Living (Stealing?) Another’s Life
Based on thousands of true stories around you and written in memory of all those passions buried by people early in their lives, while subscribing to the perception of a safe and settled life.
The teacher droned on, while he slept at the last bench. It had been a long night, where he had stumbled upon Harvard Business Review and spent 6 hours straight just exploring topics he never knew existed. He had lived in a fascinating world of innovation, high stake decisions, mergers and startups. He had even explored a little bit of philosophy and psychology. A completley different world as compared to waking up to the teacher mumbling something about 4 ways of excavating a road (which aren’t even applicable today). He groaned and pretended to take notes, noticing that the teacher was staring at him.
He looked up to see the girl on the neighbouring bench sketching a mini comic strip, lost in its story. He looked on to spot his best friend a bench away and noticed the glazed look in her eyes, characteristic of her rehearsing in her head the dance moves for her up coming performance.
And he wondered to himself how many more like them were sitting in the class. And why were they all sitting here, in one of the best engineering schools in the country, with absolutely no interest in the course.
Was it all about the perceived better jobs for engineers? How many such lives had money bought? Or was it that they could only choose the course based on the marks they scored and not the intent and passion they had. Maybe it was the family pressure to be safe and choose one of the traditional fields.
And how many were in his boat, not knowing what it was that they truly liked and not knowing how to get the right exposure to finally know.
Was it an injustice to the people who really wanted to be in this place, who’s seats they had taken purely on the basis of scoring more marks on a test, he wondered.
Right then somewhere a few miles away another budding engineer sat down at his table for the 600th day, preparing for the very same test, oblivious to all the opportunities in the world, oblivious to the fact that there was more to life. And then there was another. And another. And just a few million more.
Thank you for reading. If this helped you stop and think for a second about why you’re doing what you’re doing, do share. It may just help someone make a better decision.
