7 years ago in March 20th 2007 final day of our
public exams the last day of high school. “Machi (the way of calling dude in Tamil
Nadu), all the formalities done now where do you see yourself in 5 years?” asked
one of my friends Krishna Prasad standing outside the school gates. We were all
like ok that's not the best question when you had just finished one of the
craziest exam series which will literally change our lives. (At least that's what
we thought at that age.) We were all like this and that bla bla bla going
around the group. Reality strikes harder
than a fabulous exam results and it struck our lives in 3 months and most of our futures changed.
2 years into college and we had the same question and the weird
guy to ask the weird question this time was me. Talking about the future is
always exciting even though we might be the dumbest person in the group. Everyone
was like again bla bla bla bla again. It all looked so cool that day not
realizing what exactly we were talking about.
Our life’s choices become drastically different influenced
by the circumstances of the day, to state the least daunting pressure on the
choices we make. Everyone’s perception of life changes as we grow we all wanted
to be pilots one day, then astronomers, may be a social activist, then a crazy
scientist, a teacher may be, the list goes on as we get influenced by the
amazing people we experience in our day to day lives to the people who motivate
us through the news we hear. But where did things go wrong? Why suddenly every
one of us just started working in the IT/services industry (at least in Madras and in India) and
whatever the local influence was. Yes, it is intelligent to adapt to the
demands of today but are we missing the point?
Weren’t we fighters? Aren’t we explorers? We always talked
about fighting to figure out our lives and not taking no for an answer. Will
this generation be content with the choices we are making with our lives? This
doesn’t end there and that's the worst part of the problem. Some of us follow
our dreams, break away from the system and explore. When I went back to
research after working in IBM for a year my parents asked me what you are going
to do, I told them a PhD, a postdoc and then become a professor one day with so
much confidence. It all began there…..
We all see successful people like Professors and Scientist
being a Graduate Student and we walk like zombies just following the trail.
Finish PhD, post doc, tenure.. Finish PhD, post doc, tenure.. Finish PhD, post
doc, tenure.. Finish PhD, post doc, tenure.. This is the only thing which runs
through our heads as a grad student. (If you are not a Grad student and if you
thought we think about amazing experiments all the time no you got us
completely wrong) Education was to help us explore the world, to apply our
knowledge to try and make it a better place; just think about it.
The first answer
which comes of a student these days on the very first day of school about a question of life after graduation
is, “I want to get a decent job with a decent salary.” Then the other answers
starts to come like, “Want to find a nice life partner.” Bla bla bla.. but most of the time we don't get
to hear something like, “I am going to put the knowledge I gained to help solve
the problems in my community.” The closed we get is like, “I am going to cure
cancer or AIDS.”, if we are Bio students.
Looking for a well-paid job, a life partner, curing cancer,
etc. are all ok but shouldn't this be an offshoot of a much more primary goal
of figuring out what we what to do in life to put it more bluntly, FINDING OUT
THE REASON FOR OUR EXISTENCE. Shouldn't we be following our heart rather than
just going into a degrees with pre-set goals and just becoming a prey to our
goals. We always complain that we don't have the freedom to choose what we want
to do in life due to family pressure but are we still making the choice we
really want even if we manage to break away from the system? Are we just too
short sighted just flowing successful people rather than trying to be
successful ourselves in our own ways.
Success is always very subjective word. If we
are satisfied by the choices we made all though our lives and die as a content
person, we will be the most successful people ever to walk on the face of the
earth. Will this generation be successful or regret the lives we lived?
