Friends
Born and brought up in Trivandrum, I have seen the craze for engineering and medicine at its helm. I myself would've been a product of it, if not my sloppiness with numbers and logic and understanding parents. I have many friends, acquaintances who are now engineers, who are considered the most brilliant and the cream of the society. Over the past week, I happened to speak to a few of my friends who are the engineers of the country working for MNC's from outside the country. There was something common to all of them...all of them are in the complaining mode, why do I have to do this? Is engineering some societal norm? I am tired of this, yet I am helpless...!!!
Looking at the flip side, studying in a Central University, I have been in the midst of arts and humanities and social sciences. People pursing what they like, their talents and aptitudes used to the fullest extent. That did make me feel good. This paradigm shift in the outlook for a career gives me hope that someday we will be less of a mechanical society
I have a friend who is working in a radio station,earns half as much as an engineer in Bangalore or Pune does. The chances of she going to the US and A or to Europe on an official visit is close to zero. But I have never heard her complaining about her job, not once has she told me I am tired of this. This is believe is satisfaction.
We all studied to make money and be happy. I guess, now its all money in perspective, No Happiness. I don't want to sound like an art of living instructor nor is my present argument a result of the movie 3 idiots, but I believe in pursuing what you like and what can help you sustain.
What would it be to earn for nobody, just you? What would it be to spend all your life in the four walls of an office and not see the beautiful world outside? What would it be to work through the whole week to just booze on a Saturday night and and sleep trough the Sunday? This I believe is not happiness...you are bound to break through some day...the sooner the better.
I think my friend working in the radio station and myself is much happier than all of the engineers I know put together.
PS: To all those who don't know, I have changed 3 jobs in 8 months. Looking back, I am not complaining. I can speak about the media or the corporate sector more authentically than my peers. I know what I want to do and what I don't to do in life. As for the short term stints which screws up my chances of a great future...well, I am proud of my adventure spirits...not many at the age of 23 knows what it to be a rolling stone...direction unknown...
yeah man i agree wid you...three years over for me and people whom know me a bit at home are starting to ask me What next? may be cos of the engineering tradition...nd well ...i dunno...but well yeah...ure rite lol
ReplyDeleteRoll On stone :P
ReplyDeletehey guys but dont u think this liberal arts and all this 'call of the heart' career is practical only to a group with safe background to back them up? aint half the engineers doing it out of sheer compulsion to escape the dusbin of potential career oblivion? and the other half never even knew a different life was possible during their school days, they were too busy mugging up.... whle we lazed around... arun aint ppl lik u n me just lucky to hav ended up in HCU rather than in the dustbin of career oblivion? at the same time i wont deny that we good in our own ways in our own fields
ReplyDeleteI am an engineer. Lately I have been lamenting upon how my life would be after I join this MNC in a few months. Would I be happy with my work? Or would I stay content with just my paycheck? Something tells me it ain't gonna be the former. The choices most of us engineers make in our career lead us to a dungeon of unhappiness with what we do for a living, and only a few undaunted souls escape this existential crisis.
ReplyDeletewell !!.. we all need you guys right ??.. had you guys not been there, many of us would not have come out of that "mechanical cycle" ever ...
ReplyDeleteGOD presented everyone equally, but it's upto us how we nurture those skills ... so i would call you people the real "social entrepreneur" who managed to "Think out of the Box" and didn't follow the crowd !!..
cheers to that man !!..
As the famous scorpions song "HOLIDAY" says:
"let me take you far away, you would like a holiday " !!.. that's what we live for man !!..
@ Soliloquy- I dont think its only people who have a very stable family to back them up who take up the liberal arts. If u look at the scene in kerala, you tell me is it out of compulsion to support the family or is it a thing of status? I feel it is more of keeping up your name and the family name up by going for what is constructed as big jobs!
ReplyDelete@ Idiosyncrasies of life:
ReplyDeleteHi
Here I am not trying to compare which is a better profession or weigh which profession is better. I've an umpteen number of friends who are engineers and I respect all of them. As for me I wouldn't dare take up engineering because I sucked at maths and science big time.
Aptly as you said, everybody had a talent, something unique...it does pain me to see such talents being wasted. Thinking out of the box can happen anywhere, it is because some engineer put his gray matter to good use that we have life so much more simple.
Quite true arun!!! i second you!! and Be the rolling stone!!!!
ReplyDelete