A turning point

When I finally have a reason to be happy, I seem to be indecisive. One fine day I cannot stop crying over an interview reject and the next day, I have a job. It feels like all that happiness that I felt cancelled out the extra sadness, but I still have some of it left. I have been so impatient to get to this point in life since the last two years and now that I am here, it does not feel any different. Though parents, relatives and friends are all too eager to rejoice, all I can think of is, what next? It is time to think of that day years ago when I decided I will not be living the exact same life that my peers are living – studies, job, marriage, kids and maybe buy a house, a car and so on, but again, am precisely on the same track. I dread those conversations where I will be gauged based on how much I will earn. The more, the merrier.

These two years have taught me more about myself than ever before. Right from being told that I am too rude for my own good to realizing that I shall not even be vaguely remembered by the people that I hold very dear to me, I have had lots of humbling lessons to learn before starting a career. Why does it always happen that I am enlightened only at at the end! I sometimes find it scary that I prefer dealing with machines because it is easier to get the desired results on a computer, but not with people. There are many good recollections too, but we tend to dwell on what we could have done right, rather than taking credit for what we did not do wrong.

It surely does feel like a turning point, to be starting my first real job and to look forward to moving to a new city, but what lies ahead is hopefully not too colorless. I would not be lying if I said that it is relief that I experience after the toil that was the last semester, much more than the thrill that I should have. The recognition of the fact that all that money that my father spent, did not amount to nothing and that the times when I thought I am not capable of anything and that I should leave everything and head home, do not really matter anymore, helps.

It is probably time to put all the agitation aside and see if I can be better. Maybe I will finally have time for all the things that I always wanted to do, like reading, writing, learn to play a musical instrument! I might finally be able to work on not saying everything as it comes to my mind, and not sounding brusque to those around me. I believe that the more we do, the more time we have, and not the other way round. My roommate said “Here’s to you not being this negative in life anymore” when she fed me the cake that she got on account of me landing a job. Here’s to all of us never being negative, ever!