Memorial Day, Grand Memories, Doing Things

Memorial Day has a different meaning this time around. A colleague reminisces on his grad days. What not to say to a single friend and how to keep yourself away from shirking work. All these and much more in this edition. Tune in…

Lately I have realized how incidents have different connotations. A single event can be interpreted in a wide number of ways. A prime example in this sector would be Memorial Day. Traditionally we associate Memorial Day with some serious patriotic thoughts. There is a somber mood around as we pay homage to all those who laid down their lives for the country. I remember those years when Fred would actively participate in Memorial Day celebrations with his pals. He took me along on a couple of occasions as well. Those were experiences I’ll cherish all my life. With him getting out the loop with illness, I thought I would have nothing much to do this Memorial Day.

Relief came in the form of Andrew, Eleanor’s grandson. Their prep school will be organizing some festivities to mark the hues of spring. That is when it struck me that over the years, many associate Memorial Day to be a colorful day of spring! For many, the grave layers of this day have somewhat peeled off. The respect for the day is intact, of course, but they have injected fresh meaning and association with the day. Spring, with all its beach trips and ice cream, is now jostling for space with the colors of Memorial Day. It would be nice to note what Andrew’s school will put up! I’m headed there!

Ryan is in a different avatar on the newsletter this week! He’s not the brash co-worker that we deal with on a regular basis. Rather, he’s on a nostalgic trip. As the graduation season gets underway, Ryan is recollecting his grad days. If life can be fun for him at the workplace, you can well imagine what it was for him in college. Ryan is very proud of the innumerable romantic liaisons he had in college. He was boasting aloud the day the number of dates that he went out to. His listeners started their journey from ‘we-believe-you-but’ and finished with ‘no-way-man’! Ryan was unperturbed. He snapped out some photos from his social media profile to make a point that everyone missed anyway.

Finding no takers, Ryan took his grad day saga to some of the co-workers he feels he’s closer to. I happened to be one of the privileged. Ryan told me, Donna and Steve about his nightly escapades and how he managed to ace exams despite the distractions. None of us were suitably impressed because all of us knew that he was making it up. At the end of the day, Ryan has killer skills. If he spent his grad days with all these that he’s talking about, he just couldn’t have managed to get the grades that he got. But when it’s Ryan, logic and reason is better left out of the window!

After Irina pointed out the reasons why Megan could be single, Kate felt bad. If you remember, Kate is best buddies with Irina. So Kate felt a little concerned that Irina might have been harsh on Megan. Kate, on her part, decided to give a lesson or two to Irina! Kate told Irina that there are a few things that you should never tell a person who’s looking for a date. For example, Kate feels you should never tell the person to go out and meet people in the hope of meeting a partner. “That’s false hope and can be very disappointing when it doesn’t happen that way!” Kate said.

Similarly, you must never say that there are plenty of people waiting to be dated. That just makes the single person come across as desperate. Kate feels, “The biggest harm you can do is tell that they can meet someone when they are not looking!” Her reason is that unless you are conscious of what you want, you can never find it. Kate warns friends of the single person not to talk about their own successful love lives. “It only rubs it in that you are missing out on the fun!” Kate said. I think Kate has some point here. It would be nice to know what Megan says when the word reaches her.

I was wondering aloud the other day how things pile up because we don’t have discipline. This works especially for Adrian. Adrian likes to keep it hanging till the last second. You stick on a note on the fridge to remind him to clean it and he forgets. You put an alarm on his phone to do the dishes before he leaves and he doesn’t respond to it for some unknown reason! The result is that work adds to each other with some corollary force and before you know it, there are a whole lot of things waiting for your attention. And that could be the time when you least want to do it.

I shared this rather thankless situation with Sarah. It’s not for Adrian, but for myself! I’m guilty of leaving things till the last second too. Sarah told me that I must make an effort to do the little things on a daily basis. Sarah says that working a bit everyday to keep the room clean ensures that you don’t have a garbage of a room waiting for you at weekends. It’s a tough act to put into practice, but not impossible. I would advice all you people out there to do the same. Making small efforts on a routine basis cuts short the herculean effort that you may need later. Try it out..

Here’s an inspirational Billy Graham quote to sign off this Memorial Day edition. This is another take on the same day: “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.”.”