What would Love Do?

As I re-enter the corporate jungle with misplaced notions
Where responsibilities and deadlines brutally overrun emotions
In the race-to-finish first in completing never-ending stream of tasks
What would Love do I begin to ask

Dog-eat-dog mantra is accepted and followed aplenty
Acquaintances are several while friends are scanty
As work precedes family, and intentions wear masks
What would Love do I begin to ask

In search for an answer I look within
Reach out to my thoughts and experiences akin
Would Love be stuck in the corporate world like an empty cask?
Would it not struggle to break artificial corporate shackles I ask?

Love would spread peace, goodwill, oneness, and harmony
It will soothe tense nerves and eliminate corporate cacophony
It will force people to be genuine and pull down artificial walls
Against odds and pressures, Love will survive jerks and falls

Love would bring people together and promote common route
Actions promoting oneness are ethical beyond doubt
Love will surely struggle to balance demands on one’s time
It will put premium on relaxation and value anxiety for a dime

In the end, I yet ask, what are we looking for in life?
Relaxation in plenty or toil and constant strife
Balance is what defines our character at work and play
Isn’t that what Love stands for, and implies in a way?

By Sunil Puri

(PS: This poem is inspired by a recent course I did in corporate ethics)

Recession Hits Close-to-Home…

Being in India for most part of my career, the phenomenon of layoffs and job loss was as alien to me as having bagels-and-cream cheese for breakfast. Well I always read about pink slips, etc., but somehow thought that such things happen to people “I do not know.” Hence when a friend and ex-colleague recently became one of the hundreds-of-thousands of casualties of the global recession phenomenon, I did not know how to react!

Never thought that knowing someone who lost a job due to a layoff will be difficult. Well as a friend, I want to do everything to help; as an ex-coworker, I also (strangely) have some feelings of guilt or remorse, but regardless of my feelings, I am not sure how to help. It is easy to pay lip-service and say things like – “may be this is a blessing in disguise” or “use this opportunity to find your true calling,” but it is hard to imagine the emotions that the laid-off person may be going through. God bless this “friend,” hope he finds another job soon, and I hope sanity returns to global markets.

This development has stroked a feeling of “urgency” in me. For the past few days I find myself thinking more often than before about my “Plan B” -- alternative career options, generating multiple streams of income, smart investment planning, bank savings, etc.

Never thought recession will hit so-close-to-home, but I guess this a sort of awakening…