After graduating with a law degree from Wits University, my carefree days ended abruptly. I entered the working world and got a job as a candidate attorney with one of the big law firms in South Africa. We had prestigious offices on the top floors of a modern skyscraper in Johannesburg city centre, and from our ivory tower we could see the city extend for miles in all directions. The legal profession was male-dominated, and I had high ideals of becoming the first female partner in the firm. When I started working there, I was the only female attorney — all the other women were secretaries. I worked hard to prove that women were as good as men.I finished my articles of clerkship (which took a further two years after completing six years of full-time study at university) and was appointed personal assistant to one of the senior partners. He was a distinguished gentleman in his mid-50s and had an elegant and sophisticated manner. I was in my mid-20s, still young and innocent to the ways of the world, having come from the protective environment of my parents’ home, followed by the women’s residence at university, and thereafter straight into marriage.My boss seemed to delight in having a young and attractive assistant, and he took me everywhere with him. I had long dark hair and deep blue eyes. I was tall, with the willowy bone structure of a model (I used to do modelling to make extra pocket money while I was a student). I was blessed with both beauty and brains. I loved clothes and dressed to portray the image of a young lawyer, with chic jackets, miniskirts, and fancy black stockings, which accentuated my long legs. There weren’t many young and sexy female lawyers at the supreme court, and I earned the nickname “Legs”.The environment was stuffy, stiff, and unnatural. We were expected not to let our personal life interfere with our work life, and even better, not to have a personal life, but to live for our work, as nothing else matteredI had very good training, and many of my colleagues were envious of me. It was a glamorous position, and my boss did everything with great style. I had entered the world of big business, and I was impressed and felt important. I was also naïve and vulnerable. I wasn’t used to such style and sophistication.However, underneath the glamorous and glossy veneer, all was not as well as it appeared. My boss was suffocating, and working with him made me feel claustrophobic. It felt as though he regarded me as his personal property.My second job was as an international tax consultant at one of the big accounting firms. Image and status were important to me. I would only work at elitist ivory-tower companies. It wasn’t good enough to have a job with some no-name-brand company.I felt like a prisoner serving time — eight hours a day, Monday to Friday, with a miserly three weeks’ “parole” per year. I lived for weekends and got depressed on Sunday evenings, dreading those inevitable Monday morningsWorking at top companies alleviated my low self-image and proved my competence and worth.The environment was stuffy, stiff, and unnatural. We were expected not to let our personal life interfere with our work life, and even better, not to have a personal life, but to live for our work, as nothing else mattered.I worked very hard and did very well. Once again, I had a great future lined up to become a partner, but once again, I chose not to follow this path. I couldn’t bear such a monotonous environment, with the same routine and being stuck in the same office day after day. I felt like a prisoner serving time — eight hours a day, Monday to Friday, with a miserly three weeks’ “parole” per year. I lived for weekends and got depressed on Sunday evenings, dreading those inevitable Monday mornings. I couldn’t handle the control and the stress. Too many demands and expectations were placed on me, and my health (physical and mental) started suffering.I managed to maintain an appearance of coping and having confidence. On the inside, however, I was not coping, and my self-confidence was shattered. My work experiences destroyed my faith in humanity and in myself, and it took me years to recover.Dehumanised and disillusionedThere had to be another way of living, because this kind of life was not worth living. All the money, status, and success couldn’t compensate for what I was doing to myself. Physically, my health was deteriorating. Mentally, I was a wreck. Spiritually, my soul was dyingI started to perceive the world as a hostile and threatening place. The business world seemed intent on trying to decondition your humanity — trying to turn you into a machine with no feelings. You were not valued as a human being. In fact, “humanness” was more like an obstacle to be overcome. You were treated as a product and not a person, and your value depended on your profitability. This is especially the case in time-based jobs, because time is money. There is never enough time, and there is never enough money!I took my career too seriously and got so stressed that my health started suffering. My body was a knot of tension, and I started getting severe migraines. I managed to get through the week with visits to physiotherapists and chiropractors, and then collapsed over weekends with migraines. The pain in my head was so severe that banging my head against a wall would have been a lesser pain. Though I was doing very well professionally, and once again had bright prospects, I couldn’t live like that anymore, so I resigned again.There had to be another way of living, because this kind of life was not worth living. All the money, status, and success couldn’t compensate for what I was doing to myself. Physically, my health was deteriorating. Mentally, I was a wreck. Spiritually, my soul was dying. I felt that I was selling my soul for a pay cheque and was no better than a prostitute in this regard. Money, money, money — these were the criteria by which we value our lives. We don’t realise how much we sabotage and hurt ourselves by what we do, because we measure the consequences in rands and cents.We are slaves to consumerism, materialism, capitalism. We have lost sight of what is really important in life. We cling to material things, which seem to be the only things that are real. Our lives are focused on money, success, worldly desires, and accomplishments. We seek happiness and fulfilment through worldly achievements and activities, but they do not satisfy the soul, so there exists a void. We seek to fill the void with more possessions and constant busyness. Always trying to grab things from the outside to fill the hole inside, but it is a bottomless pit.I was very successful according to society’s definition of success. I was well educated, with a law degree and a master’s degree in international tax law. I had top jobs with top companies. I was married to a qualified engineer who worked for a lucrative private family-owned mining company. We had all the trappings of success: an expensive house in one of the best neighbourhoods, a holiday house, expensive cars, and all the toys and accessories of the rich. We had everything money could buy, and we lived the life envied by many. All this, and I was neither happy nor content, unless I deceived myself. But on a deep level, it is impossible to deceive yourself.I wanted true happiness. But I didn’t know how to find it. It felt like I had lost touch with myself to such an extent that I didn’t even know what a happy life meant, or if such a thing was even possible.The environment was soothing, like medicine for a distressed soul. I was so happy walking on the beach, sitting and staring at the sea, taking time out to “just be”. This was exactly what the doctor ordered. I felt like somebody who had been drowning and was suddenly given oxygenEnd of an eraMaurice (my husband) and I made some radical choices that changed the future direction of our lives. We decided to leave the rat race and move to Plettenberg Bay, a small holiday town by the sea. Maurice worked for a family diamond-mining company, and when he wasn’t on the mine, we could live anywhere. He had his pilot’s licence and his own plane, and he used to fly to the mine, so it made little difference to him whether we lived in Johannesburg or Plettenberg Bay.Life was much simpler in Plett. The environment was soothing, like medicine for a distressed soul. I was so happy walking on the beach, sitting and staring at the sea, taking time out to “just be”. This was exactly what the doctor ordered. I felt like somebody who had been drowning and was suddenly given oxygen. I breathed in the beauty of nature around me, like I couldn’t get enough of it. I had been deprived of it for so long in the concrete jungle that I was gasping for breath. Now I had space to breathe. I was so grateful. We left a lot behind, and it was replaced a million-fold.Perhaps renunciation wasn’t that bad after all! It gave me confidence to continue on the spiritual journey. It took us a few years to get Joburg “out of our system” and adjust to village life. The family business was doing well, and financially we could afford to take some time out, so Maurice took an extended “sabbatical”. It was like we had taken steps of faith and now life was providing us with the opportunity to travel to the country I had dreamt of visiting for so many years. We finally ended up on a plane to India!My spiritual journey was beginning in earnest. Maurice was accompanying me on this great adventure. We were embarking upon a spiritual journey of self-discovery. We were undergoing a major transition and metamorphosis from material to spiritual beings, and our lives would be forever changed. As we took off, Maurice turned to me and took my hand. He looked deeply into my eyes. He had deep lines of worry in his eyes when he said those words to me: “Things will never be the same again.”Business Day