist on his journey home, came to the banks of a wide river. Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him, he pondered for hours on just how to cross such a wide barrier. Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey he saw a great teacher on the other side of the river. The young Buddhist yells over to the Master, “Oh wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river”?

The Master ponders for a moment looks up and down the river and yells back, “My son, you ARE on the other side”.

My Note: Each of us wants to cross over to ‘The Other Side’ in some aspect or the other of our lives.

I’ve come across Entrepreneurs whose start-ups haven’t taken off and are contemplating the 9 to 5 corporate life once again and I’ve met corporate executives dying to break out of the 9 to 5 ‘prison’.

In my coaching profession I’ve seen youngsters wanting to make it big financially and I’ve met ‘Seen-and-done-it-all’ wealthy businessmen who are still searching for things money can’t buy..

‘The Other Side’ became most clear to me one day when I bumped into this friend of mine who would almost always be travelling. He was a senior person and his job required him to travel across top cities in Europe for months at a stretch after which he spent at most a week or two with his family in Chennai. I often envied his lifestyle, being a travel lover myself. I thought he was really lucky to have that kind of job.

But what he said to me that day stumped me. He told me how much he envied me and how he’d give an arm and a leg to get a work-from-home job which is how I worked at the time!

When I first started working in 1994, someone told me ‘The grass is always greener on the other side.’ Now I know, ‘the grass is greener where you water it.’

I am not asking you to quit thinking of the other side. After all, if ‘What-is’ and ‘What-can-be’ are always the same, there is no game in life.

All I’m saying is, whatever your ‘other side’, make sure it’s worth crossing over to, and when you do, enjoy the journey, because even if you spend the rest of your life shuttling from one side to the other, you will still be able to look back on life and remember how much you enjoyed the crossing overs!

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