Crossroads

If you're thinking that this blog post is inspired from the Britney Spears movie "Crossroads", you are not totally wrong. I would like to refresh our memories about the movie. The movie is about a teenage girl whose family broke up when she was born. Her mother doesn't accept her as a child. Moreover she doesn't know what she wants to do with life and goes out on a road trip with friends as she can't think of anything better to do.

I can bet that everyone of us has felt the way that girl felt in the movie. Haven't we? If your answer is "no", can anyone of you be precise in telling what you want to do with your life? I guess not. The question that haunts man today is not how dinosaurs disappeared, or is time travel possible. It is a simple "What do I do with my life?".

Story of a boy

A boy is born in a family(I am not a chauvinist, just taking boy for an example). The baby is pampered and brought up with values instilled in him. The parents decide what they want him to be. They admit him to a school with a good reputation. The boy starts carrying books heavier than himself before he can ride a bicycle. The boy is encouraged to cram stuff and score well in exams. The boy grows up, gets admitted to a good college, the choice of his parents perhaps. The boy crams stuff and scores in exams as he was taught. The boy gets a job in a company, probably that too of his parents' choice. The boy is bewildered now. Where is the part that he has mastered the most? He is disappointed that he can't work efficiently as there is no cramming involved. He trudges along with the job somehow and makes a living with no direction or job satisfaction whatsoever. He probably even gets married to the girl his parents select for him.

This is not fiction. This is real life incidents happening to more than 90% of the people today. Once upon a time this used to be my story too. But I was inquisitive from the beginning. I questioned everything. By God's grace I came out of the story before it ended. But just stop and think about this for a minute. Do you think that the story is justified? Do you think that the system which exists today is good enough to give us people like B.R Ambedkar or Dr. C.V Raman? Where does cultivating interest and encouraging hobbies in children go? People forget that they are not making leaders out of their children, ones who'd shape the future of the nation. They are making cramming machines who are devoid of common sense and cannot think on their own.

Why are foreigners much ahead of us in this regard? Why are foreign engineers better than our engineers? Do they study harder? Do they know more than we do? No. They have the gift of vision. They see things spatially rather than 2-dimensionally, like we do. We have been taught to restrict our imagination and that is what we are best at. We need to break free of this inhibition. For this either the system has to change or we have to change it. Else every one of our next generation child will be as confused as we are about our careers. And when they ask "Dad,.. what should I do with my life?", we would feel guilty and trapped. Transformation is the need of the hour. Keep reading.