Thursday, May 29, 2008

What am I after?

Today I'm in a terribly philosophical mood and quite naturally this post will be loaded with philosophical blabberings... So...

Caution: Extreme philosophy ahead!

A question that I had/have for a quite long time is "Will I ever be satisfied? What am I after?" Strictly speaking this is the question that leads to self revelation and this is the question that led Buddha to quit his empire and Swami Vivekananda to become a saint (ok... I'm not comparing myself with them... Just a continuity folks... :D)! I'm not into the question of what am I in this universe and all that... I had been through it but at least now I'm not into it.

My search is for something that could keep me satisfied at least for a while. You know... giving me the feeling of having done something good! Something that I can call an achievement in life. I don't want to be a 'yet-another' in the list. I did my engineering (yet-another engineer), I joined a multinational IT company (yet-another software engineer) and I came over to US on a deputation (yet-another onsite coordinator). If I continue this way and turn back to take a look at the path I've travelled perhaps 10 years down the line, I'm sure I wouldn't be happy to see a 'yet-another' loser all the way.

The basic reason behind all this distress that I could figure out is just one thing - I never loved what I did. I mean, just because I can write software it doesn't mean that I'm the best fit software engineer in the market and in the same way, just because I didn't prefer any other Engineering departments, Computer Engineering is not for me. Somehow the IT flood has drifted me away totally and until I started my work, I always believed I did the right thing and the society gave me all the encouragement to believe so. Even today, I don't find any hesitation to introduce myself in public and tell them what I do for living but if you ask the libran in me to rank me from the achievements standpoint, he wouldn't give me anything more than a '0'. If I try to assess what could make me happy I'd say some form of creative business, some line of work that lets me be innovative and completely free, arts perhaps... But there are two important negatives there. First, is there any guarantee that I'll be happy once I start doing one of these? No idea! What is the probability of being successful in the eyes of the society? To make the lengthy question short, can I make a lot of money? There is hope and scope but no guarantee.

I saw this interesting video on YouTube that talks about risks and defeats and stressing the same old point -"failure is the stepping stone to success"



But the world has had a million unknown Jordans, Edisons, Disneys and Lincolns; and the very education that I spent a major portion of my life on, says that probability of an event is the best guide to choose a path... Now, which way am I supposed to go? Be a loser within myself but a winner for the society; or risk everything and give my intuitions a shot? The creator has decided longtime back and I'm waiting to see if it's bestowed upon me any sooner!

4 comments:

ybr (alias ybrao a donkey) said...

Philosophical moods are just interludes between one earthly mode and another earthly mode. Vivekananda had experienced that, i.e. the mood of 'aham brahma asmi' between one moment of eating turtles and another moment of eating turtles. Hence, please do not worry very much.

Here is a blog of 188 posts with proof from his Complete Works: 188 carefully analysed blog posts on theory and practice of Swami Vivekananda.

ஸ்ரீனிவாசன் said...

hmmmmm, When u r chasing your dreams, the other things doesn't really matter. anything is considered as failure until you stop working for it....till then, u r moving towards ur dreams. now you decide !!!!!

கவிதா | Kavitha said...

first of all do you know what is your dream? ..do u have any goal in your life? what are you? what you want to be? ...when you find and try for it.. then apply it in your life..then you will find yourself satisfied..

Agni said...

@Kavitha

What I am is 'yet-another-software-engineer'. What I want to be is the best enterpreneur. But the path between these two is not just filled with financial obstacles but also emotional and social obstacles. That's where the problem lies and that's what I talked about... :)