Saturday, July 29, 2006

What do you want to be in life?

Well there are some days when you start to think and keep on thinking about an answer which probably took you 3 seconds to answer in your childhood days. The most baffling question is What do you want to be in life? The answer to this question is the most difficult to find. I have asked this to many people and each of the answers have been so very perplexing. I believe most people are not aware of the answer to this question and they are as confused as the person beside him.
This question is the most common question on which students are asked to write essays on. Well I have also written many a essay on this topic. To begin with as far as I can remember back my first ambition was to become a pilot, to fly those supersonic jets and feel free like a bird. I don’t know how to define this, perhaps it was a romantic sense of freedom that kept calling me to the skies and probably trickled off this ambition. Then came a phase when I wanted to be a doctor. Well I am not sure why but perhaps seeing my aged grandparents suffering or moms frequent ailments probably made me think that if I became a doctor then probably I can reduce their pain. Then came a phase when I wanted to become a cricketer and/or a footballer. This did not last long enough as Dad blew this idea of mine from my head the moment he thought I was taking it a bit seriously. Probably his wise farsightedness saw my dim future in the field of sports which is largely politicized these days.
By this time I had grown up and a sense of rationality had developed in me and I had started to think about my future a bit more logically. I still remember in the class 8/9 I always wanted to be a historian. History was my favorite subjects those days. The old stories and the ruins of old civilization beckoned me like a ghost risen from his tomb. I used to think about visiting those places and work on finding the unknown periods of our pasts. This idea never lasted beyond these years. Then I landed in the mainstream of competition. I could think nothing beyond JEE and IIT. Well I don’t blame my thought as these thoughts were grinded in the common perception of a career. By this time I had developed a liking for Physics and after 12th I wanted to be a physicist. I took up Physics as well but eventually I had to pursue Engineering. Well call it my destiny or tradition I became an Electrical Engineer. Never knew what to do in life throughout these four leisurely years. Life was nothing but a rainbow in the sky. And in the end of my 6th semester I was picked up by a software company and thus I became a software engineer. Well everyone was happy about this but frankly I did not know what was going on. I had no idea of what I have become. I had no notion what a software engineer does. But since everyone was happy and I was getting well paid I became a Techie. At first money started pouring in and started leading the life that I had wanted but soon I realized that something is not right. I am standing in a no mans land and I don’t know what to become in life. After lot of soul searching I realized that actually I am a ship without a rudder and is sailing in the direction that the wind is blowing. I looked around and saw everyone doing the same. But that’s not what I had intended to do.
I had asked this question to many people whom I have met. But most answers are as hazy as the other one. To elaborate this with example; One of my friend told me he wants to buy a car by 2007 end. Well I just asked him then what? After you buy a car what will be your source of motivation in life? The answer was DUNNO. All of us have goals in life may be short term or long term but only very few have ambition. And thus the question-What I want to be in life? Keeps haunting us day in day out. I think if we have the answer to this simple question happiness and peace are just at arms length, so think and think hard.

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