It’s 2 a.m., you are sitting at your desk, sipping your third black coffee and wondering what all did you do wrong to deserve such hatred from your very own parents. What if you are just destined to be stuck at a place where you no longer want to be? Maybe life is all about trying to get up while you fall a little bit deeper into the pits of hell each time you try not to!
“You don’t have any right to shatter the dreams of so many people who expected something from you, who dared to dream along with you.”
Is having a perspective, a dream of your own, wrong? When it is about career choices, why do the same people saying things like, “Do what you love, love what you do!” or, “Your career should totally be your decision!” have a problem when you actually start following your heart?
Since I was three, I was fascinated by operation theatres — the way a few people could give life to somebody almost dead. Well yeah, that was something I wanted to do. To help people, to save their lives! The next thing to God is probably a doctor.
But then I grew up. The responsibility of somebody’s life used to scare the sh*t out of me. I cannot take the responsibility of my metro card, let alone lives of people. Even after critically examining and contemplating unbiasedly, I always reached the fact that I cannot do medicine. The whole charm of it had already ended way back.
But, my parents didn’t grow up. They still wanted me to pursue that shattered dream of theirs. Do you know how it feels to be questioned about your capabilities by your very own parents — your family? For somebody already having an existential crisis, this was a blow to my confidence. Every day you are reminded of this one failure of yours, the first failure of your life. But, what according to them is a failure might be life for you! I mean, securing a good percentage, and getting admission into a centralised university that’s one of the best colleges for what you are studying is definitely your failure. Everybody who is not a doctor has not achieved anything in their lives.
But aahhh, my parents know they have raised a stubborn, headstrong girl who might not know what she wants from her life but who definitely has a clear picture of what she doesn’t want. So the plan for now is: She is going to follow her heart — that lies with “Physics would make every parent believe that there are career options more than doctors, engineers, and charted accountants.”
After all, picking up the broken pieces of a shattered dream is better than picking up no pieces at all.