As we all know the five elements of nature are Space, Wind, Fire, Water and Earth. It is believed that all matters are composed of these five elements.

I write this article to express each phase of my life through each of these elements as follows.

Birth - College graduation (Master’s degree) - The Wind: The reason I attribute this phase to wind is because of its freedom and ability to travel anywhere. I call this “exploration”. I am glad that I explored fields such as education (Electrical engineering, Data Scientist), literature(Tamil and Sanskrit), sports(cricket, chess), photography. Although, I haven’t been very successful in any one of these yet, each of them as taught me a lot and shaped me for the better.

My exploration phase is not going to end here though, I would like to take it deeper now, rather than broader.

First five years of industry career - The Fire: It’s always going to be exciting entering the industry when coming from a college, you want to have the fire inside you to perform well, to be highly self-motivated toward your goals and dreams. Even though five years is a small term, I personally feel that this phase is going to be a make-or-break for my career. If I get this right, I’m all set.

Also, I’m going to face much of my humiliations during this phase and I would like to take that up like the fire that never looks down.

Next 15 years - The water: Most of us would read the quote of the great Bruce Lee, who says be water my friend. Water, as we know, has this remarkable quality of taking the shape of any container. This represents flexibility. You are going to have a family during this phase, you don’t want to become a workaholic, you want to be flexible to both sides of your life and bring the best in them.

Late 40s till retirement - The space: As we all know, space is something that represents infinity. Whenever you are lost, you look up at the sky with a ray of hope. That’s the reason I picked space for this phase. You want to live where you serve as a guide to the upcoming generations, you want to share your knowledge and experiences to those fires to better shape them. Also, you want to have infinite knowledge in the business that you do, which also helps in guiding other people. Of course, you want to age gracefully and feel the youthfulness of your grey hair.

Retirement till the end - The Earth: This is going to be one of the most beautiful phases of my life. We know the earth is the home of billions and billions of creature. It gives food, shelter, and whatnot. That’s why you want to be the earth. You try to help as many people as possible. Get yourself into more of philosophy, charity, and dedicate your life to the wellness of others.

We do want all five of these elements of be expressed in ourselves on a daily basis. This article is to show how I would like to have each of these 5 elements dominate each phase of my life.