Decisional Snafu

Sometimes I wish I could move back to India, but then what would I do there? I would have to start everything over. Memories of India bring back days full of fun and bliss. I was much younger (yes yes even younger than I already am) then, and everything revolved around making it to the sports meet, dance club, elocution, TV, movies, friends, and maybe a little bit around grades. And maybe thats why I sometimes wish I could move back because I associate India with a sheltered life full of fun and merry and no vicious circles of life to get caught in. Now that it wouldn’t be just all that anymore, my heart strings still stretch out and tug at me with every thought of moving to India. Actually not just back to India but away, away to anywhere! I am just craving change, anywhere!

Its some sort of an identity crisis, where I have no idea where I am going. I recently talked to a friend, lets call him N. N and I talked at length about our academic achievements and more recently, the lack of any. Both of us were going through the same kind of issues albeit in two very different professions. He said to me then, “K, we are two people sitting on the same bench looking out at the world zooming past us. We took our eyes off the road and the rats left us both behind.” And I thought, thats what we were both trying to be, part of the rat race. I had always been defiant and very vocal about how I would never be a part of it, and yet here I was lost in it, now trying to keep pace. The same rat race where you are supposed to study hard, get through the bachelors, the masters, the PhD, the whatever, find a good sustainable career while trying to find the right balance between a job you love, a job that will pay well, and getting on the fastest train to that job. At 20 something if life feels like its already a rat race, what is it later on? Does the circle ever end? What if I made the wrong decisions and thats why its taking so long to get there? Thats the question that gives me the jitters and the heebiejeebies and the goosebumps, all that shiver-shaker stuff. I guess I am having a pre-middleage crisis. So much for the tiny brain to handle.

Then there are times I wish I could take a break, stop working and explore *other* things. I don’t know what exactly these other things are, but feels like there could be many. The spirit wants to break and fly away to do something different, get rid of the routine and that nagging feeling that somethings not right, get some fresh air and come back to a clean slate. But then responsibilities walk in, expectations start looming over, dreams, wishes, desires, all that are not mine stand in front of me and force me to keep going. All of this is making me lethargic, weighing on my brain, and I am doubting every choice I make about my career. N did not go where he wanted to but took a detour and now atleast he has his thesis to keep him busy. I still sit on that bench wondering where I am supposed to go. I look around and see people who are so passionate about one thing or the other. They write about it, they blog about it, they eat, sleep, and walk it. Then this devil walks around my shoulder, knocks on my ear drums and asks me what I am passionate about? Deep down I know what it is, but for some reason satisfaction and contentment elude me. Did I set the standards too high or even worse, did I have expectations from all the wrong things?

So much of what we do and the decisions we make are influenced by our parents, society, family, colleagues, friends, perceptions, expectations, and so on. I want to make some decisions myself. The problem is I wouldn’t know what decisions to make. Maybe one of these days, I will know.

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn. ~David Russell