Eager to travel...But destination unknown!

"Life's greatest tragedy is not getting what you want but not knowing what you want." 

I came across a dialogue on similar lines in some English movie few days back. And couldn't help but draw a parallel with my life, the way it starts off towards a destination, only to realize half way through that it was but a mirage.

Previously I used to wonder when people complimented colleagues,friends with an appreciative “He knows what he wants.”  “What’s the big deal in that?”, used to be my take on such a comment. Don’t we all know what we want! Unfortunately, the answer is no. The road ahead becomes much more clear and easy to traverse when we have a clear picture of the destination ahead.

From school till college, it was somewhat easy, though totally predictable, following some standard norms. Easy because 'out-of-the-box' thinking was not mandatory and one could manage to get along without it. Score high in the standard ten boards,take up science,score still higher in the plus two boards,crack the engineering entrance and get admitted to one of the premier engineering colleges.

Did any of us take any aptitude tests at school to find out really where our interests lay? I remember I had taken one in standard ten and was kind of ashamed to disclose the results. Why you may ask? Because I had scored inordinately high in the literature section and the results showed a ‘marked aptitude’ for humanities. So I hid away my results.

Even in plus two classes,contrary to most of my classmates,I didn’t think it was an exercise in futility to meticulously prepare notes on ‘Great Expectations’. It was not that I didn’t enjoy my science lessons,but somehow I always had a soft corner for literature classes. So while my friends slogged away with equations and formulae, I found ample time to prepare my own set of English notes too, chiefly because I wanted my paper to stand out amongst the crowd, and I did manage it. I remember that after long exhaustive study sessions of Physics or Chemistry, I would want to take a break, but owing to time constraints before the exams sometimes even a fifteen minute break would seem like a luxury. So I found an immensely effective alternative – revise the literature lessons in that short period meant to be a break. It was like a double deal. I could relax and settle my frayed nerves without actually taking a break from studies, and in the process I had gained another revision of my lessons.
Four years of engineering college went by in a daze of excitement, each semester offered something brand new and absorbing. New courses, tough courses, new professors, demanding professors, some ‘piece-of-cake’ class tests where you could actually discuss with your friends and decide on the most appropriate answer, some ‘tough-as-nails’ class tests where you would,for the umpteenth time, renew the vow ‘I will start studying form next test onwards,God please help me scrape through this one’. It was a roller-coaster of a ride,enjoyable and educative.

Three years into my professional life and there’s never a moment when I don’t pine for the bygone days, sometimes for the sheer fun that I had and sometimes with a silent wish to ‘turn back time’ and hope to do certain things differently.

I have never been in such a state of confusion and uncertainty before and what makes it more distressing is my own inability to figure out what I want in life. The road ahead is akin to a dark labyrinth and I’m woefully incompetent to shed any light.

But I need to figure out certain things. I’m terrified of the word ‘what if’ and the feeling of helplessness and regret it brings along. So I have decided to jot down some points, rather some ‘pointers’ that will,hopefully, lead me to my ‘true north’. Maybe I can do a survey and ask my close friends to comment on each point, so that I can use their feedback to chalk out my plans, because time is running out. So here goes :

1.      I don’t want to sit in a cubicle and code or debug the whole day.

2.      I’m tired of onsite co-ordinators acting as ‘insufferable know-it-alls’.

3.      Even if I’m required to code, it better be explained to me in an interesting manner,as I am almost on the verge of hating programming.

4.      Hope someday I can code my way to a Google doodle, presently that’s the only code I want to learn.

5.      I need to return home with sufficient time to do stuff other than have dinner and go to sleep. I hate to see a pile of unread story books on my table.

6.      ‘Fun at work’ – I want to experience it before I grow old and devoid of all sense of fun.

7.      Can anybody give me any tips of how to prepare a resume for applying for jobs@Disney/Nat Geo/Discovery? Even an internship will do just as fine. Currently, my CV is a five page declaration adorned with words like ‘technical consultant’, ‘comprehensive knowledge’, ‘business modules’, ‘implementation’, ‘support’ and so on and so forth. Please help me write a one page document that portrays my passions.

8.      I wish to write well enough to see my name in print someday.

9.      I want to learn French,Italian,Spanish and German. Hop on a Eurail someday. (It’s called ‘travel’ you IT folks,not an onsite assignment.)

10.  Interaction with people, ensuring co-ordination are a couple of things I believe I can be good at and these two broadly cover a whole lot of aspects.

11.   Lastly, is there any realistic way to do all of the above?

Getting these points off my mind and onto a tangible surface is refreshing indeed; and will surely be handy for future references. Quite like my personal list of ‘Things to do before you die’. A small step at finding that elusive destination, a Pilgrim’s Progress.

Will I able to make it? Will I be able to find my passion and embrace it?

Like a quote in one of my most favorite movies Serendipity - "You know the Greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: "Did he have passion?". 

Will  I be able to live up to the wisdom of the ancient Greeks?

 “Who knows? Only Time.”