It is scientifically
proven that you can physically live only in the present. You can chip your
nails all you want trying to dig out the past or fry some serious grey cells
stressing about the future, but your body shall continue playing hockey with
the present. No other choice man.
So now that we have
established that we are residents of the present, I find it bizarre when
someone asks me “Where do you see
yourself in the next five years?”. It is the most baseless, mundane and
garbage of a question in the history of questions. You are supposed to have a
six by six vision into the future and know exactly where your life is headed to.
Anything less and you are a disgrace. I have battled this demonic question
through school, college, job interviews and conversations with the enlightened gentry,
being the friends of my father. My every answer rebutted the previous one and
my conscious hid her face inside a used paper bag. This question truly needs to
be eliminated.
I really don’t know
where my life is headed to. I don’t know where I will be in the next five
years. Maybe I would be soaring in this lawyer profession of mine, or maybe I
would be married with a kid on its way, or maybe, I would be in a hospital
undergoing a colonoscopy. I could be anywhere, doing anything and living anyway. My
present is all I have to fret about right now. Yes, right now.
Now I have reasons
to substantiate my aversion to that question. The validation is that not once
have I lived the vision I saw of myself five years back. In school, when Shiny Miss asked me where I see myself
in the next five years, I told her that I see myself studying to be a neurosurgeon.
Of course I said that only to make an impact, because 11th grade
came and I opted for commerce. Then came law school where the same question was
repeated and the answer this time was “I won’t be a litigation lawyer. I see
myself working in a top tier corporate law firm”. Of course, I became a
litigation lawyer. I can hear the universe trying to stifle a giggle.
There is
nothing wrong in not knowing where your life is headed to. It is OK not
to have a plan. You are allowed to let life take its own course. You are
fine! I try treating my present well and I prepare for the immediate future
which my myopic vision can see, i. e ‘What clothes should I wear for the
upcoming wedding of the senior I hate.’ or ‘May be I should start a recurring
deposit to save some money because I need to buy an iPhone next summer’.
Sometimes, just sometimes I try to go a little further by exercising 4 times a
week because I know that this body of mine needs to be healthy to pole vault
over the insane hurdles that the future has charted out for me.
The past five years
have changed me as a person. I do not hold the same interests, I do not carry
with me the same mentality and I have very less in common with the person I was
five years back. I have evolved and I have learnt. I have become an upgraded
version of me, with many bugs removed. I did not foresee any of this. I did not
plan. I am comfortable with myself.
I am not the Planning
Commission of India to come out with a five year plan. Come to think of it,
even their plans rarely work out.
Why kill a beautiful present?
