Here I am, sitting at 3:00 AM on a Saturday night, awake... wide awake... wondering what to do with my life...
Life has not turned out the way i would have liked it to be... worst part is that I have none to blame... My own conscious decisions has brought me into this...
Looking from outside, I am actually doing pretty good... A job at State Bank of India as Asst Vice President with a handsome pay and max payout in every appraisal should be a dream for anybody... My mom is proud about my job and my friends appreciate the quality of work we do... but it doesn't matter... I don't like being a Banker... there is a lot of compliance and audit requirements... u end up spending a lot of time creating documentation or sit with auditors to justify your past actions... It makes sense and it is very essential for the Bank... But I find it irritating... I am not creating any value for myself or generate business by doing this... I would like to spend my every minute generating revenue for my Company...
This has brought me into the obvious conclusion of making a switch... something other than Banking... something I would enjoy doing... But what is it??? I don't know... and that's why I am wide awake now...
I look back into my Engineering days at SVCE whenever I am not happy... Those were unquestionably the best days of my life... Myself with my 9 best friends... umm... I would rather call them brothers from a different mother... We had awesome time during those 4 years... Days just flew... We had nothing to worry about... never bothered about future plans... money kept coming in from Dad (and interestingly, none of us were into drinking or smoking... hmm yeah... we did not have any pain in life to take shelter under a cheap drug)... life was fun... ganging up against one in the group and teasing the bhakra by blowing up some petty thing was our favorite pass time... and yeah... extensive biking in and around Chennai with my close buds was bliss... none took offense about anything... it was pure friendship... we were bros... there was nothing called formality or ego between us... life could not have been more perfect...
Things have changed since then... Cognizant was little formal... IFMR was more... with many mature MBA aspirants around, you are required to watch your words... Finally came State Bank of India... I find myself so out of place here... its all diplomacy here... Well, to aptly put it, it is a very professional environment... I did put in all my efforts to break the ice... but the results were just a few... hmm... probably this is why I hate it here... SBI is a great place to be... its just me who is the misfit...
I realize its high time I plan for the future and settle down... Now that I am looking long, I guess it makes sense to spend some time to weigh the options... Options??? What are they?? hmmm... I want to be happy... Now whats happiness??? hmm... well, its probably doing what U love to do... so what is that I love to do??? I freaking don't know !!!
A safe bet is to become a Management Consultant and get married 3 yrs down the line... Consulting is something I would like to do... But marriage??? I am not sure... I have gone from never wanting to marry to being in a relationship... only to realize I am not a boy friend material... I am a typical guy kind of a guy... I am numb to what a girl might go through inside her brains... I am an outdoor person... Malls feel like cages to me... When the girl says nothing is wrong, I totally believe that nothing is wrong... I have my priorities... I only end up hurting myself and more so for the girl... marriage doesn't work for me i believe... and right now, I have more priorities than chasing skirt...
I got two more options... but they are extreme... first one is to become a Yogi... I have always been curious about meditation and Yogis... I believe sages are the happiest people on earth... I would like to try that path... I got tonnes to introspect... also, listening to troubled souls and providing guidance would be a nice thing to do in life (I am not sure what kinda guidance I could come up with my whacky mind though)... but I sure am gonna try that path... it keeps you away from the biggest evil... money...
The last option is to make tonnes of money... make money while enjoying the path towards making money... Starting a Business is the best solution... I am looking at various business opportunities which I would like to pursue... I don't wanna get into something which will provide me the highest margin... that will be just making money and not a satiating journey... my random picks at the moment will be something like an adventure sports club, a vacation resort inside the wild, breeding puppies, aqua culture or just about anything that I would actually enjoy doing... sounds good... But I don't possess a great history in conducting business... we tried software development during Cognizant days... there was demand... but we were not committed... money was not our motivation and none of us wanted to take the risk of quitting our job and getting into our petty Company full time... our first Company Shurro went through a natural death...
I am at the cross roads now... again, totally free to make my choice... a lone clueless boy with no strings attached... This time I wanna do it right... I know becoming a Yogi or starting a business involves a lot of pain and sacrifice... But procrastination has not done me any good till now... I believe its better to be early than to regret later... It is a tough call... choosing a way of life needs guts... and this is the right time for that transition... its only going to be a matter of time now... hell yeah... I am gonna do it !!!
Life has not turned out the way i would have liked it to be... worst part is that I have none to blame... My own conscious decisions has brought me into this...
Looking from outside, I am actually doing pretty good... A job at State Bank of India as Asst Vice President with a handsome pay and max payout in every appraisal should be a dream for anybody... My mom is proud about my job and my friends appreciate the quality of work we do... but it doesn't matter... I don't like being a Banker... there is a lot of compliance and audit requirements... u end up spending a lot of time creating documentation or sit with auditors to justify your past actions... It makes sense and it is very essential for the Bank... But I find it irritating... I am not creating any value for myself or generate business by doing this... I would like to spend my every minute generating revenue for my Company...
This has brought me into the obvious conclusion of making a switch... something other than Banking... something I would enjoy doing... But what is it??? I don't know... and that's why I am wide awake now...
I look back into my Engineering days at SVCE whenever I am not happy... Those were unquestionably the best days of my life... Myself with my 9 best friends... umm... I would rather call them brothers from a different mother... We had awesome time during those 4 years... Days just flew... We had nothing to worry about... never bothered about future plans... money kept coming in from Dad (and interestingly, none of us were into drinking or smoking... hmm yeah... we did not have any pain in life to take shelter under a cheap drug)... life was fun... ganging up against one in the group and teasing the bhakra by blowing up some petty thing was our favorite pass time... and yeah... extensive biking in and around Chennai with my close buds was bliss... none took offense about anything... it was pure friendship... we were bros... there was nothing called formality or ego between us... life could not have been more perfect...
Things have changed since then... Cognizant was little formal... IFMR was more... with many mature MBA aspirants around, you are required to watch your words... Finally came State Bank of India... I find myself so out of place here... its all diplomacy here... Well, to aptly put it, it is a very professional environment... I did put in all my efforts to break the ice... but the results were just a few... hmm... probably this is why I hate it here... SBI is a great place to be... its just me who is the misfit...
I realize its high time I plan for the future and settle down... Now that I am looking long, I guess it makes sense to spend some time to weigh the options... Options??? What are they?? hmmm... I want to be happy... Now whats happiness??? hmm... well, its probably doing what U love to do... so what is that I love to do??? I freaking don't know !!!
A safe bet is to become a Management Consultant and get married 3 yrs down the line... Consulting is something I would like to do... But marriage??? I am not sure... I have gone from never wanting to marry to being in a relationship... only to realize I am not a boy friend material... I am a typical guy kind of a guy... I am numb to what a girl might go through inside her brains... I am an outdoor person... Malls feel like cages to me... When the girl says nothing is wrong, I totally believe that nothing is wrong... I have my priorities... I only end up hurting myself and more so for the girl... marriage doesn't work for me i believe... and right now, I have more priorities than chasing skirt...
I got two more options... but they are extreme... first one is to become a Yogi... I have always been curious about meditation and Yogis... I believe sages are the happiest people on earth... I would like to try that path... I got tonnes to introspect... also, listening to troubled souls and providing guidance would be a nice thing to do in life (I am not sure what kinda guidance I could come up with my whacky mind though)... but I sure am gonna try that path... it keeps you away from the biggest evil... money...
The last option is to make tonnes of money... make money while enjoying the path towards making money... Starting a Business is the best solution... I am looking at various business opportunities which I would like to pursue... I don't wanna get into something which will provide me the highest margin... that will be just making money and not a satiating journey... my random picks at the moment will be something like an adventure sports club, a vacation resort inside the wild, breeding puppies, aqua culture or just about anything that I would actually enjoy doing... sounds good... But I don't possess a great history in conducting business... we tried software development during Cognizant days... there was demand... but we were not committed... money was not our motivation and none of us wanted to take the risk of quitting our job and getting into our petty Company full time... our first Company Shurro went through a natural death...
I am at the cross roads now... again, totally free to make my choice... a lone clueless boy with no strings attached... This time I wanna do it right... I know becoming a Yogi or starting a business involves a lot of pain and sacrifice... But procrastination has not done me any good till now... I believe its better to be early than to regret later... It is a tough call... choosing a way of life needs guts... and this is the right time for that transition... its only going to be a matter of time now... hell yeah... I am gonna do it !!!
5 comments:
Hey Mike,
I find myself in a very similar condition.. In a very similar phase you are going through..
I am not sure if I have the guts to leave everything and become a yogi but I want to spend a lot of time in my life meditating.. And I also want to start my own venture.. Basically I want a balance in everything I do.. And yeah.. I guess eventually all these will lead me to happiness :) I have also been browsing and reading and listening about happiness..
Do watch these videos in your free time. They are nice! :)
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7B_4zGHJQg
http://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html
two things machi...
doing what you like - ur lucky
or else
like what you are doing
and yeah it is difficult to do more than one job at a time...
so your better like the major job which you are doing or intend to do...
Mike!
I have always known you to be a an enterprising person, in fact I was surprised to know that someone as outgoing as you would get and retain a job at a conservative organization like SBI and complete 2 years now I guess. I can totally relate with your state right now as I have been through this for months and months and still go through the same occasionally in the pursuit of discovering what I would like to spend the rest of my professional life doing. But trust me, I have realized instead of spending a lot time thinking jump onto something that really excites you and I am sure you will give your best and make it work! As an additional note, I'd like to add, I in this endeavor to do the exciting thing have been into training, management consulting and so on for 2+ years now and have sort of made good progress with the limited resources I have had. I give a talk on 'Success'(my theory on how to achieve success) at a lot of places and the first step to success in my talk is "Unsettle" and I have discovered that it has worked wonders for a lot of people who did it vis a vis a lot of them who did not! I am sure you will make a great businessman / yogi / any other aspiration, whatever you end up choosing.
dude!!! get some high!!! banking sucks!!!! nice blog
:)
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