It was the middle of the night yet getting close to dawn. Having played games all night, chatted for a bit, and 3 dubsmashes later, we stepped out of Tamanna's house to take a train to have dosa, wada, and coffee.
"You're quitting?" I asked. There was no judgement there, only curiosity and slight surprise about why she hadn't brought it up the entire night.
"I don't know man. I hate my boss. I hate how he thinks he can get away with anything because he has the money and because he is the boss. Just because no one else works, he thinks that he can offload most of the stuff to me. Honestly, I'm sick and tired of how much he doesn't value me." she looks very disturbed.
"Okay, but do you like your work? That's the most important thing, right?" I took a sip of my coffee.
"I don't know. I don't know what I want to do. I feel like I want to keep learning new things at every point in my life. And I'm learning here, so that's nice. But I can't decide what direction to pursue, or even if I want there to be a direction." she thinks and responds.
I'm not sure of what to tell her. We talk about how to deal with unfair bosses. The sun rises. The earth spins and revolves. And that's when a year later, she does finally quit though. I'm sleeping, in a different country, and my phone rings - it isn't on silent for once.
"THANKS FOR PICKING UP GUESS WHAT I QUIT" she screams in my ear. "I cannot believe how good I feel. I thought I would feel like shit. But this light feeling just confirms that I have made the right decision." she continues.
"Yayyy! How does it feel?" I try to muster up as much enthusiasm as I can.
"Oh did I wake you up? I am just spinning and watching the sea and I got some ice cream for myself to celebrate." My voice gives me away, but she's still on a high. Did she have another offer?
"Only you would celebrate leaving your job." I told her. "What's next?"
"Hey stop asking me those questions,let me enjoy this moment."
What followed was a really happy conversation.
Tamanna kept changing what she was doing. She took her choices. She got a lot of job offers. She picked something. And then turned out she didn't like it either. Sometimes she didn't prioritise her work and prioritised what others told her was important. That led her to be dissatisfied. She also had to think about finding a direction. If she continued switching, she came to the conclusion that she would never have mastery over anything. She may never specialise, and would have to begin again with every job. While this was okay and exciting to her initially, she soon began to want growth. And picking became more and more important.
"You need to follow your passion. What's the point of spending so much time on a backup plan? Just do what you actually want to." I remember Zeal telling me. I wonder what would have happened if I put as much time and effort in my not-a-backup-plan. I guess I will never know.
"There are two ways you can go about picking what you want to specialise in." Emmett said a couple years later. "You can either pick one thing, and delve right in, no hesitation. Or try a bunch of things that interest you, and pick later. The former is better because it gives you so much time to explore a field thoroughly, but with the latter you know you won't regret it because you tried a bunch of stuff." I tried doing the latter, not wanting any regrets. I regret not doing the former.
"I'm thinking of doing a PhD." Sumeet told us even more years later. I was thinking of it too. Or maybe an MBA. Or just working and making good money. Or I could have my own startup.
As the years flew by, I realised there were only two things that were really important in life:
- Family + Friends
- Career
And not necessarily always in that order.
Human beings need to work. Apart from how much joy and satisfaction working can provide, it also allows you to meet new people. People who have so many stories to tell, people who have the potential to inspire you... and it is a (hopefully) positive atmosphere which can only be experienced.
In fact sometimes, I feel like working can become equivalent to therapy. It helps people emerge from their shells, or sucks them out of any zone they are stuck in. A new workplace may work even better. The complete lack of people-you-know and the option of starting over with a goal to achieve necessary sometimes. You have the chance of re-inventing yourself. I know I did at one point, and was super lucky to get exactly what I needed to feel so much better emotionally. No more moping around anymore. You have a group of people cheering you on or even mentoring you and see all that is possible.
And trust me, the possibilities are endless. The amount of things that can be done, the kind of people you can meet and connect with, and the amount you will learn will leave you on a happy note. It may get hard, you will have deadlines, you will be crazy busy and "Thank God its Friday" will feel so much more real than it has ever felt in school and college, but it is going to be so worth it.
Your career is almost always more important than anything. (Note the almost) If that's going in the right direction, a huge part of your life is sorted and that makes you feel quite sorted as well.
And that was realisation #4.
