As an undergraduate student doing my degree in animation, I am often asked ‘What made you choose this course?’ ‘What about the wages?’ ‘Who will hire you?’ In a society where we are judged by our career choices and paycheck as a unit for happiness, even I often find myself questioning my own decisions. The society has placed us all in a box, where exploring new career paths means dangerous waters where we do not want to venture into, which involuntarily makes individuals to choose paths that do not want to, but are forced to so that they are safely inside the box, it’s a fail proof system. As kids we are told to set our expectations and ambitions high but not too high or else when we suffer failure we get discontented. We should work hard, but on the safe side, the fail proof zone, follow the usual ordinary path, get a job, earn a decent paycheck and be happy, then repeat the process with the next generation.
What society does not understand is that money is not the key to happiness and what one may enjoy doing the other may loathe. True happiness and contentment comes from doing what we love. It’s amazing that due to our kind of education we are taught to believe that getting money is the most important thing in life, and hence we spend our lives completely wasting our time, we will be doing things that we don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things that we don’t like doing, which is stupid. It is better to have a short life that is full of things that we like doing instead of a long life spent in a miserable way. We go on educating our children to follow the same ineffectual cycle, hence stimulating the same perception to the future generations.
To quote Robert Frost, Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. The road less traveled, which is indeed the path that we should be educating our society to graze upon, the different decisions we make and the various roads that we tread upon is what make us who we are, the risky choices we take, and the walk on thin ice is how we discover new worlds and eventually conquer it. The uncommon path which we take truly defines who we are. Sure, as a result of the uncommon choices we make, the path can be unpredictable and uncertain, but this uncertainty is that what drives each individual, and makes them take certain decisions which change the course of their life forever, this uncertain path exposes them to different experiences and soon enough this walk on the new path turns into a journey which on which they learn to savor the sweet and bitter moments and create memories that last a lifetime. We must pursue our passion no matter what the society or others may think of it, and not chase the money. If we truly dedicate ourselves to walking the long way to pursue our true passion, we will eventually be able to master it and receive a good fee for it. Somebody is interested in everything, so don’t worry too much about it, don’t let the society restrict you inside a box, think outside the box, take the leap of faith and as you look back in the years to come, one will realize that the odd path that they chose, had made all the difference and made them stand out from the rest.
