Career vs Love?
Why must we choose?
"Love or career, you’re going to choose your career above your love, above me, above us."
"You can focus on your career later; settle down. It’s getting late, and you won’t get married."
"You’ve grown up enough to handle the family business; it’s time you join us."
These aren’t just movie lines, but words and phrases we hear in our everyday life. The meaning, emotions, and hurt behind them can be life-changing.
If there’s a stable family business, then expectations—and more so, demands—from parents to handle the family business arise. "If you don’t, who will?"
If not in a relationship, there's pressure from parents to get married by 26-27. If in a relationship, there's pressure from the partner to get married, or else they’ll marry someone else. Rude!
Why does it always have to be love vs. career? Family or career? Why can’t a career be seen as love?
For a person with great passion to follow a particular field, to achieve a goal, to become that one specialized doctor, or to work at that particular firm, or to start that very business, after studying so much, they’re asked to choose between career and love. Yeah, I know, it sounds unfair!
After 12 years of schooling, college, internships, and co-curricular activities, is marriage at 26 really the only option? It feels quite limiting.
Why does no one say, “Focus on your career, we accept your love for it”? But how often do we hear what we actually want?
Love doesn’t always have to mean romantic relationships or family bonds. Sometimes, love can be for the career you’ve dreamed of. Yet, this love is often weighed against future expectations like marriage or joining the family business.
Let’s think about it: people often sympathize when a marriage or business fails, but what about the emotional toll of putting aside your career dreams? When someone says, "Get settled, follow your passion later," are they really considering the impact of delaying those dreams?
Handling new responsibilities, be it marriage or a family business, can’t always align with the freedom you had before. Time, energy, and focus change.
"Leave that stupid job; it’s time you join the family business." What if someone finds that business undesirable? Not being rude, but what if that "stupid" job is the dream you had 5 years ago?
Now someone comes along and says, "Okay, you got the job, great! Now leave it." Do I at least get to smash something?!
Accepting a career as love means dedicating time, effort, and resources to it, just like in a relationship or family business. Why does love always have to be tied to people or relationships?
Just because you’re giving more time to your job or business doesn’t mean you’re neglecting your family.
Spending those crucial years of your 20s wondering, "What if I get too old to marry?" or "What if I don’t manage the family business?" can lead to guilt and societal pressure like what will that stupid neighbor or that particular aunt say?" Trust me they will always have something to say!!
Why can’t someone, just for once, say, "It’s okay, go ahead. Marriage will happen someday, but this opportunity won’t come again" or "Go ahead, my child, you have our support, and we’ll make sure you feel attached to us."
Many people are passionate about their dreams regarding a particular career or field, so what’s wrong with that? If they don’t want to fall in love, so? If they don’t want to get married yet, so? If they want to take that job in that area, so? Too many ‘so’s’? So what!
Romeo and Juliet did so much for love, to the extent that it cost them their lives. That love was justified, Yet when someone wants to dedicate their life to career, something that will eventually improve their life, isn’t given that required importance. Society, you see!!
Now, does that sound fair?
People say Bill Gates was a college dropout and still successful. Where exactly is it written that you can only be successful if you go to college? It’s about focusing on what you want and having a clear plan of action.
Just following a set pattern—career until 25, marriage at 26—doesn’t always allow you to live for what you love. Stability may work for some, but uncertainty brings curiosity and a desire to explore life in ways that a rigid path might not.
The stereotype that careers are just a duty to be fulfilled because you have a degree—or because society says you must—needs to be broken.
In the end, do what pleases you, understanding the consequences, but don’t let society’s expectations be one of them.
(P.S. I know our family or partner may have their own circumstances, thoughts, and expectations, but this article is from the perspective of someone struggling between all these.)
