So you want a better job?

So you want a new job? Because it is more lucrative? Better benefits? Better work-life balance? Well, a choice between continuing to live your life as it is now, and dying to move on to a new place and the possibility of a new, better (after)life is not much different from choosing to continue in your current job and moving on to a new one. They are, in fact, eerily similar.

You don't believe me, do you? I understand. Even thinking about death can be scary. But in the interest of keeping this though-exercise as non-morbid as possible, let's assume that death is painless, easy, and instantaneous. Let's also say that you possess the ability to glimpse into the new life and see how it is expected to be. And by this I mean something like a YouTube recruitment video from Google, and not a pastor's interpretation of a religious book. These two assumptions take away the uncertainty and pain out of dying. Now you know where you are going, and you also know it doesn't have to hurt. What do you think now?

•   Both moves involve breaking existing ties. 

◦                  Once you move to a new job, you never meet up with your ex-colleagues.  Once you die, obviously (and hopefully) you don't come back to visit them either. 

◦                  You might bump into some of your ex-colleagues at your new job, when they also decide to make the transition. Or you might meet them in heaven or hell when they make the transition.

•   Both are permanent. 

◦                  Coming back to an old job is almost as rare and miraculous as coming back from the dead. 

◦                  Returning back to your old job in a relatively small time frame after leaving is more frequent, just like the possibility of reviving someone whose heart just stopped is a little bit higher than someone who died a while ago.

•   Both can mean making adjustments to your current lifestyle, and learning new tricks and skills. Or not. It completely depends on where you go, in both cases, and what you need to survive and thrive there.

•   You don't exactly know what you are getting into, sometimes in spite of lots of research. Your new job might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you, or the worst. You might be in heaven, or you might be in hell - well, in one case, literally and in the other, figuratively.

•   How well you do at the new place depends a lot on your actions in the previous place. If you worked hard in your previous job, displayed great work ethics, and leaned a lot of skills and new tricks, you will be able to get a good job at a big company and will do very well. All the hard work you put in at your previous (not so great) job will now reap dividends. If you have lived a noble, righteous, virtuous life, most religions promise you a great after-life. And the opposite is true too. It is called Karma.

Do you agree now? I hope so. If you still harbor some doubts, let me remind you gently that people do get laid off and fired from their jobs too, mostly against their wishes, and sometimes even unfairly when they have done nothing to deserve it.

I died again .... last night

Over the last couple of years, I have had a recurring experience at night after going to bed. It has always been when I have been transitioning from the state of semi-consciousness to the state of slumber. Initially, I refused to acknowledge this as nothing more than a dream, maybe a nightmare at best. But as the frequency of this experience has increased, I have begun to wonder if it is just a dream or a premonition of something in my future, a not so distant future. 

Let me recount the sequence of events from the first time I had this experience. I had gone to bed, looking forward to a bright, sunny tomorrow. I don't know how long I had been sleeping or how deep my slumber was when someone shook me hard, like my kids do to wake me up when I sometimes out-sleep them on Saturday mornings. I woke up with a start and opened my eyes.  I saw that I was lying on my side, with my two hands crossed over my chest. I took in my surroundings, the bed, the furniture, the room, the darkness punctuated by streaks of light from street lamps coming in through the open windows. Everything was in place, exactly as they were when I went to bed. It was when I tried to move my hands to reach out for my phone that I started noticing the difference. I was unable to move. I could see; but I couldn't move my limbs to touch anything. I could speak, but no sound came out. My mind was fully functional; but only I knew that. There was an absolute silence engulfing me like a shroud. I felt like I was trapped in ice, sans the coldness, or in a vacuum-sealed room made of transparent glass. Or a coffin with a see-through top.

An uncanny feeling of desperation and helplessness crept over me. My brain was telling me to scream out for help; it was telling me that if someone gave me a push, I would get out of my frozen state and this nightmare will be over. I started calling my wife with all my might. I called her name and asked her to shake me hard. Over and over again. In different languages that I knew she understood, out of desperation. She didn't respond; she was oblivious to my trauma. After a few attempts, I finally realized that no sound was coming out of my mouth. My wife couldn't hear me. She was right there, but she couldn't hear me!

At that moment, as I was succumbing to despair, as the fight was slowly leaving me, I finally realized that I was dead. That could be the only logical explanation of what was happening. I had died, and I had not been prepared for it. It was over; I was moving on, whether I wanted it or not. I - the real me, the soul - had left my body. Panic started setting in. I tried to struggle in vain. A plethora of uncoordinated thoughts raced through my mind - thoughts of unfinished actions, unspoken words, incomplete amends, and unfulfilled promises. There was sadness, there were regrets, there was fear, and rage brought out by helplessness. There was also an understanding that was seeping in. And then there was this blinding light - very bright, but very soothing, like an ugly deception that was transforming into a welcome reality. 

And then very suddenly, someone reached out and shook me really hard, bringing me out of my reverie. It was over. The noises came back, loud like the climactic crescendo of the Bolero - the chirping of crickets, the humming of cars on the highway, the rhythmic breathing of my sleeping wife. I moved my limbs again and again to confirm that I was able to move; I made a loud, guttural noise to confirm that I could hear myself; I sat up and grinned like a fool, beads of sweat on my forehead, my heart pounding like a drum, relief gushing over me and making me shiver uncontrollably. I was not dead.

That was then, two years ago. Since then I have had this episode several times. But now I am wiser. And more resigned. Now when I get into that state of death, I don't struggle and fight. I just wait to see if this is the end, or something or someone will jolt me back to life. I am convinced now that what I have been experiencing has been a sneak peek into the process of dying - what a person experiences and feels when he is transitioning from the mortal world to the afterlife. It is pretty scary, especially if one is not ready to die when death comes calling. 

Maybe I am getting closer to the end, and this is nature's way of preparing me for death, for the ultimate act of letting go of my most precious material possession - my body. I don't think I am ready yet, but at least now I know what it will be like. Death is like a scary horror movie, and my experience is like a very well-packaged trailer. I hate horror movies. I do.