Everything happens for the best ?

When was the last time you felt weak ? when was the last time you realized that you can never have full control over your life ? .. of course we all know it but if things work out the way you wanted them to - for a long period of time - then you start feeling, hey I decide the rules ! I have control over my life !! You start planning your future and then suddenly it hits you !! when you are completely unaware & unprepared ... its like someone out there wants to remind you, you are in the Matrix !! and you play by someone else's predecided rules !! You try to look back and redo all your calculations thinking that there must have been a mistake somewhere ... you must have done something wrong somewhere .. you try to debug the problem but after a long research you realize that ... there is no bug !! (there is no spoon !! remember ?) .. this is the expected behaviour !! what am I trying to debug ?

Why am I saying all this ? coz that realization happened to me just a few weeks back !! and I am glad it happened (of course ! now that its over ! duhh !!) Heres how ..

This new year 2006 had been going pretty well for me ... The job life had been good .. I was getting more and more responsibilities, the start-up I was working for, had been doing well or at least it looked like so .. I was getting more projects and was busier than before ! I had just been to India in Deewali 2005 and spent about a month ! Austin had been treating me well & I liked austin ! So all in all .. I was pretty happy, no issues whatsoever ...

I moved to a new apartment - bigger (and of course much higher rent !), better and close to my workplace on March 1st & signed a 12 month lease ... I threw away my old sofa & bed (they were in a very bad shape anyway !) and was ready to spend some money on buying a new sofa, bed and other furniture .. that day, I came back home a little early from office for unpacking and getting the new house in shape ... around 7 pm, my colleague called up and he is like 'Dude, you might want to come back to office" and I am like "why?" .."The company is closed down !!" ...I must say the first time it was damn funny but after a while when I found out that he was serious .. it hit me ! hit me hard !!!

What does this mean now ? what the hell went wrong there ? I am out of job ? i am out of job ? whats gonna happen next ? am I even allowed to stay here in US ?.. how many days ? what abt my visa ? what abt the money, the paychecks ? again, why the hell did the company close down ? why is this so sudden ? no notice no intimation no nothing ?what am I gonna say to my parents ? questions, questions and questions !! it filled my mind ... 'I am ok .. I can do this .. I can survive !!' I told myself but then looking back, the seven stages of grief were inevitable ... acceptance, anger, denial, depression, fear, guilt and shock. Exactly in that order !! It took me some time before I could get back in my senses and started thinking straight.

There it was .. the worst day of my life or so it seemed ! I was in US .. all alone .. with no job & a grace period of 10 days to find a new job before my H1 visa becomes invalid ! great !! 10 days .. is that some kind of a joke ? I didnt know what to do ... what I needed was a plan !! right !! a plan !!
Next day it became all clear ... we all spoke to a lawyer and here is what I had to do : I had to get a job or at least apply for an H1 visa transfer within next 15 - 20 days !

Next few days were so bad !! no time to sleep, no time to eat ... all the time just applying to any and every job online on dice, monster, yahoo hotjobs and company websites, forwarding resumes to my friends, calling up as many people as I could ... I mean it was just crazy ... But I must say things were not looking that bad ! I had a couple of phone interviews with Qpass, a couple with Amazon, one with Microsoft, Silicon Labs , freescale, Marvell and a few others within a span of hardly 7 - 10 days .. ! A few of them thru' contacts and (believe it or not !)a few by applying on company websites !!

so in all, things were moving .. but then so was time !! Microsoft on-site interview was scheduled for Wednesday March 15. That day was another great experience (check this out !) .. after a whole day's tiring interview, next day Microsoft called me up and gave me an offer !! My dream company was offering me a job !! How could I say no ?

So here I am ! A to be Microsoft-employee !! Truly believing that "Everything happens for the best !!" ... I could not have imagined a better end to this whole thing !! Looking back, I realized that I was at a curve 15 days back ... I could not see whats beyond and things looked pretty shaky at that time ...So does that mean I can see everything clearly now ? of course not !! .. so what has changed ? well, now I know that there will be more curves to come and I will be prepared for each of them ... I might skid on a few, I might hit a few obstacles on the way but journey wont stop ... its only just begun !! and I am going to enjoy every moment of it !!!