What is our real profession?

“Yes”, I am also a part of rat race, the race in which everyone is running to achieve more and more, the race in which everyone is running so fast that they forget they are running on an illusionary path that has no end.

Few days back, 8 AM I got a call from one of my very good friends, He said,” It’s my birthday today; please make sure that you are available this evening”. I said, “I am extremely sorry, today evening it’s not possible dude, I have lot of work to finish”. I felt sorry because I missed his birthday party and because I even forgot his birthday.

We all are running behind the cheese that is already in our pockets. But in the whole process we forget our actual goals and start to chase that same bitter cheese. No way are we happy running and leaving our friends and family behind. We go on running all our lives and when we grow up, one day we suddenly realize that we had everything that we need but we did nothing that we want.

What is use of the job that stays in our mind even though we are at home with our family? We have made many sacrifices in our personal lives to make our future bright, but will that future ever come and let us quite the rat race?

It is easy to change our job and grab missed opportunities, but it is not easy to get back special moments from our life:
What about best friend’s wedding that we missed?
What about birthdays that we missed?
What about our hobbies and personal interests?

What about our real self? – One day we will miss our real self too.

We think about our work all day and night. Is it really worth spending so much time and getting only dissatisfaction in return? Even thought we are satisfied with our work, what is use of such satisfaction? After all even a highly paid slave is still a slave, who has sold his soul to master money.

I was satisfied with my job, but when I asked few question to myself such as – “Are we doing anything innovative? Are we adding values to society?”

I realized that I am not doing anything innovative, because I am making copy of an already existing copy. Thus, I call it a Copy job. I am sorry to say but IT job to me is a copy job. It is far below my capabilities, and I am only running behind illusionary cheese.

I don’t mean we should leave our job and stay home, however we can at least think of job as a means only to pay our bills. We can at least try to make our personal life as our real profession. We can try to work after office towards our dream and goals. We can spend time to enjoy with our friends and family.

Organization was running before we joined, and it will continue to run after we leave, no one will remember our names. I still remember what my last manager told “Work in office only for rating 3 and work in your life after office for rating 1”. He was right.

We can achieve much more than we think by following our heart and working for our dreams, our passion, and our real goal. There is much more satisfaction in working for ourselves than running in rat race.

It is not how much we know about the world, but how much we know about our self.

It took me several years to realize this simple answer, and I am happy that at least I am trying to get out of the rat race.