Today morning, I came across an image which struck me on a deep personal level. Here is the image:
The human mind works in a funny way. Do something everyone else does for long enough, and you'll soon enough start feeling the need to stand out in some way from the rest of the pack. On the other hand, stand out in the limelight for too long and you soon feel the need to go running back to the safe comfort of the very same rat pack you despised not too long ago.
For a long time, I've always tried to do things in a way that would make sense to everyone else at some point in the future rather than at the moment I make them. Some of these gambles have worked beautifully, others not so much. But as they say, every failure is a stepping stone to success. Life has been a beautiful journey so far, with my friends and family having been super supportive of the choices I've made, even when they do not fully agree with them.
But I need to come out with a confession: I'm pretty lost right now. The future is now a term I use to refer to any day which is not today, with no certainty of decisions I've made over the past week, month or year for that matter. Don't get me wrong, lots of awesome things have happened over the last year (people who know me well would attest to that :P). Awards have been won, hackathons have been hacked through, lots of amazing people have been met, tonnes of awe-friggin-tastic places have been visited, and laurels have been achieved both in the academic world and outside of it. But the question still remains, "Is this all worth it?". Are friends who chose more conventional choices when it came to jobs (Infy/Cogni/Wipro), or lifestyles (Choosing to live with family/closer to family), or education (MBA post-Engineering, followed by a big salary consultant job*) really that much worse off than me and others like me who preach the path less taken? And the honest answer is: I don't know.... yet.
Steve Jobs famously said "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." But trust me when I say this: This is much easier said than done. The dots sure take their own sweet time to connect. And until they do, you really have no way of knowing how right or wrong your path has been.
In the end, maximising personal happiness remains a guiding star that resolves all those difficult to make decisions. Asking myself the question "If I do X, will I end up being happier in life?" before making big decisions has usually helped. Yes, I've passed up on things that a couple of years ago, would have made me jump with joy but now don't seem to be worth it simply because of the answer to this question ( LOL... yes, dear person who knows me, I am talking about the things you think I'm talking about :P ).
The bigger picture is still a big haze, but I'm happy that every once in a while, the universe gives hints that everything will be alright. And I just want to let anyone else who's in the same boat right now know that the seemingly lonely path we've chosen is not so lonely after all. Being lost by choice is a lifehack in itself, and while I definitely want to get to a point where everything suddenly makes sense**, I'm in no hurry to get there as long as my gut tells me I'm in the right direction.
* I just watched House of Lies, and I need to know: How much of that lifestyle is actually based in reality?
** Does this even ever happen?
The human mind works in a funny way. Do something everyone else does for long enough, and you'll soon enough start feeling the need to stand out in some way from the rest of the pack. On the other hand, stand out in the limelight for too long and you soon feel the need to go running back to the safe comfort of the very same rat pack you despised not too long ago.
For a long time, I've always tried to do things in a way that would make sense to everyone else at some point in the future rather than at the moment I make them. Some of these gambles have worked beautifully, others not so much. But as they say, every failure is a stepping stone to success. Life has been a beautiful journey so far, with my friends and family having been super supportive of the choices I've made, even when they do not fully agree with them.
But I need to come out with a confession: I'm pretty lost right now. The future is now a term I use to refer to any day which is not today, with no certainty of decisions I've made over the past week, month or year for that matter. Don't get me wrong, lots of awesome things have happened over the last year (people who know me well would attest to that :P). Awards have been won, hackathons have been hacked through, lots of amazing people have been met, tonnes of awe-friggin-tastic places have been visited, and laurels have been achieved both in the academic world and outside of it. But the question still remains, "Is this all worth it?". Are friends who chose more conventional choices when it came to jobs (Infy/Cogni/Wipro), or lifestyles (Choosing to live with family/closer to family), or education (MBA post-Engineering, followed by a big salary consultant job*) really that much worse off than me and others like me who preach the path less taken? And the honest answer is: I don't know.... yet.
Steve Jobs famously said "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." But trust me when I say this: This is much easier said than done. The dots sure take their own sweet time to connect. And until they do, you really have no way of knowing how right or wrong your path has been.
In the end, maximising personal happiness remains a guiding star that resolves all those difficult to make decisions. Asking myself the question "If I do X, will I end up being happier in life?" before making big decisions has usually helped. Yes, I've passed up on things that a couple of years ago, would have made me jump with joy but now don't seem to be worth it simply because of the answer to this question ( LOL... yes, dear person who knows me, I am talking about the things you think I'm talking about :P ).
The bigger picture is still a big haze, but I'm happy that every once in a while, the universe gives hints that everything will be alright. And I just want to let anyone else who's in the same boat right now know that the seemingly lonely path we've chosen is not so lonely after all. Being lost by choice is a lifehack in itself, and while I definitely want to get to a point where everything suddenly makes sense**, I'm in no hurry to get there as long as my gut tells me I'm in the right direction.
* I just watched House of Lies, and I need to know: How much of that lifestyle is actually based in reality?
** Does this even ever happen?
