Vices of the Past: Taking Too Much, Losing Shame, and Going Too Far

I had been in US for the last four years and earlier in India for five years. If I observe all this time and setting, I delivered extreme high performance through out. In my quest for the relentless pursuit of keeping myself busy, keep working hard and most importantly serving one and all, I gave in myself regularly to routines which are out of normal. Along the way, something gradually kept building – I am taking too much from the opportuntities given, I kept on operating without having anything to an extent of losing my shame and I had gone ahead frequently keeping my own security in question. The last one year brought these three side effects to the fore and the time has come now for a full revelation after hiding for long. When you take too much, you simply lose respect from the source – as simple as that. Always strive to give more than you take, if you want to prevail. Men will laugh behind you and you become someone without seriousness attached. I will give the examples I can which kept on building in magnitude as time rolls on – plainly bad practices nurtured which can’t be relinquished easily but keep on coming in the flow as a habit. To tell about this, I was given a software job in US and it would have been respectful if I stick just to that but I am extremely extracurricular – involves in everything else other than just doing my job. Once evening sets in, I ventures out for work – doing different things as a daily practice. Once weekend comes, I frequents visiting new places and write two blogs every week. I remember early in my onsite stint – I went out of station to visit new locations outside of Chicago every one month. In a year, I might end up visiting 8 to 10 new places. This included booking flights to New Jersey, Las Vegas, San Jose. I attended two great tech conferences every year for the last three years. It might be great for the conference but what about the source that gives me space and permission to venture ahead doing something extraordinary and my little house and those living along with me that empowers me and shares the burden. I am simply ‘taking too much’ from all these sources which give me strength. One year, it might be fine; second year, you get some harsh words; third year, you lose respect. And I am running into my fifth year of US life with similar style of operations and ever increasing in magnitude. It will be great for the external world for all the service rendered but the process followed is dubious and temporary but not long lasting. I am grateful for all my managers who gave me opportunities to shine at various instances and who became the biggest sources of strength in serving the greater world. The end result might be bad in leading to conflicts, loss of respect and terminations etc. but those are all the calculated struggles we need to take up for attaining something bigger and better. If I remember about this taking too much syndrome in the recent stint, after getting a project a month back, I attended two tech conferences and relocated to a new state and city in a short duration. The world will marvel at my speed of operation but in a way, I am taking too much and making relations bad. Just like a habit formed, it keeps on growing unless you take conscious efforts to control. 

In addition, the last year has also brought another side effect of overperformance to the fore. It is operating without having anything and becoming a source of shamelessness and embarrassment. This came out into open with huge magnitude in last one year before relocation. As mentioned, if you operate over years regularly and with religious intensity, you might end up doing great service to one and all but after a while it back fires on your own self very badly. Unfortunate, but I faced questions about such things if I had shame too many times from close quarters. These are not something great to write upon but the sorry state I had navigated to after living all through all the years for doing free work and free service. In short, I had emerged to be a person of indecent shamelessness as pointed out on multiple occasions and I am still standing as a wonder after taking so much of embarassment. I should have quit doing whatever and gone into hibernation, away from the physical world and out of this world for putting me in a bad shape but still continuing like a lifeless object. Simply, I had been left without protection and cover over the past year. The new life in a new location should hopefully help to ease these problems. 

Around the same time since a year, I had also began to hear to ‘Go Ahead’ with my work. Go ahead in US for a significant impact. In a way, it might be a bit risky or they see it as such and I even felt the same. Like I said, after many years of operating in a risky mode, the gravity will increase over time to cast a bad weather upon me. The hope will be I am in a safe zone working in a cool, good weather. I live safe through 'addition' and it is not overstatement or ambiguous but a hard hitting sad reality of a man who is in a spot of bother always. The actions of my mother protects me in living my life in US. There is always a crown of 'Gone' hanging over my head, waiting for an opportunity, hung by the people who watch and cry over me. In all visibility, it is a wonder I am working in US with so much boldness for so long at the greatest heights. When I am thinking about all these problems of magnitude and trying to make myself safe, where can I get time for some sane work? The work from office had me consumed with all these problems and I had a task at hand to look into. It is like a uphill battle or an air plane refueling, getting its engine repaired while taking off, all in dangerous upward climb of gaining altitude. There is no time for a break and recover but running while resting, working while sleeping. Things happen, not through moments of comfort and convenience but through perennial bouts of struggle and endless battles within. 

What stands before me now is not a collapse, but a reckoning—one that has stripped away illusion and forced clarity where there was once only motion. I see, perhaps for the first time without distortion, that relentless pursuit without balance is not strength, but erosion; that giving without grounding turns into silent depletion; and that taking, even in the name of growth, must be tempered with awareness, gratitude, and restraint. This new phase of my journey cannot be a continuation of the same intensity under a different sky—it must be a conscious redesign. I intend to rebuild with discipline that protects, ambition that respects its sources, and effort that sustains rather than consumes. The path ahead will not be about doing more, but about doing right—choosing depth over dispersion, meaning over momentum, and stability over spectacle. There is hope in this realization, because it comes not at the end, but at a point where change is still possible. And so, with the weight of past lessons and a renewed sense of direction, I step forward—not to prove anything to the world, but to finally become accountable to myself.