like take the example of the cohort that graduated in the summer of 2008 to which i belong. a 150 fresh mbbs graduates came out into the real world. so it was yet another crossroads and time to make choices again. what gets me thinking is how many of us actually stop to think of what we are to do next. the obvious choice for many would be to move on to postgrad in a specialty and further training to be a specialist doctor. and there is nothing wrong with that. i would love to be one too. the problem arises with the way we think that we choose to do it.
i have often observed that we dont have to do too much to live life well. life has a way of taking care of you. all you have to do at your end is perform life's current task well enough. thats all and everything else is taken care of. i finish mbbs and the obvious questions arise and life has an answer. do a pg. there is not so much thinking involved in the choice, ofcourse the details are different.
when i say life, i mean what you have around you. you have a certain upbringing in a certain household with a certain way of life in a certain society with certain social, cultural and economic sensibilities. and if you choose to sit back and relax, then these have a way of being your cushion. they have conditioned your behaviour enough to make whatever is next obvious. just dont ask too many questions and everything will be laid out in front of you.
your life is the environment around you. it is the nature around you not your nature. it is what nurtured you, not the ideas you nurture. every idea you have, every trait you claim has litttle to do with you. it is a response you have conditioned to an external stimulus. and the beauty of our societal environments is that there are inherent feedback mechanisms to keep track and if necessary weed out the unwanted. and may be even recondition a response into a more suitable one. thats the purpose of your society. the thinking has been done for you. you have a role to play. just do what you have to well enough and everything will show up in front of you. its almost like life is offering you a step at a time what you need . you could be blind to where these steps lead and still you wont be lost. and if you were to deviate and sidestep, there are inherent protector mechanisms in this society that will try and bring you back to the mainstream that life has charted for you. if you persist, then you are marginalized, obscured or even ostracized. every once in a while there are few who can reach the destination through their own charted paths and they stand out. society explains them to you as extraordinary or freaks. its almost like they are pushed into being the cases falling outside 2 standard deviations of your normal gaussian curve. even maths is taught to teach you the oddity.
now when you do dare to sidestep, you are making a choice. now what governs this choice. the reason you chose to sidestep is so that you can take the reins into your own hands and lead life the way you want it to go. but then if you were to chart the new directions based on previous conditioning of the very same society you come from then how far are you really stepping out. all you know is what you have learnt, that is responses to those stimuli your environment has given you. the eyes can see only what the mind knows holds true here. the limits of your thought are more or less defined by the boundaries of the stream you are hoping to leave. then what do you do. do you even have a true idea of your own that can help? is any response your own as all the stimuli coming are that from an environment you are trying to abort and therefore detrimental to the search of your new direction?
society teaches you to dream of a destination. the final outcome of your efforts. yet it very successfully limits them temporally. therefore any average joe being led down his path sees satisfaction in stepping onto the next step. but he fails to realise that the next step will always be there. there is no stopping. whatever your effort, action, there will always be an outcome and you will move on. such a joe will never realise that it is never going to end. walking through the mall he is inspired to dress like an icon and purchase a particular brand. then a car, a house, watches, holidays and the list is endless. he runs after another everytime. does he ever stop and think about what it is about the next thing he desires that will make it all come to an end? i dont know. will he ever realise that such a scramble is perpetual unless he stops it. i dont know that either.
some say it is not the destination but the journey that is important. but society teaches you the contrary. you belong to a certain social class and therefore there shall be certain endpoints that you shall aim to achieve. anything else is crushed.
we all are eventually aiming for the same thing. yet how many of us realise that we are all conditioned beyond imagination such that we limit our own choices.
choice is an illusion. they let you pick a flavour when all you know and see is chocolate.
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