Uncle Bernie would say "Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get."
Long ago I had a beautiful dream…..
Most of us want to make it big in life. We want to be famous and successful. We have the passion and drive but perhaps not the means to do so. Growing up in a third world country, we are overwhelmed by the poverty and squalor around us. We compete to excel academically because we have to traverse the well trodden path and become a doctor, engineer, chartered accountant, business or an IT professional. After all, these professions guarantee that we fulfill our roles as bread-winners of our family. We do not want to be part of poverty and so we aim for mediocrity. Soon our dreams are forgotten and we aspire for salary packages, bonuses and job security. The daily grind crushes any passions of our mind. Our thoughts cannot cross the threshold of “security”, our imagination is stifled and we dare not dream. We are grown ups now!! How can we waste our precious (and limited) time in such trivia? Our time is better utilized thinking about the returns on investments, latest value of stocks and other such “important” matters that comprise our daily life. Remember we have achieved our aim to beat poverty. Our lives are comfortable and who wants to get out of the comfort zone? We have reshaped our dreams and are in control of our destiny. We have perhaps redefined making it “big”. We have indeed made it big in our comfortable little world. After all, any reasonable person would adapt to the world. Uncle Bernie would say "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
We worship achievers, devour every sentence pandered by print media on our favorite celebrity, ogle at their pictures on newsstands. Do we ever pause to think that these are ordinary people who dared to pursue their dreams? Let’s travel down memory lane, navigate through the cobweb of life already lived and revive those precious “silly” dreams. Let’s chase those “silly” dreams, let’s live life again.
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Great post! You have addressed a very important issue which is probably relevant to anyone trained in the Indian education system. Our current leading institutes have become the hiring ground for software enterprises and students, instead of pursuing their dreams, get absorbed in any one of those after graduation. Most of them end up doing something completely different from what their degrees train them for. I don’t think the fault lies primarily with the students. It is a result of something deeply rooted in our culture: lack of encouragement to become independent minded. And there are ample examples of that in our society: from over-display of reverence to the elders to being snapped at in schools or elsewhere if you ask too many questions. It’s always risky to pursue your dream even where the cultural atmosphere is conducive to free thinking; for you might discover you don’t have the winner’s luck and/or the talent that is necessary to be successful in your chosen field. In our country most do not even put themselves face to face with that question. Thanks for a very enjoyable post anyway.
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