Why it is okay to take a Career Break…

Gotta give credit to my parents; they allowed me to do whatever I wanted. Also, it’s my privilege that I don’t have any financial responsibilities yet. So I don’t think I’m in any position to write anything morally sound. Yet it was not all sunshine and rainbows the last couple of months…

Why should I work?

Just like every other kid, I was expecting life to be beautiful—getting paid for what you like, spending money on what you like, no more frugality of hostel life! That was kind of exciting, finally a freedom to handle your “own” money! But reality took almost 3 years to strike me. 99.99% of people get a degree to find a job. And do a job to get money! Money apparently controls everything. Those who have it want more, those who don’t have it, want it even more! But then why are these guys making money? I used to think… they have financial responsibilities, they want to feed their families, send their kids to school, pay off that loan! This reason was easy enough to understand, why wouldn’t you work damn hard to solve your problems? You must!

Neuroscience suggests that being different is better

Neuroscience became my fascination; I got to learn a lot about it. During this journey of learning about the mind, I got to know a very strange fact: whatever we see, touch, hear, taste, smell… it’s all just an illusion of our mind. Whatever we perceive as a “world” is just random reasoning our mind has created for us, a movie of which we are the only audience.

After just a few years in the real world, I got to know that people aren’t chasing solutions to problems; they are chasing something better than what they currently have. Even if their kids go to school, have no debts, have a stable life; they want to send their kids to better schools, will get bigger loans to buy bigger houses, cars, and then chase a bigger salary just to pay out that higher EMI!

Do I agree with this? Absolutely not. But I don’t disrespect anyone’s choice. Life has no meaning anyhow, so at least they are doing whatever keeps them busy.

Why did I take a break?

I took a break because I can’t keep myself busy just to chase money. Sure, I wanna buy a sports car and a super expensive watch someday. But those are my “wants” and not my “needs”. I can do a bare minimum (thanks to my privileged education) and satisfy my “needs”. Satisfying wants is tricky for me because I don’t want to waste all my time chasing those dreams.

The breather, taking a break, allowed me to think about what I want to achieve and “why” I want to achieve it. Answers are not finalized yet, and I don’t think they will ever be, but they are much clearer, much elaborated.

Never listen to anyone

The best thing that worked for me is this: never ever listen to someone else. People live their own version of life. Their mind has a completely different reality than yours. So don’t ever waste your time living someone else’s life and satisfying someone else’s goals.

I’m privileged, no denying. But not so privileged to follow whatever I want; I also need to struggle extremely hard (mostly internally). And I am sure most of you do too. So do what you want to do, it may not be the best move but at least it will be yours 🙂

Thanks for reading! 🙂