Just like many out
there, I have struggled half of my life to start doing what I always wanted to
do. ‘It’s always the start that’s difficult’, they say. But, again they say the
real struggle is in keep moving; and I do agree. I have struggled to keep
moving through the highs and lows – the festivals, weekends, outing with
friends, vacation with family, a viral fever, ‘I need to watch this movie right
now’ feeling, not in the mood zones and through the quantum of other such
distractions and mental blocks. I realized that I had been vacationing for a full
month in my mind; when the vacation was just for a week in fact. It is hard to
not extend the breaks that we allow ourselves to take. Has it ever happened to
you that you set out a two hour leisure time amidst a very important task, but failed to resume for hours together till the task got pushed to the next day,
perhaps to the next week or month or year?
It has so happened to
me several times in the past – I started with a good sprint but soon went out
of the ‘Oxygen’- the drive; be it learning to play the guitar, writing a book,
exercising (this one keeps coming back frequently only to stay for a couple of
weeks), healthy diet, sketching … and the list goes on. When every other goal
of mine started to crumble down, I knew that it was the time to introspect. So,
as any millennial would do, I turned to google to find solutions. And, I did.
There were many people out there; reaching out to the people like me; sharing
the very knowledge and experience they had gained over the years. It was
overwhelming. I didn’t know who to follow- they all seemed to be making sense,
I could relate to every experience they narrated and every flaw they
highlighted and I was terrified. I thought I had gone beyond repair. How on
earth was I going to make all those things right for me? Suddenly one day, in
the midst of all that chaos, it struck me that I had gotten the very definition
of the word ‘introspect’ wrong. I had forgotten to look inside and understand
what I truly wanted from ‘me’ in my life. And, I started questioning my goals
and my approach towards them. Why did I want to learn to play the guitar?
Simply because many of my friends had guitars and they were ‘learning to play
them’. Why did I want to sketch and get better at it? Because, all my cousins could
sketch well and were so good at the art (it ran down in the family, you know!).
That was not what I saw myself doing for the rest of my life. I didn’t feel
passionate about these things. I just wanted to fit in.
As I was walking down
the path to discovering my true passion, I looked around at people I share my
space with; people at my work, my family and friends. What I saw was dismaying?
Were they happy with what they were doing in life? A handful ‘yes’, but many weren’t. Many of
them had let go of their hobbies as ‘earning the living’ had occupied a significant
chunk of their time. Many, in fact, most of them usually grumbled about their
work at every given opportunity. I remember having this casual conversation
with my best friend about work and life. She couldn’t make a head or tail of
what she was doing or going to do in her life, and neither could I. We both
were lost. We were lost in running - running someone else’s race relentlessly
for years and now unable to stop & run our own races. And, when I looked
around, all except a few were running similar races. What was it that had kept
them running?
The force in most of
the cases is what I call it the ‘Tagged Net Worth’. Every individual carries a
Tag. The net worth on this Tag is determined by the cumulative expectations of
people in the individual’s space. Many cannot let go of the Tag easily to pursue
the career of their choice because in many cases you will have to start small
and sometimes even invest in learning the skills. It might take a while before
you see the results. In the meanwhile, it’s a complete mess. (But, at the end
of it – it’s worth it!)
The other force as I
would like to call is “Illusory Titles”.
These titles are defined by a wave - a wave of demands and the worth
attached to these demands. It becomes a social norm to carry these Titles;
again for someone else – our parents, relatives, distant relatives and others. These
titles create an illusion of success – the success that is defined by others for
us. Many don’t dare to come out of this illusion; the illusion of happiness, social
status, and acceptance. Maybe they just want to fit in too or don’t want to be mocked
at for taking an unusual path. I met a
guy during my first ever trek. He was leading the trail for us. It was
awe-inspiring to see him take care of the tiniest details with hoards of
enthusiasm, this pure joy on his face and a real sense of achievement in his
conduct when we reached the pinnacle – and I witnessed what we call- Job
Satisfaction in its true sense standing there and watching him celebrate. I was
astounded to know later that he had quit his high paying engineering job to be a
full-time trekker. He had denied living in the illusion and decided to venture
into the world that stood true to ‘his definition’ of happiness. Have you found
yours?
