What do I want in life? is the most famous question we ask ourselves hell lot of time and keep it shut because of confusions and not a right answer. Answer to this question means you got a direction and need to work towards it. I am just not refering to answers like a millionier, a father, a mother..etc. With answer to this question I mean a direction a way out plan for ourselves for rest of our lives.
The truth is I myself still ask this question many many times. Sometimes mutiple times in a single day. Earlier everytime my answer was based on many constraints and influencing factors like friends and family members, teachers, neighbours, elders, and we see successful people around us. Those answers lead me where I am not but futher I want to lead on my own.
In 10th standard a teacher asked me what do we want to become. I wanted to say Doctor, but dont know the degree name (MBBS) so I looked around. When my friend said B.Tech, I said yes B.Tech. Then a little better marks in Math landed me engineering stream. When I was about to take engineering, again came the factor of Computers or Electronics. Yes because it was and is a trend in engineering and we consider rest of the fields as substandard, I had only two choices. I opted for computer science. After B.Tech I decided to go for higher studies, as I was not happy with the performance and knowledge in B.Tech.
I gave the best shot there and loved what i was learning, so was there in top 3 studetns in class. After that as everyone wanted a software job I ran the same race and joined a company. Felt like i am killing myself I moved out to teach but missed a pinch there too. Finally moved to PhD.
In PhD again I got that rythm and rocked it and had full fun with achievements in row. Scholarships, Awards and recognition was coming as if someone was waiting just apply. Got all big Schols and Awards during that time. Also made my frist internation visit. And not to forget the current job.
I am a crazy mover, I dont stay in one place for long time. I stayed in current postition for last 4 years and that itself is an achievement 😀 But during these last four years I asked myself a hell lot of time, what am I doing? Is the really I want to do rest of my life? The answer was no for many times.
I asked what do I want to do? that was hard very hard to answer, so I broke the question into parts to make it easy for myself.
1. Do I really want to do Engineering rest of my life?
2. If not Engineering then What?
Once I reached there life was easy, though not that easy ; ) . I n I born, I started taking pictures (photography), did research on cameras, started reading a lots of books and blogs ( though I read them a lot before too) traveled and saw different cultures. Basically I am and was getting ready for next plateform.
I am not a strong player as steve jobs, so I took a long route for the realisation of what do I want and need to do. I m not there yet but I am very close to it and I feel that from within. I dont know why I am still playing a very safe game.
With this post I want to ask you the same quesiton, what you will be if you are not an engineer? This is a good time to ask yourself this, you are looking for M.Tech admissions or waiting for results and you have time to discover what really you want from now on.
Do share your ideas in comments, that would help all of us to form an idea what do we want to do in life and what all we cand do 🙂
Wish you all a great luck and success ahead.