The Choices

Today I watched "Lions for Lambs" and something rang in the back of my head. I realized that ‘something’ is the plethora of choices our generation faces. I let it come to the front of my head and came to the conclusion that it basically boils down to only two. Let me try to explain these.

The 'First Choice' is to follow the Shiny Dream. Study hard, become an engineer, do a MBA, get a job and buy everything shining, from a diamond to a sportscar to a big house to a yacht. You may not follow the same path of engineering plus MBA, but maybe grind your way through medicine or chartered accountancy or the Indian Penal Code, but I guess the final goal will be the same.

The 'Second Choice' is to follow the Not so Shiny Nightmare. Study harder, get through IAS, get into the bureaucracy and do something about it. You may again not follow the same path, but maybe would try to become a successful politician or join the Armed Forces.

Now that the basics are clear, let me dwell into why choosing amongst them is tough.

The 'First Choice' is not because of greed but because we as middle class and/or working parents' children have been moulded to think like that. We have heard and even seen our parents toil away so as to make our lives comfortable and therefore want to continue and progress on the same line and become even more successful than they are. As my parents say, "We didn’t have all these facilities; you do, so make good use of them". I do not believe that following this path is immoral or will not help all of us, as in the end someone has to buy stuff to drive the economy.

But I guess it would not give us the kind of satisfaction that following the 'Second Choice' would give. The satisfaction of ‘going out of the way and testing your limits’. Sure, there are many hurdles and a lot of red-tape but then if the current generation does not get its hand dirty, we can be assured that the future generations will remain in dirt. And also maybe we DO have the basic facilities that our parents did not have; we can afford to dive into this.

Thus on one hand we have something that we have really wanted to do throughout our lives but on the other hand is something that we have realized recently is also as or maybe more important. I guess the current environment has had a lot to do with this awakening as more and more people realize that for us to succeed as a human race all of us have to work together.

But then again the Shine’s sole purpose is to attract...