Choices.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

To me, 2010 seems like a world exploded, a world in a grind.

While most people lost in the their individual lives find it difficult to keep tabs on all that is happening around the globe, are there others who are so lost in following the strides of the peoples world over that they aren't in a position to plot their individual location in this maze of progress because to them, every nook is pregnant with an opportunity and settling on to a particular enterprise is at the risk of losing out on what is better and what is actually ones calling?

A scary thought but one which, I think, many can relate to.

As the world becomes more and more connected, necessity no longer remains the mother of innovation. Innovation is now the child of possibility of necessity married to astuteness.The capability of an individual is no longer defined by a degree or the skill set ascribed to that degree, it is now defined by his alacrity, being present in the right place at the right time, systems supporting him and even providence. Therefore there is an explosion of choices and even though this is supposed to be a happy phenomenon, it brings tremendous risks in tow. Ironically the risk is the highest for the ones who can initially identify this possibility in the first place.

To me, there are today individuals of three kinds:

Traditional ones, these are those who made the right education decisions in the first place or made the wrong education decisions but decided to stick to them. Conventionally considered the most successful ones, they get stable jobs and keep moving in life. Stable salary, ecstatic parents, they may or may not love their jobs.

Untraditional ones, people who realize that they have made a wrong career choices but are quick to identify what really is their calling. They make a smooth transition and all is well. Stable salary, ecstatic parents and they definitely love their jobs.

Radical ones, even if they have made a right career choice, they will not settle for want of finding what perfectly fits. The catch is, they may never find it. So destiny for them is either one of the extreme poles: resounding success or state of utter confusion (ouch!). The radical individual can forget about salary or loving his job. The worst fallout of being a radical is the effect it has on ones parents. The utterly confused radical individual causes the parents to go into a tailspin of thoughts too on the lines of "What did we do wrong?", "Our child was so much smarter than Mr. Sharma's children, what happened to him?" So the domino effect is even worse than effect at the epicenter.

To me, there conventional median of success and failure is flawed. Society forces us to make these hollow norms our own forcing us settle at places which do no justice to our true potentials. The true benchmark of success is satisfaction and that of strength is character. None of the above three individuals leads a perfect life simply since room for such a perfect life has yet to carved and defined amidst false positives.