That little phase called struggle.

Hey you… Yes, I am talking to you. The twenty-something-not-so-sure-about-where-life-is-going person. I can see a thousand thoughts running through your mind, a million wishes waiting to get a chance and a zillion doubts ready to take over when you finally get that chance.

Isn’t it true that if given a hundred percent freedom of being what you want, you’d still change your career probably ten times? Or are you the absolutely figured out person who knows exactly what he wants to do? Well, I am not. I believe now you may be ready to admit that even you are not. Let me make it easy, no one is. Before you move forward, I’d just say, this isn’t a how to post, this isn’t a fun post, it’s just my experience which I believe can be useful for you.

There is no one who will do exactly the same thing if you remove all the constraints he is facing. And if someone says he will, he is probably more confused than you are. Since he isn’t yet exposed to the things apart from what he is currently doing.

A majority of us is in its early twenties. Starting their career or about to finish college. Most of those, with plans. Plans to have a great career, a great life and fulfilling all the dreams. While some plan to continue studying, some find a job they couldn’t hate more, some take time to figure out what’s next and some, as they say, struggle. And I ask, what is struggle? Aren’t we all doing that in our lives? Isn’t it that phase of life where anything we’re doing is just a stepping stone to what we actually want to do?

Image curtsey: http://www.aghanomics.com

I am not talking about you or me here, it’s about all of us. Some of us were toppers in schools while others did average. Some managed to score too well in college and some barely managed to pass. Some got what they wanted right when the placements began and some had to wait till the very end. Some topped the charts in CAT and some kept saying MBA after job. Some wanted to become the biggest CAs the country ever saw and some tried their hands in photography. Some prepared hard for IAS and decided to quit after two failed attempts. There’s a struggler in every one of us.

I see one of the strugglers preparing hard to be just as famous as he used to be in college, alas, he isn’t able to. He has big plans, and they take time, but the constant feed of the ‘more famous’ people in his Facebook timeline makes him desperate to do it fast and sometimes he loses patience and begins to think maybe he is not good enough. There’s one more guy I see, whose uncle earns in millions. He plans to reach there one day, and blames his sucky job for not giving him time to do that. There is one guy who writes, and sees every movie as an excuse of writing its review, he plans to make it big too, just that the people around him are too dumb to understand his plans.

Are you one of those? There are more. The “I will do an MBA when I am 27” guy, the “I want to become the team leader soon” guy, the “I will write a great book, till then this job” guy, the “I am preparing for IAS” guy, the “I have a girlfriend, I’ll just get married” guy, the “I just want to have fun… yolo.. swag” guy, the “always crying about how good college was” guy, the “I will do an MBA or IAS or maybe this job or maybe become a chef” guy, the “I want to have a government job and settle down” guy, the “One day I’ll have the biggest startup” guy and the very common “I don’t know what the fuck is happening” guy!

And then there’s a combination of many such guys in one. That’s the deadliest. You want to say you aren’t in those? I’ve heard that a little personal touch helps people open up. So let me tell you, I too am in that list. I’ve been a school topper who barely passed in college, always wanted to have a big startup, wrote a book and still dreaming to write that one thing that I’ll always be proud of, have a good job in hands and still confused about what to do in life and sometimes feel like giving it all up and go to the Himalayas. It’s just that I do what I want, no matter what. <And that Himalayas thing takes a lot of guts!>

What I want to convey is, no one is wrong. No one is over ambitious. No one in the list is too crazy to think about it and NO ONE, will ‘definitely’ be wrong in doing this. If you’re in the building phase of your career and you’re in that list, it is normal. You have all the right to be impatient, to watch movies, feel bad about life and then feel awesome right in the next second, feel like singing loudly or put on the best headphones, crying remembering your glorious past or feel proud thinking about an amazing future, love someone and hate someone… you have every single right to do all that.

Image curtsey: limitlesslaura.com

You won’t be wrong if you want to become a journalist after doing everything that could never lead to that, you won’t be wrong if all of a sudden you realize that MBA was never your dream but just a trend you followed, you won’t be wrong if you somehow realize you actually love your job and want to continue, you won’t be wrong in giving up money over family and/or comfort, and you definitely won’t be wrong in choosing money either, if that’s what your heart asks you to do.

Just remember, at the end of the day, if your loved ones know you’re happy and you know they’re happy, if you did at least one thing that took any of your million goals forward even a tiny step, you’re doing fine. You could do better and you will, but this isn’t bad.

This phase may be the confusing one and may be the worst of all, but there will be a time when you come out of it and that time you will be something. People on Facebook can wait, your relatives may shut up without an answer, the world may do just fine without you showing off, but a little patience will take you at just the right place. Keep calm, do what you want. Enjoy this little phase of life called struggle. 🙂