Am I the only one who
finds it unusually odd that everyone today wants to be a "hard-working,
motivated professional who wants to immerse himself in some serious jammin'
sessions of problem-solving"? Look at any of the college resume objectives these days. Each one of them has this colorful combination of superlative phrases that
essentially aim to establish the twenty-something as a superhero stud who for the
lack of sufficient heroic opportunities in the world had to attend college, sit
through lectures, do homework and write rigidly-timed closed book-exams. Besides, it always the 20-somethings gassing away to glory. Does it seriously seem like the world around is experiencing an influx of efficient problem-solvers ? The
twenties are an age when you are on steroids of hope and you think that every
entry-level job is basically like being in a rock-band that has already made it
big. Did you ever come across a 37 year old who says he "loves
challenges" on his resume ? No frickin'
way. Why would anyone wish to love to have problems to fix them beats all logic to me - just to have a career ? Don't you think it's slightly self-indulgent to aspire
for the two-fold wish mechanics: ONE ... to wish that the world should
have problems, and TWO ... to wish (again!) that the market should pick you to fix the problems?
I am never gonna be those hard-work types. Nor do I have the slightest intention in
staring invitingly at a challenge eye-to-eye ... pretend like I was gonna make some
dirty love to it ... then quickly duck down to hop around its torso ... pull its abdomen
right onto the ground ... grab it by its
arms, put a blanket over it ... tie it into a bundle with a really tight
rope ... place the bundle as a cannonball
into a cannon and light that goddamn cannon on fire ... KA-BOOM. I don't love one bit of the ordeal and I firmly believe in doing what I love. So ... yes ... until I clear my confusions out, I am going to get out of any responsibility using this technicality ...
I don’t know about you
all but I simply hope that the universe is unfair enough that it will make me
super-lucky and things will work themselves out without me having to struggle.
Is it too much to ask? Is it wrong in the 21st century to draw inspiration from
the classic tale of the Disney princess who is waiting for her knight in a
shining armor to come and rescue her? Why can't our attitude towards global
warming be applied universally to plan our careers?
Isn't it what we are doing anyway? Our high levels of personal ambition leave us with too much unused time and energy implying excessive production of goods to help a few careers as we keep on creating artificial demand and advocate aggressive marketing tactics to sell those produced items and thereby, we end up consuming more stuff than what we need in order to keep the economy running, thereby cutting more trees to make space exhuming more and more carbon that ultimately endangers our own ecosystem and at the end of the day, we are too tired after all this to solve real complex problems like climate change, so we simply wish that we are lucky enough that the planet won't take it out on us and hope it will all be fine. Alas, why can't we only if have the sense in the beginning itself to take it easy and simply wish it's gonna work out.
Isn't it what we are doing anyway? Our high levels of personal ambition leave us with too much unused time and energy implying excessive production of goods to help a few careers as we keep on creating artificial demand and advocate aggressive marketing tactics to sell those produced items and thereby, we end up consuming more stuff than what we need in order to keep the economy running, thereby cutting more trees to make space exhuming more and more carbon that ultimately endangers our own ecosystem and at the end of the day, we are too tired after all this to solve real complex problems like climate change, so we simply wish that we are lucky enough that the planet won't take it out on us and hope it will all be fine. Alas, why can't we only if have the sense in the beginning itself to take it easy and simply wish it's gonna work out.

4 comments :
Brilliantly written! Loved the way office rage is escalated to the larger problem the world faces.
And then when people like us take it easy, we are called incompetent :)
@Sourav: yeah ... taking easy is somehow more crime than actually doing something ... :)
Really, who likes hard-work?
20-somethings think that bull-sh*t in resume will get them somewhere (it is mighty hard to fill up a one-page resume when all you have is a degree). By 37, one should know that no one falls for that bull.
And by the way, no one specifies which problems they like solving. Everyone has the problem of getting their own food, clothing, and shelter that they wish to solve. There is no need to develop wish mechanics of generating problems.
egg-jactly ... well said ... there are enough problems as it is, no need to wish more ... :)
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