Some time ago, my hostel mates were chatting in the late night, remembering our early schooling and stuff. While talking, one of us joined in the conversation saying," Ek fix paragraph milta tha, 'What do you want to become when you grow up?'" All of us laughed and moved on with our anecdotes. But a thought got stuck in my mind. If somebody had asked me this question 3 years back, I would have confidently answered that question saying that I want to become a "scientist". Would I be able to answer this question today?
After I joined college, confusion crept in my mind- "What now?". There are so many options to choose from, and I have no idea of the road ahead. "Screw it." I thought, I just got into college. It's too early. But I knew that was a consolation. I felt hollow, it seemed futile to do anything, to learn. meanwhile, all of my life went into a 'screw you' mode. One of the effects of not knowing what to do in life is you start doing random things. I started to take part in a whole lot of activities, neglecting my studies. My grades started falling, all hell broke loose. I started feeling depressed.
A doubt remained in my mind, there must be hundreds of millions of people like me. People in confusion, people who want to be recognized, who want to be revered, or wanting enough resources so that they don't need to look at the price tag even once. Everyone wants something that would make them different from everyone else, make them stand out, make them remembered for something or give their hearts a satisfaction of making an impact on someone else's lives. I learnt that I needed a goal. Something to aim at, a direction to go. I was foolish to think that college was my goal. It is far from that. I realized that college was only a platform. A platform whose foundation was being built all these years, and on which we have a chance to build a house upon.
A doubt remained in my mind, there must be hundreds of millions of people like me. People in confusion, people who want to be recognized, who want to be revered, or wanting enough resources so that they don't need to look at the price tag even once. Everyone wants something that would make them different from everyone else, make them stand out, make them remembered for something or give their hearts a satisfaction of making an impact on someone else's lives. I learnt that I needed a goal. Something to aim at, a direction to go. I was foolish to think that college was my goal. It is far from that. I realized that college was only a platform. A platform whose foundation was being built all these years, and on which we have a chance to build a house upon.
This made me go in a "deep think mode". I thought and thought on this topic for days. I found out a result- this is not the real question. The real question is- "What do we want in future?" The first question can only be answered if we know the answer the second question first. If we know what we want, we can find the answer to what we should do in the future. It is not easy to know what you really want. If you don't believe me, try to answer this yourself. If you think about it long enough, you will realize that you don't know what you want too (probably). If you can answer this, then you can judge yourself if you are on the right path. If you can answer this, you are probably on the right path.
All of this raised a question in my mind, am I the only one? I did a little survey among my batchmates, other people of my age, and I found out a disturbing (consoling for me) fact. Most of them didn't know what they were going to do with their lives. Most of them hadn't given it a thought on it. They were concentrating on a short term goal for some time, till they knew enough to decide the path to follow. At first, it seemed a bit childish to me to think so, but on thinking for some time, I realized that this was the only reasonable option available to my kind at this point of life. If I had set some short term goals for myself, some obvious goals that would benefit me, like "I should ensure a GPA above 8" or "I should participate in these four volunteer opportunities.", I would have achieved a lot more.
All of this raised a question in my mind, am I the only one? I did a little survey among my batchmates, other people of my age, and I found out a disturbing (consoling for me) fact. Most of them didn't know what they were going to do with their lives. Most of them hadn't given it a thought on it. They were concentrating on a short term goal for some time, till they knew enough to decide the path to follow. At first, it seemed a bit childish to me to think so, but on thinking for some time, I realized that this was the only reasonable option available to my kind at this point of life. If I had set some short term goals for myself, some obvious goals that would benefit me, like "I should ensure a GPA above 8" or "I should participate in these four volunteer opportunities.", I would have achieved a lot more.
So I took over the helm of my life, I started to limit my activities, balanced my studies and leisure time. At the end of the whole incident, I knew the importance of a goal, I knew the importance of a schedule, and although I didn't know what to do with my life, I knew how to find that out. There's your happy ending :)
Well, now you know the dangerous consequences of a late night chit-chat. :)
