My career search took a heavy toll on my life.
It's not that I am repenting, or brooding or complaining even a bit at my personal level. Whatever I did with my career, I did out of a conscious choice assuming full responsibility for the same.
I am only observing myself as a sensitive representative of humanity who - though did all the adjustments - never made a compromise in his life.
When I passed my high school, which I did scoring a rank in the national merit list, I had a question facing me as to which stream I should be opting for as the same would decide what career I would go for after I completed my education.
I loved botany and expressed my desire to pursue it further, but my parents and the principal of my school who was personally interested in me - I being the sole merit list holder ever from his school - dissuaded me against it favoring mathematics in its place with an idea of writing the most prestigious entrance examination for getting admission in best technology institute of the country, it being the epitome of success from the point of view of a great career search in the academic career of a student in those days (even now!).
I raised a feeble voice against their persuasion but they wouldn't listen to it, painting a rosy picture of my future career search in front of my mind's eye in case I got admitted to the best technological institute that my principal was eyeing upon for me and he was sure that I would certainly get through it adding another feather to the crown of his school's prestige.
I got taken in by his persuasive words mainly because I loved that man a lot. I thought, might be he was right in what he was saying as he certainly had a wider and deeper experience of life and its career search than I did; and thus I set in for mathematics in place of my heart's desire, i.e., botany.
Two more years of study and I wrote my prestigious entrance examination getting easily selected in the same. It was again an occasion of celebration for my parents and my principal, but I again expressed my desire to go for studying physics now in place of technology that I had been selected for in the best institute of the country.
"Have you gone crazy?" - my principal lovingly rebuked me as everyone else started laughing as if I had cracked some joke over there.
I thought might be it was really crazy on my part, and they knew better than I did. After all I was just 16 years old and didn't seem to have much experience of life as well as of its career search later!
So I joined the prestigious institute and studied there for 4 long years. Long, because technology was never my cup of tea but still I passed my exams very well and immediately got a real good posting in the defense ministry as a scientist doing research on the designs of war equipment for the Air Force.
But my heart was not there, where my laboratory was. Though I would turn out all the designs that the Air Force needed for its modernization in an efficient manner, they never became a throb of my heart.
And one fine morning I decided that the enough was enough and submitted my resignation from the job. I felt I had only one life to live and I was not ready to live it not on my conditions any more...
I said good-bye to the concept of career in life at all.
I never did any job after that throughout my life and kept employing myself in various different creative ways, which did a real great job of filling me with a deep and wide insight into various different aspects of life!
Flash forward: 35 years later...
My daughter passed her high school and asked me which stream she should be going for. It was the time of HER career search now.
"What's the love of your heart?" - I asked her as I went down the memory lane 35 years back.
"Shall I become a doctor? Go for medical?" - she questioned suggestively.
"No, you are talking of scope and not the love of your heart right now! Is it biology and zoology?" - I remembered botany in biology being my love at her age.
"No, I love life, and humanities, and art..." - she pensively iterated.
"Then go for that. Go for humanities right now." - I closed the chapter from my side.
She did. She went for humanities studying, again, in the best college of India; and today she is a promising dancer doing her diploma in advanced dance in a creative dance institute in Bangalore. She enjoys each and every moment of her day, dance being her real passion in life!
She thanks me for my suggestion given to her for her career search after her 10th.
