Career Guidance

The other day, I happened to converse with a distant relative whom I had lost touch with over the years. As we talked over coffee, we covered various topics before I enquired of her career. At this note, however, her mood visibly soured and she started spilling out all the frustration that had built up within her. I was extremely surprised, as she seemed to have it all perfect on the outside. Her job was of a "white collar" nature. She made a decent amount of money too. She seemed to sense my confusion, for the next thing that she said was, "Its not the job itself, but my career choice that is the cause of my misery. I should have chosen a course that I loved, not one that I was pressured into. You are in that position now, Varsh. Choose carefully". Slightly unnerved, I proceeded to change the subject of our conversation. 

This did not stop me from thinking about it a lot, which was clearly a mistake. The more I meditated on it, the more uncertain I became. I began to think of every single life-changing decision that I had made in the past that had gone horribly wrong- excessively eating caramel popcorn, teaching my sister martial arts, challenging my sister to a fight and then losing a tooth- so many regrets. Then and there, I decided that I wanted to live a life without any more regrets. So I decided to call my best friend after playing the Indian version of Bon Jovi's "Its my life"(its now or never).

I find it necessary to mention that my best friend's state of mind is much worse than my own. This was not a fact that I was blind to. I knew that she was crazy- that was the very reason why we were such good friends; but if anyone knew what I could possibly try my luck with as a career choice, it was her. So I video called her and explained my dilemma. As soon as she got the gist of my problem, she turned into an instant career guidance counsellor. She asked me with the professionalism of a psychologist, "what DO you want to do Varsh?" 

"I honestly have zero idea. I thought I had it all figured out, but what if I am wrong?"

"Well, think about it. What do you like to do? Maybe your hobby can turn into a career choice."

"I do love sleeping-" I replied somewhat skeptically.

"Oh come on, Varsh, be serious. What are you good at?"

"I like to think that I am pretty good at talking."

"Okay, maybe something that you are good at AND that can bring you money." she said, rephrasing the question to equip it with a hint of specificity.

"Come to think of it, whenever I start to talk, my family pays me to shut up. I think we have potential in that sector, if you know what I mean."

She looked at me blandly with an expression that I could not quite pinpoint. It was an expression of annoyance laced with a shade of 'how is she this stupid?'

"Varsh, get your head in the game. This is your future we are talking about."

"Okay, yeah. Fine. I get it."

"Indians have a fetish for white collar jobs, you know? It is very hard to get accepted into an Indian family if you are not either a doctor, engineer or bank manager."

I thought about it, but I hated the idea of being either a doctor, engineer or bank manager. If I become a doctor, woe the poor souls that might end up being my patients. I am pretty sure that if they approach me with a toothache, they will probably return home with a headache as well, caused by their proximity to me. Engineering, though interesting, seemed like a far fetched option. Being an engineer required a lot of I.Q. and the only I.Q. that I possessed was Internet Quotient, as in I could surf the internet.

Sighing in frustration, I told my best friend that I would think about it and hung up. I wondered if there was any job that required eating, since I am an expert in the area. So I google searched it. And yes, there are: Food critic, Professional taster, Food scientist, Chef, Recipe tester, Baker, Research Chef, Food blogger, etc.

Of these, the only ones I recognized was Chef and Baker. However, as enticing as they sounded, I am pretty sure that a chef or baker cannot eat their own creations. I also figured that the rest of the jobs required 'me' doing 'work', and I did not approve of that idea. Dejected, I sat down on my sofa. This was driving me crazy. What if I do not have a talent? What if I am not good at anything? What if the things I am good at will not be able to provide me with a genuine career? What if I end up like my relative, moping around all day about how miserable my life had become? What if I do not get a stable job? 

All these 'what if's were eating away at my mind when I saw my sister prancing around as if she had no care in the world. I asked her what she had planned on doing when she grew up. She replied nonchalantly that she would become a pilot. I envied her confidence. I envied her. It was not fair that I was so stressed out and she was not. So I decided to rile her up about her career choices too, seeing that she was just three years younger than me.

I immediately set to work with an evil grin on my face. I showed her numerous plane crash accidents and opened up a Wikipedia page which held all the graphs and whatnot that made absolutely no sense but was scary nonetheless. I pinned various pins in Pinterest and I opened a whole new Juxtapost account with the sole intention of crushing her spirits. I know- pure evil.

I created a presentable power point presentation in Windows PowerPoint and added a lot of sound effects like plane crash effect and people screaming whenever a slide transition took place. I spent days perfecting and practicing my act. Armed with everything the internet had to offer, I set out to crush my sister's dreams. I showed her everything and even made up a few legends hinting the Bermuda triangle. She listened with rapt attention, eyes growing unimaginable wide with terror following each revelation. When I wrapped up the whole fiasco, I smirked to myself at a job well done. My sister was clearly shaken. However, when I asked her whether she still wanted to be a pilot, she looked at me with genuine confusion etched in her face. I explained that just a few days ago she had claimed of her ambition to be a pilot. She suddenly nodded in recognition, recollecting the event in question. Her reply, though, was what left me wanting to gauge my eyes out of their sockets, leaving me devoid of any form of happiness for the next two days:

"Oh that was three days ago. Now I decided that I want to be a doctor."