Just another email...

A day at work as usual...trying to get some work done amidst all chaos and people flocking in and out of my office...things had been pretty calm over the past few days with work proceeding as expected...surprisingly so. In between some work, the usual ritual of checking my inbox took place...mostly its just to glance at some not so important mails which have little more than distraction value. Since the last time I performed this ritual, i had 2 new mails in my inbox...
One was that of a co-worker announcing that today was his last day at work...and the other from another co-worker informing the team that he would be out of office that afternoon. Both these seemingly nondescript emails took more than their fair share of my thought cycles...

First, that of my co-worker leaving anyway deserved a second look..after all if someone from your team leaves, it affects you. But this was different. The co-worker cited health reasons preventing him from making the commute to workplace and affecting his overall productivity...this really made me think...as we go about doing our daily jobs with so much ease...do we ever pause and think that we are indeed lucky to have the ability to carry out our duties without other hindrances...having a good nights sleep before work, ability to type away on the keyboard for long durations, our eyes ability to stare at a computer monitor all day long without complaining, no nagging headaches through the day,etc are all gifts that we relish everyday...but never ever think of them like that...all we care for is work..work...and work...This email was a nice chance for me to step back and thank Lord for allowing me to focus completely on work rather than trying to fight other obstacles before I can get my work started....So next time you feel stressed at work, take a break and make sure you do not do damage beyond repair...since the things we take for granted today may not exist tomorrow.

The other email of a co-worker taking the afternoon off deserved no more than a glance...but the co-worker also stated the reason for his absence. He had a funeral to attend...that of his friends new born...This threw me off completely. never before had i heard of anything like this. It was really sad and I was pretty shaken. I could not think what the parents felt like at this moment. Man, life across the street can be so different. As we come to work, and day in day out struggle to meet deadlines and follow schedules, often we do not spend enough time with loved ones or do not communicate enough how much they mean to us. Here is the fact. Projects and schedules come and go forever. But moments with loved ones are limited. We need to cherish and make time for people we care for since that is what "living" is all about...besides, emails like this greatly help in putting things in perspective. How small our concerns/issues become in front of such insurmountable griefs. Again, lesson learnt. There are far bigger and important things in life and there is someone out there facing a much tougher problem.

Surprising how some emails are not "just another email"...