Who should decide what I should like?

When you come to a point where you have no need to impress anybody, your freedom will begin! — Siddhartha Gautam Buddha

Let me share one of my personal instances where I faithfully realized that I have been distancing myself from the above fact. When somebody asks me “Hey, Can you tell about yourself?” — let us see how I have been answering.

When I was 5, I said, “My name is Guru and I like red color and Caramilk candy!!”.

When I was 10, I said, “My name is Guru, I like Shakthimaan and want to snatch Popeye’s Spinach box someday to save my Olive from Bluto!”.

When I was 12, I said, “My name is Guru. I want to play like Sourav Ganguly and want to become a Space research scientist!!(not sure where did I meet/hear Sir Abdul Kalam to grab this interplanar inspiration)”.

When I was 16, I said, “My name is Gurucharan. I am desperate to become a doctor (clueless why? Definitely not inspired from our family doctor who had treated me well when I was down with Jaundice). I am preparing hard and let me see how it goes!”. Do you see the chapter of peer pressure beginning?

When I was 20 (when I eventually landed to be an Engineer), when somebody asked me to tell about myself, I said, “My name is Gurucharn Raghunathan, I know Linux, C & C++, MySql with good understanding of data structures. Apart from my interest in hackathon, I learnt classical singing and won district level badminton in my school”. This version had helped me to grab a campus placement offer and I joined the league of extraordinary 4.5 million software engineers in the country.

Today, when somebody asks me to tell about myself, I spontaneously say “ My name is Gurucharan and I am a passionate evolved Product Manager building world class customer centric internet products”!

Although the question is same, you can find my different answers at my different stages of life which have been navigating from what I have really been liking to what the world around me wanted me to like. There is an interesting story connects the dots from red color to building world class products. The propellant of my life has been concentrated by the societal influence injecting a career centric fluid in the grey cells of my thinking.

I don’t mean that I am really not passionate about Product building but I may have plenty of other things in my personal value scale which are disappearing without my balanced vigilance.

What exactly happens here? When somebody wants to know about me, why I have learnt to talk about things what excites the interrogator and not the ones which I am really excited to do. Even today I honestly like red color, desperately want to snatch Popeye’s Spinach box and play like Ganguly. But, I have built a strong hesitance in my honesty to disclose the REAL me to the audience.

Why I should give importance to my work/career always when somebody asks about me? Do I really work to live or live to work? There are plenty of other things I do in my life apart from the work. Are the people around (family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, peers) emotionally force you to think only about your career or monetary success as a true success story?

Success needn’t be measured in terms of money. We should realize the equilibrium which treats a person who has established a multi million dollar revenue channel for a global corporate and the one who feeds a biscuit to a street dog in an absolutely same way. The equilibrium is at par for a person who has cracked a toughest job interview in a reputed world class organization or someone who has won a public election or someone who has got huge returns in a stock market capitalization or someone who has saved bunch of cockroaches from a pest control at home. It’s the value what we create matters not just money or career progression or a societal recognition. As we are sweating most of the time to crave for recognition & impression, we end up not realizing the value creation.

It isn’t just not me! Don’t you also start with your career highlight when somebody asks about you? I am a Professor and I live at.. I am doctor and I do… I am an entrepreneur and I sell..How long we have to sail in this ocean of illusion? Everything in life need not have a career flavor or a monetary dependency. Life is something more to do with! When next time somebody asks to know about yourself — Talk about your gardening. Talk about your recent dubsmash videos. Talk about your horrible finger painting skills. Talk about your broken up love stories. Talk about the recent book you read and why you haven’t convinced with the writer’s perspective. In a nutshell, do not let your degrees & high paying jobs to define who & what you are to a stranger.

Daniel Coleman says in his book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ that human brain is made up of two major components when it comes to thinking.

• Rational brain which always seeks for a benefit, logic and return based engagement
• Emotional brain which always seeks for a comfort, liking and return free engagement

So, the real composition in thinking should be to attain the balanced rational and emotional intelligence. When it comes to telling our story to others, it is imperative to have this balance in portrayal. This is a foundational acceptance to be built which will help us in finding a way to attain the real freedom which Gautama has stated. Let us not restrict our dreams and ambitions only to a career.

Let us unwind more in how to stop impressing others (at the compromise of self) with more common instances!

P.S. This may not be applicable to those who fall under Vivekanda’s proposition who pick one idea in life and make it their life. Only for most common clueless creatures like me!