Let go to move on...

Have you ever felt free? Really really free? Unfettered, unbounded, untethered?

If you have stretched yourself to your limit and beyond to get a really really important project, and then finally gotten it, you are left with a feeling of exhilaration mixed with a sudden emptiness...

Do you know what I mean? It's a bit like the race is over, you are down on your knees on the tracks, you have won the gold but you are too tired to appreciate its worth! You hear the sound of rejoicing around you but you are disconnected from it all...

And then the project execution starts. And once again you are up-to-your eyes in work...designing, thinking, coordinating--all the tasks involved in delivery. You are one of those key people on the project who probably has the most knowledge of the client's requirements. You are important!

Then, one fine day, you wake up feeling miserable...feverish, achy all over, irritable and weak. And in your gut you know that you are really ill, more ill than you have been in many years...

Suddenly, by virtue of being ill, you are out of it all...

1. Mails you were sending are now being sent by someone else. 
2. Tasks that you thought only you could do are still being done, without any help from you.
3. Everything is moving on just as it used to. 

You suddenly realize that you are dispensable. I realized too! And like all humans, felt sad, nostalgic, a bit pained--all the gamut of normal emotions. 

Till something clicked, and I was free!

I realized I had done a number of things right and therefore I was dispensable. 

1. I had effectively transferred explicit and tacit knowledge that enabled my peers to take on where I left off.
2. I had created self-standing documents (course design templates and design specs) that anyone could pick up and use--even non IDs--making the process person independent.
3. I had reduced all dependencies on me.
4. I had effectively pushed everything off my plate. My plate was clean to take on new things, new challenges...

This realization brought with it a sense of release, of freedom, of knowing that I could move beyond to follow my passion...

If you want freedom to pursue your passion, let go! Let go to move on.