Choosing the right career
With social life turning increasingly complex and careers multiplying exponentially, choice of a career is becoming more and more baffling. Some old professions have gone extinct and quite a good numbers have emerged, making the choice not only cumbersome but stressful. It wouldn’t be futile to go through some difficulty, even if some what strained, if one would land up on the right path. The problem arises when, after all the trepidation, one gets into a wrong track. It is thus crucial, when deciding about the career to exercise utmost caution.
It is a bizarre paradox and a pathetic irony of an individual’s social existence that he/she does not know much about himself /herself in terms of choice of things that suit him/her in accordance with the temperament but others pretend to know all such things about him/her. And tragically enough, we too have come to rely on other’s judgment for what suits us. To this extent, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that the person so relying on others for one’s career choice and connected matters, is playing with his/her life and exposing some degree of bankruptcy of self –knowledge. In accordance with the incontrovertible logic of life, I should choose my career in consonance with my disposition, propensity and taste. This is not to indicate that other’s views should not be sought. An expert opinion should be had and respected. But as Shakespeare said more than four hundred years ago, “Take each man’s counsel, but reserve thy judgment”, the final decision should be ours. How can there be someone to know me better than I know myself. The million dollar question arises, why does this happen?
The origin lies in our childhood when our mind-set was frozen into a conditioned attitude to advice from all elders. Not encouraged to exercise independent choice then, we are scared to do it even now. Understanding this fact with deep feeling and the havoc it plays with our lives, is the first step we need to take to be self-possessed and self assured. A beginning should be made with small things. The effort should be kept up until we catch up with bigger things. Wisely has it been said, “Take care of little things, big things will take cared of themselves”. The crying need is to embark on this path right here and now.
How to know what suits a person.
A self reliant person knows instinctively what suits him/her. He will be driven aright by impulse. Others need greater circumspection. And this is one of the methods to determine what one is made for:
1. Whatever you are doing or have chosen to do:-
a. Are you doing it reluctantly, even if with faint reluctance or with alacrity? If former is the case you are made for something else. Remember nobody is made for everything but everybody is made for something.
b. Does it afford you pleasure and are you at a peace with it? Or do you feel that you are doing it by way of a necessity /compulsion and given a choice, you would opt for something else.
c. Do you find a satisfactory degree of fulfillment and self-expression?
d. Are you almost as relaxed in doing what you have chosen to do as though you are pursuing a hobby? If so, you are ideally suited to do it.
e. Do you get a feeling that you are fulfilling your life’s purpose in what you are doing ? If so, stick to it. Today as perhaps before too, the choice of a career is dictated often enough by:-
(i) Glamour.
(ii) Earning.
(iii) Power and
(iv) Social prestige.
There is nothing wrong with all these collectively or each individually. Everybody has a material as well as psychological need for these. They have social approval and acceptability. Yet, if a career affords all these or anyone or a set thereof but, leaves a feeling of some inner dissatisfaction on account of non-expression of one’s natural tendency, hold yourself back and think for a while. The carrier opportunities are so huge that there must be, in the ordinary course of present day life, some calling which will be in accordance with your liking. Just go out and explore.
However, a word of caution, in case you take up a profession which does not reflect your natural urge but gives you everything else or much of it, you will be left with a feeling of discontent.
And when a career gives everything of social importance but induces a morbid feeling of dissatisfaction, the following consequences, which are not anticipated in the beginning, inevitably creep in:-
- Such a profession will not receive the enthusiasm from the person adopting it.
- Performance level will drop with the passage of time.
- Commitment needed in such circumstances will decrease.
- The person will only look to others as being happy but will be fundamentally discontented.
- Personality will not only cease to grow but may even stagnate at some stage.
On the contrary, if a career suits a person’s disposition, he/she will shine and sparkle.
Here one would tend to suggest that it may not be advisable to wait for an opportunity to arise and let the existing slip out of one’s hand. It would be better to take up what is available and be watchful when a suitable opportunity presents itself.
The Feature film 3 IDIOTS is an eye opener.