'Wood for the trees' Syndrome...

In English Language, the phrase 'Missing Wood for the Trees' means to miss the important events that happen around as you live your life focusing on your immediate surroundings. For example, a person who follows a specific ritual as he goes about living his life to suddenly find that his kids have grown up is 'Missing the wood for the trees'.

So is a person who selfishly focuses on his troubles without understanding the impact that it has on his family and friends and who fails to observe that his friends are staying away from him is 'missing the wood for the trees'. 

I was thinking about this the other day. 

If you follow my other blog, you will know that I work in the area of ERP. Currently I work as the Head - IT in a leading manufacturing and exporting firm. 

As a Head - IT, I recently signed an order to procure some services from a Vendor.

I did not think much about it. It was one of those normal transactions that I was supposed perform in my role. The whole process was very normal. I prepared the order, I took a printout, I signed it and send it to the Vendor.

Then it hit me.

This was the first time that I was signing a purchase order in my life. Ever.

And I was not signing the PO as another Signatory. I was the sole Signatory. I was the procuror. 

In my 25 year career, I had never signed a purchase order till now. This was the first time. 

Slowly, the impact of this hit me. Someone has trusted me to procure stuff on their behalf. They trusted my ability, my knowledge and my experience. They trusted me to exert best judgment in making this Purchase...

This was a big deal in my life.

Getting up every morning, going  to office, coming back, sleeping, getting up every....

I was going through life as a ritual. 

During this process, I was missing the fact that I was professionally growing and personally evolving. I missed the fact that each and every day, I was changing, improving, learning new stuff, and becoming a different person.

Greek philosopher 'Heracletus' mentions that 'Sun is new every day'. What he means that even though Sun rises every day, the world receiving the Sun has changed and evolved and hence, for the world of today, Sun is new. 

Similarly, as we go through our life, every day we are different person. The person who gets up from the bed today is different from the person who got up from the bed yesterday. We have changed and the world around us have changed, the people around us have changed. 

If we do not perceive these changes, we will be guilty of 'missing wood for the trees'. 

We will end up waking up one day and realizing that 'Things are not the same any more'. 

They never were.