Follow your dreams they said,
never give up they said, follow your heart they said and listen to your mind
they said. It all seemed fine until I
realized, my dreams said one thing, my heart said another thing and clearly my
mind said something else. Maybe this was the standard case of confusion that
engulfed me into a rhetorical stateless state until my father came in and said “Son,
it’s either my way or the highway!”
It was a moment of euphoria when
I discovered that after my two years of hard work preparing for entrance
examinations for engineering, I had managed to secure a BA Archaeology seat in
the famed Loyola Academy, Secunderabad and No, I did not screw up my entrance
exams. Despite all this success, I was
not happy pursuing my dream. This was clearly because my guilt conscience had started
to overwhelm as I was on the verge of wasting my father’s pay-checks on two
years of expensive training for nothing.
For me, the definition of passion
was something different, my passion never told me what to do but it always made
me to trust myself, which I think has been my biggest strengths. People talk
about having passion for particular activity or hobby, but in my case the
passion was all about fortifying the trust I had built between me and my
conscience. For me, it was always about how truthful can I be to myself, and I
feel passion inherently tells you that if your heart is not set into it, you
better get out of it as soon as possible.
I knew archaeology was my forte,
and I am saying this because history always fascinated me. I still remember the
times I pleaded my father to go to museum, and I always wondered where the
museum got its artifacts from. Be it the Archaeologists who burn their skin in
the Egyptian deserts searching for lost tombs and pyramids or be it the paleontologists
who spend their whole lives in search for prehistoric evidence of life on
earth.
I spent my childhood seeing
documentaries on Discovery and History channel, and I must tell you, if mystery
is something that turns you on, nobody does it better than these channels. I
used to imagine myself exploring the thick forest regions in India, searching
for ancient ruins, lost temples and ancient colonies. The adrenaline rush I get the moment I think
about being in an exploration team in charge of finding the lost city of
Atlantis is truly unreal and out of this world.
There exists a fine line between
being realistic and being impractical. This small difference could be the
reason behind me being an engineer today instead of an archaeologist. It was
never a question of suppressing my interests and goals in life, I was sure
about me being an archaeologist, but it was never a feasible option for me as far
as my financial future was concerned.
“Don’t confuse having a career with having a life.” – Hillary Clinton
My father always had a major say
in what I am today, for which I am grateful to him all my life. From the
outside, my story of life would sound more like a boy whose dreams have been
cut short by his parents, but in reality, if my father had not been their
during my major decisions, I would have not seen the world I am seeing today.
I have seen movies where the kids
feel vindicated when they prove their parents were wrong in interfering with
their careers, I never understood that why on many occasions we kids forget our
parent’s intentions in their interferences. My dad knew what was right for me
and I trusted him, which was by far the sanest decision I have ever taken till
date. I might not be an archaeologist today, but that does not stop me from
being good in whatever I do. I do not have regrets in the decisions I took nor
am I going to complain that my parents were wrong in interfering with my career
interests. And this is where I say, trusting the person within me and
understanding my parents were the two priceless lessons I have gained during
important junctures of my life and as far as my interest towards archaeology
goes, the archaeologist inside me will be alive for ages to come.
“It’s not what you achieve, it’s what you overcome. That’s what defines
your career.” – Carlton Fisk
