Self Made Men

From early childhood, we are told stories of successful, strong, and world-famous guys who stuck big and became ‘Self Made Men’. Scientifically speaking no man is self-made. A man is made of elements such as carbon, hydrogen, calcium, oxygen, and phosphorous and these are not made in the human body itself. Every man is made up of cells and the making of a man is initiated at the moment when his parents are in a mood coupled with certain biological tick marks but these were just semantics of the expression ‘Self Made Man’. In modern-day societal slang the word is used differently usually ‘Self Made Man’ is a very rich guy who came from humble beginnings and worked his way to the top such a guy is either someone working in top management of a reputed firm (most of such guys are obese) or he is the owner of a successful company or he even can sports star, Such ‘Self Made Men’ are often used by parents and society for the sake of giving the perfect example of what a model man should be like. But what they miss out on is most of these ‘Self Made Men’ don’t care about what others are saying. They just have a plan and they follow it with persistence and they deal with all the shit that comes with the execution of the plan be it financial losses or personal setbacks. They know that the road to the top is full of Potholes that are camouflaged by the environment but with every pothole they hit, they recalibrate and keep moving. If the need arises, they switch to Plan B or even to Plan C but the burning desire to achieve is just unmitigated.

But I don’t want a life full of potholes (I don’t even own a 4x4), although I have had my fair share of potholes but I want to keep that to a bare minimum. I don’t even have a burning desire (sometimes I do have a burning sensation but that is around the chest area after eating oily food); hot temperatures impair my thinking abilities. In my case, it won’t even make a good ‘Self Made Man’ story I was born in an upper-middle-class family I have a slightly higher than average I.Q and at 34, though I am currently working in a mundane government job I don’t like, and still not clear about my career. My Father retired as a respected civil servant and there is no way I can top that. There is a saying where I come from ‘Baap toh Baap hota hai’ which means a father will always be a father doesn’t even matter how successful his son is. I have worked in corporate but the meaninglessness of a typical Monday to Friday 9 to 8 Schedule with occasional reprimand from the boss didn’t strike me well. I thought I have talent and a bit of saving I should become a full-time stock market trader and I took the plunge it went on well for a few months but then I read an article by some sadist saying ‘Greed is Good’ I got so influenced by it that ‘Greed took the lead’ and I started betting on Gold Futures and all my investment got wiped off in a few days as they say ‘All that Futures litter is not Gold’ and I realized I have no future investing in futures. I was totally messed up and completely down when one day one of my close friends called it turned out he also had left his high-paying investment banking job and wanted to do something at the ‘Grass-Root’ Level he convinced me to invest in fisheries I thought I am the son of the soil and I must be my true calling but I needed money to invest since my savings were wiped I asked for money from my sister and tried at my hand at fisheries but there had to be something fishy when two urban bred, self-spoiled, quasi-lazy, and never been to country boys, go for fisheries Business. We got ripped by the caretaker and he sold all the fish in the local market and took off. Having messed up once again, I thought of doing something different; I thought since I have learned so my lessons, I should get into teaching. I started a coaching class for students who wanted to clear low-level government exams as I had cleared a few in the past but never joined, I had some experience I tried hard to prepare the lessons, did some marketing, and classes started getting a good response, a good number of the students got selected for different jobs but then came the coronavirus and lockdowns so I had to shut down but a man got a earn something so I applied for a stupid accounting job in a government department and got selected it’s been a couple of years since I am doing that and now I guess it’s time. I am planning to leave for becoming a writer at a time when AI is replacing most of the writing jobs and I do have this overwhelming feeling that there will be a mess.