Our life is defined by the choices we make or the ones that are made for us by people around us. When we are children, our parents and grandparents make choices for us regarding our diet, our clothes, the schools we will go to, the value systems which we are brought up, to some extent the habits we develop. Whether we realize it or not, a lot of choices that are made for us during these formative years, especially the ones till we become teenagers have a significant and lasting impact on our lives.
Around the time that puberty hits us and starts changing us, both physically and mentally, we slowly start making choices of our own. While influencers such as peer pressure, social pressure, individual likes and dislikes affect these choices, by and large we start taking control of our lives gradually. The relatively smarter ones among us think long term and make wise choices while the ones who want to enjoy their lives make their choices only one day at a time.
As teenagers while most of us intuitively realize that some of the choices we make are not necessarily good ones in the long run, the brash arrogance of youth, the blind belief that we have a whole life ahead of us to take corrective action if required and the sheer hot-headedness with which we approach life in those years have a significant influence on us. The unfortunate results of some of the above mentioned traits are youngsters picking up habits such as smoking, drinking, drugs and worse. While teenagers realize that these substances and habits lead them down a path of destruction, the need to instant gratification of their cravings, the high that these habits provide immediately is something that attracts them to the same. Further, they are encouraged by the blind misguided belief that they are still young and have a lot of time to take corrective action in the future to change these habits.
In effect the point I was trying to convey quite forcefully was the fact that we are the choices we make, and the result of those choices.
That being said, and I have probably discussed this at some length in a post which I wrote around a year and a half ago [Link to earlier post], there are times when I sit back and look at some of the choices that I have made and what impact these have had on my life.
Choice of educational stream – Given that I didn’t know any engineers at all from either side of my family, I guess the choice of commerce as a graduation stream was made for me automatically.
Choice of career – Given that my father was a Chartered Accountant, my first job as an Articled Trainee as part of the CA course was also probably automatically made for me. However, the choice of company was my own. It’s a different issue that I didn’t clear my CA exams at all.
Choice of post graduation – Given that I didn’t clear my CA exams, MBA as a post graduation choice was my own.
Choice of specialization – I knew that I wouldn’t get an opportunity to study marketing as a discipline in the future and therefore this choice once again was my own. There were quite a few detractors in the form of my batchmates who felt that I would have been better off opting for the Finance specialization, but I stuck to my guns.
Choice of job – I chose the IT field as the convergence of technology and business interested me. More than a few of my batchmates thought of it as a stupid choice and felt that I should have taken up a marketing related job, but then, I didn’t listen to them yet again.
Choice of an operational role – While all my batchmates who joined IT jobs opted for a Business Analyst or a Consultant type of role, I opted for the Delivery stream which once again surprised many people, but I thoroughly enjoyed my stint in IT Delivery.
Choice to stay back in India – Given that my wife was not too keen on relocating out of India even for short periods of time, the choice I made of rejecting quite a few onsite opportunities once again surprised quite a few of my colleagues.
Choice to delay having children – Now this was a joint choice that my wife and me took. Despite crazy pressure from both sets of parents and other close relatives, we stuck with our choice and little R was born 4 yrs after my marriage.
Choice to shift from the Delivery stream to the Operations stream – Once again this proved to be quite a controversial choice and one that many of my colleagues didn’t quite understand. But I was clear as to what I was getting into when I made this shift.
From the above, it is quite clear that while most of my choices have been relatively unconventional especially given the choices that my peers at various points in time made, the fact remains that most of these were well thought out and went with the flow that I wanted the ‘river of my life’ to take. At the time when some choices were made, even I was a little skeptical of their very ‘contrarian’ nature but I trusted my instincts and went ahead with them. And boy, has it been quite a fun journey or what.
By my estimation, I have probably lived out more than 1/3rd of my life till date and have enjoyed it quite a bit, and going by my track record of choices, I am fairly confident that the remaining 2/3rd also will be as much fun, if not more.
I would love to hear about some of the conundrums and confusions that you folks have faced when making choices in life. It would be awesome to have some wonderful conversations with you on the comments section of this particular post about them.
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This post is written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts where the idea is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided.
Today’s prompt was “Vanilla, chocolate, or something else entirely?” And I liberally interpreted this prompt to mean “choices” and wrote a post.
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All images in this post have been sourced from Google Images search results.
