Delusions of Grandeur

                                                 These days I am quite depressed to observe how and where my career has been heading for a long time,  more so when I know that I am the one responsible for all that and I have been helpless about that. Life has been a trading of interests for some intangible social benefits. Six years back, I settled with civil engineering since I got it in a reputed college when mechanical was something that interested me. I could not afford one more year for what I wanted. By the end of three years, somehow I liked some of the subjects in civil engineering and wanted to continue doing masters in it from US, but hesitated since I had a job offer in hand and that was recession time. So this time, I let the investment and job security concerns worry me. Two or three months into the job, I felt both technically and monetarily a career in civil engineering was not at all a rewarding one and I found a way to get out, to prove myself again, to study with the best minds of the country and then embark on a lucrative profession. That was writing CAT and getting into an IIM for MBA. This time interests and strengths didn’t matter. I just fancied the idea of hobnobbing with the best minds of the country and listening to intellectuals from various walks of life and finally being looked up to as an IIM grad. After slogging hard for one long year, I have somehow managed to get into a college, not the one I fancied all the way, but the one where I have an equal opportunity to get into a lucrative job. Now I am not any less excited about joining it for the plush job I may get after two years. I feel sometimes that my priorities have changed from time to time but my interests haven’t. When I pause and think whether I am cut out for what I will be doing in future, I get confused and worried. I must admit I was passive all the way for not seriously pursuing what I wanted. Since I don’t like taking all the blame, I would like to put half the blame on this society and pathetic education system.

                              The constraints and factors that changed my direction several times are not too trivial to dismiss. Time, money and social status are slowly getting hardwired in our minds as scales for measuring one’s success and becoming determinants of one's career goals. I think everyone's life is pretty much designed in the same way. Designed on the basis of how much money we want, how quickly we want, how high we want to see ourselves in the pecking order of the social status. A nice flat in a metro, a luxury car, a high paying job in an MNC and a timely marriage are the walls to fend off society's apprehensions about us. These are our ends and they have become more important than the means. I don’t get how many people take up civil services to bring about some positive change in the administration of this country, how many give first preference to computers or electronics engineering if not for the software boom all over, how many desire to do MS in US if they are not allowed to stay there long after they graduate, how many wish to work in foreign banks if not for the huge pay packets. Maybe it is simple supply and demand economics at work. But economics should not be meddling with people’s career choices I think.

                             Another thing is our sham education system which puts liberal and creative arts on the back-burner and force feeds us with what sells well. We are not encouraged to read a book, paint a picture, or play a sport all our lives. Halfway through the career if one realized that he was good at something like literature, history, politics, music, or dramatics, he would not have much to do about it. He would be stuck in a vacuum not being able to do what he wanted and not taking interest in what he did. I hate the thing that I haven’t been learning anything with interest for the last two years and still getting away with it because of this false sense of security or purpose acquired from working in this company. I think there are many more phonies around, who do their day to day work halfheartedly or mechanically and still feel some sense of purpose and pride for themselves. What’s the pride and purpose in doing something that you are asked to do instead of doing what you love to do. I call it delusions of grandeur.