The Final Exit Mode

I am in an exit mode of mind. The new office hasn’t worked for me. Truth be told, no office has ever worked for me though I have been good at my work but never enjoyed it really. And I have sat myself down and racked my head to figure out what exactly will work for me? And the decision happened almost automatically. I want to study. Always have. Always will.

Going back to academics is a tough choice to make. Especially when one is used to the idea of the cheque arriving at your account at the end of each month, especially when one sees all most of their batch mates climbing the corporate ladder in full speed and especially when one comes face to face with your own convoluted idea of self worth.

At 20 I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was passionate about my subject but somehow I got fed in with external opinions about how a professional course is the only way to be. So I followed the herd, did a painful course, sat for placements and bang – I was now a management trainee at an office with a little cubicle. I wasn’t happy when I prepared for the entrance, I wasn’t happy to figure out math problems and who is whose aunt in those god forsaken logical sections! I was miserable doing my 2 year old course and I by the time I started working, I was numbingly indifferent and mechanical about my work. I thought a lot about returning to academics, pursue literature, do what makes me happy and finally be interested in something but then the demon of false-self-worth possessed me.

I think most of us paint our self worth according to how much money we make and what’s our official designation. Even if it isn’t something we love doing, at least its something we like being called. So when I go to a party and ask someone about themselves, 90% of their conversation will be about work. Why not talk about what you like, what you read, what music makes you the person you are, etc etc? Why only talk about the fact that you are so stressed because you are worried about how much your next bonus will be? I am not saying that money isn’t important. Of course it is. But sadly, money is now the only thing that seems to derive our self worth and that’s kind of shitty.

I had also fallen in the same web. Not working in a respectable office and not having something to talk about at these get-togethers would make me feel bad about myself. My parents would reiterate that how I need to work for people to respect me. When I took a break between 2 jobs, I didn’t like telling people that I am not working. I felt small, insignificant and worthless. Though when I wasn’t working, I was freelancing, but somehow I always thought that people will think less of me. And it wasn’t even my parent’s fault that they said it or that I felt this way. I think it was some kind of illogical social conditioning that just seeps into your head after a point of time.

But it’s been 3 years of working and 3 years of hating each morning that I had to go for work. And now I am in the final exit mode. I have realized that my self-worth comes from within me and no corporate snob in a party should make me want to redefine that. My husband makes me proud, he understands my love for studying, he wants me to return to academics, he respects it and that gives me an immeasurable amount of support and confidence. So this session onwards, I am a student again. I hope to make it through to the entrance, I hope to realize true happiness and I hope to reinstate my new definition of self worth. :)