Leaving a 'sticky' legacy behind

My office desk was cluttered with some thirty odd post-it "sticky" notes. Each one bearing a quote, some wise crack or some thoughts that I may have churned out. It all began when once in a meeting I asked something silly and apologized for asking such a stupid question. To which my manager replied "There are not stupid questions". As I was about to find out, it was but a part of the whole quote which was "There are no stupid questions, only stupid people". I was so mighty impressed with it that I promptly wrote it down on a sticky note and put it on my cubicle wall at my desk.

I gradually cultivated this habit and kept adding wackier, funnier stickies onto my "sticky" wall-of-fame. People appreciated it, some found it amusing, some thought I was eccentric. But who cared. My collection was growing over time and I was running out of space. It was a museum of wit, humor, philosophy and I was its curator.

My aspirations of being its curator for longer were cut short by my decision to move out of the company. I saw an opportunity I could not miss and had learnt all that I could at current job to let go without any regrets. With just couple of days to go, I was glancing at these pearls of wisdom that I had either shamelessly copied or tried to put in words of my own. It was then that a really different idea came across my mind. I thought it would be cool to ask my friends and colleagues to pick the ones they liked and put them on their desks as a souvenir. So I sent out a mail to a close group asking them to come over and choose a sticky for themselves. Soon enough people were making their way to my desk and picking ones which they thought suited them best. It was interesting to observe who chose what because it said a lot about them.

One of the first ones to go was "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm", good choice I thought and could only have been taken by a person with a never say die attitude. My junior grabbed this one, "If I am so afraid that I wont even try, how can I say that I am alive". I saluted his spirit and hoped he will never be afraid to try anything in his life. Then came the turn of the newest member of our team. She probably wasn't even aware of my departure until recently when the news broke out. She pondered her options and settled for "Like scars add great character to the soul, dents add great character to the car". She must really love her car was what I thought before recollecting my own story behind this quote which I had penned.

By now the stickies were disappearing very fast and I was finding it difficult to keep track of who chose what but made sure that they took only one, so that others also could get a chance. People picked stuff like "We are drowning in information, but starved for knowledge" and "Ships in harbor are safe, but then that is not what ships are built for", but what disappointed me was there were no takers for my very own stickies which had a hard hitting take on the management. I am a huge Dilbert fan and besides the comic strips if there were anything else which came even close were some of the stickies on my wall. I was waiting for people to pick "Proactiveness is when you send mail saying that you are about to sneeze. Initiative is when you tickle yourself with a feather first" or "You may think it is you initiative but the fact is you are a victim of your manager's delegation with credit taken in advance" or "The one who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on". I think people were steering clear of any controversial choice of sticky notes. Until someone hesitantly chose "Job satisfaction is just a temporary phase". Way to go man! And someone else picked up "Arm yourself because no one else here will save you". I smirked as I saw people shedding their inhibitions and making some bold choices.

Another of my juniors came to my desk and was almost immediately baffled by her options. She naively asked me which one would I choose if I were to give her one. I looked around the scattered notes and chose one for her. It was none other than the Vodafone jingle "Every morning I wish I could just play. Wish the mornings would just stay". Something befitting her naivety, which she gladly accepted.

With more and more stickies vanishing by the minute, I was left with only a handful. Late comers were in for a disappointment but hey doesn't the early bird get the worm?

When I sent out that mail to all, I had no idea it would turn out to be such a fabulous experience. Some were commenting on the wit these notes carried, some complimented me on my handwriting (read liars!!) while some were back for more as just one sticky was not enough for them. In some sense, I pondered, I was leaving a legacy behind, giving enough souvenirs to my friends to remember me by. May be I can start making a new stickies collection in my new workplace and hope someone back here will continue my trend. And I think I know just the person. If she is reading this, please take a cue. We all know how much you love your car.

It was almost seven in the evening and I had just few more minutes before I bade goodbye to this place. Maybe I will come back after a couple of years, but venturing out at this point is something that I must do. I took a final look at my wall with just one sticky note left. None other would have suited the situation more than this one. I was leaving my 'sticky' legacy behind and the last one of them read "Life is simple. You make choices and don't look back".

Holding onto souvenirs is a bad idea

You may deny it a thousand times, but yes we were on a date that day. You see girl, spending two hours with a guy you met a few weeks back, having coffee and then dinner is technically a date. But yea you weren't your usual self that day. Stress at work was clearly showing on your face and I would have wanted to cheer you up and have a great time together. But I guess something at work was still troubling you. After desserts the waiter graced us with the bill. See now this is the time when the guy has his chauvinism on peak display. He just has to flash his credit card or fish out some high denomination note from his wallet. But you wouldn't let me do either. I would have settled the bill but you insisted on sharing and to prove your point you left a hundred rupees note on the table. Lady that is a generous tip to pay at a not-so-fancy restaurant and I think I cut the waiter's joy short when I took it back. You wouldn't take it back either, so for lack of options I kept it with me.

Little did I know that that note would become a souvenir for me. A reminder of that first date with you and a forerunner of good times to come. Yes I yearned for a good time together and maybe a good future too hoping that things would become more meaningful between us. But that calling never came. You chose to move to another city and I knew I could not make a long distance relationship work. This is what I learned later : Proximity rules! You just can't drift away, try to keep in touch and expect to get back together some day. Proximity gives a chance to nurture things and be cautious when things go wary. But you were never to give me that chance, were you?

The night before you left, I told you that I still see good things ahead and that there could be an "us". I knew because I would have worked towards it but you had your doubts. I could see myself losing the ground. Denial was something which I wasn't fully prepared for. In an attempt to salvage things, I reminded you of our date and how I still have that hundred rupee note with me. I told you I would keep it with me for ever, never spend it and you could help me by signing your name on it. I would keep it as a souvenir with me for my entire life. I am happy you obliged but that happiness was short lived when I saw what you had written. "Best wishes ... " is all that you could come up with ... making all my previous words seem empty.

That should have been a final good bye for us. And I wish things could be that easy for me, but now that note had become my prized possession. I told myself never to spend it or damage it in any way. I kept in my wallet for good luck. "Best wishes" is what you wrote on it remember!

Years went by and every time I saw it I would be reminded of the series of events. No they did not trouble me any more. I had learnt to deal with it but yes the fact that I still held onto some weird connection with the past made me feel if at all I would ever have that courage to step forward and tread on the path life laid ahead.

And one day it was gone! A moment of shock was followed by a sinking feeling of how could I have possibly managed to lose it. As I later found out, my younger sister had taken it out of my wallet for some urgent need of cash. She wouldn't have known the price of that note. Not at all! It was priceless for a lot of reasons and now it was gone. I could have grieved longer but it was then I realised that holding onto it was actually holding me back. Learning to let it go was not something that I was prepared to do but I managed to cope with it. It no longer troubled me that it was gone now. I was indeed holding onto it for no real reason. Just an urge to dwell in the past and escape reality for some time. I was not angry at my sister for touching my stuff, I was not blaming fate for turning out things the way they were now and I was not yearning to get back to what was before.

I have come a long way since I had tough luck with love. Time heals and things change but this therapy works only if you don't have that urge to hold onto anything. Memories, memorabilia, gifts, cards ... nothing is worth holding onto when it is all over. Learn to let go. Seems difficult but not entirely impossible.