Post Number 3 : The Career Catastrophe

“Girlfriend hai tumhari?” asked the aunty sitting in front of me, shoving the samosa in her mouth, giving me a sly grin, hoping I would say something that would give her gossip fodder for her evening chat with the rest of her clique. I sidestepped this trap by giving a well-structured “NO”. “Aage career ka kya socha hai?” she sputtered, both literally and  figuratively, as a pea popped out of her mouth. “I haven’t decided” I replied demurely, not willing to discuss my future with a random aunty and also because…..I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And as the aunty went into a monologue, explaining to me how an MBA will do me wonders, I activated my ‘Ignore-them-but-pretend-I’m-hearing’ mode just in time, inclusive of the periodic head nod and monotonic ‘Hmm..’

In the time that she went on laying out my life path for me in vivid detail, I genuinely started pondering “What do I want to do? Where do I see myself a decade later?”

It wasn’t the first time that I had thought of this and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time but somehow I was compelled to explore this question with the amount of seriousness it required.

I opened my laptop and went on a fury typing anything and everything related to career planning on Google, opening a barrage of articles and tests and quizzes and what not. And after spending a good 2-3 hours on it, I ended up with status quo, half the options pulling me somewhere else and the other half in a opposite direction. I talked to my family members who asked me one elementary question  that halted me dead in my tracks “What are you passionate about?”

As elementary as that may sound, I had no reasonable answer to this. And I had no Buzzfeed quiz around me to find the answer on my behalf. How DO you find your passion? When do you realise that an interest of yours has become a passion? And what guarantee is there that what you find interesting now, you would find that interesting 10 years down the lane. I mean I was passionate about Pokemon once but that withered away. Not to forget I couldn’t really become a Pokemon Master, but that’s a story for another day. I for one, flutter between things periodically. I can switch between loving and despising an activity within days. Maybe I need to get myself checked. Anyhow, no amount of Googling/library reading/asking elders (You get the drift right?) could give me a conclusive answer. I mean how are you supposed to decide so decisively what you want to pursue for the rest of your life. The very idea of conforming to a single vocation worries me. I get the concept of finance and sustenance and building a stable life and what not, but why restrict yourself to a field? Why deprive yourself of varied experiences? All these questions open up another debate altogether so I wouldn’t pursue them right now.

I still can’t comprehend the true meaning of the words- interest, passion and career. And as much as I agree with my family asking me to do what I love so that I am not forced to love what I do, I can’t quite wrap my head around what I want to pursue in my life. Is there a standardized method to figure out what distinguishes a hobby from a passion? Any test that I can take or anyone I can consult? Because as helpful as the internet may be, it can be overwhelming with the amount of information it throws at you. Filtering through a barrage of options online to find what you want can be extremely cumbersome in itself. When I talk to my friends who have their life chalked out to the minute, I feel like calling BS on that but I suppose it’s just me not relating to the charm of planning out when you get up, go to sleep and poop right down to the last second. Having said that, I don’t want to rely on the risky ‘go with the flow’ until I am handed out something or am forced to take up something out of lack of options. I know that I might sound confused and complicated and my thoughts may be scattered all over the place but that’s precisely my bone of contention. We are all complex beings. There is so much that goes into making us, us. How can we so easily compartmentalize ourselves into these rigid boxes without even exploring what the entire shelf looks like? And given how we have grown up, we haven’t been exposed to the varied options that we could pursue. This isn’t a tirade against the system, maybe it could be but I don’t see that solving my purpose for the time being. Therefore after exhausting most of the resources that I know of, I ask you readers. What do you think about the pressure of choosing a career for yourself? Have you already decided what you would want to pursue? If so, how did you go about figuring your passion? If not, how do you plan on figuring it out?

Sound off in the comments section!