the swing of the pendulum*

A few years ago, I'd made a new year's resolution - the resolution was to not make any more resolutions. This year, I had to break my pact. I made some resolutions.

I'm tired of being a victim of circumstance. Oh, the market's slumping, oh, the economy is not booming as much as it should, oh, I have vasovagal syncope (I really did). What I've realized is that its one thing to feel down because you are a victim of something you have no control over, its commending to take charge and make change because you are down.

In 2001, I started at Cisco Systems as a Software Developer. I'd joined Cisco two months after it had announced massive layoffs. There were major re-organizations, but the conditions forced us to focus on what was important. I ended up being a part of a key project that was vital to the business and Cisco's customers. It was meant to be. I think everyone followed suit (Cisco was a NASDAQ bellwether/sweetheart). Everyone refocussed and reprioritized. The pendulum started to swing.

Maybe I'm feeling so positive because thanks to Shaherose of Women 2.0, I got to attend the Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner at Google last night. I got to hear from the likes of Irene Au (who I think is one of the most humble and modest executives I've ever heard) speak talk about their experiences. The panel comprised of several women luminaries who've set out to make a mark for themselves and the communities they serve. Some of them were accidental entrepreneurs. Some of them really demanded to be co-founders and retrofitted that need into a project, but either way, their presence on that panel was because of their accomplishments, which in turn came about because they were trying to solve some problem.

So with that said, I must say I'm pretty excited about this year. Sure the market's slumping, everyone including their dog is having this unhealthy (somewhat unwarranted) paranoia about everything, there's talk about an economic recession, but the situation's exciting because conditions like these make way for some new things to happen. Some people are going to step up and make change; new ideas, new prodigies are going to be born and discovered. The pendulum's starting to swing.

And let's face it, who likes a stationary pendulum anyway?

"ai"
* - Credit goes to my friend Jas Sandhu - Jas can relate almost anything in the universe to a pendulum swing.

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