The Ugly Duckling

"It's high time you become rational else you'd end up not making anything of your life"

and when I speak up for myself, a very defiant

"I know I'm right"

is added to rest the case.
Why was I told this and why is it that I'm getting to hear this phrase so often? I am a tad amused to note how when anyone in my family is a bit annoyed with me or is having an argument with me and wishes to have an upper hand, this is one of the best retorts that perhaps they can come up with. Or they'd tell me how I'd never make a "Career!" Oh how I hate this word career. Interesingly , that word has always reminded me of a "carrier!" These days one doesn't really get to see taxi's with a carrier in Delhi and one doesn't even call them taxi anymore, cab is the preferred name. But when I was say 8 yrs of age..a yellow black taxi with a carrier was all one usually got to see. It's something like this -->
And unlike this most of them would be loaded with suitcases or other stuff belonging to the passengers. Gradually as I grew up,while those taxi's began to disappear from the scene ( they may still be seen in some parts of India though), a new much hyped up and talked about word "career" began to emerge.Of course it was pretty much a part of the psyche of the people even before that but it is during my teens that I sensed how it kept trying to claw at my soul and grip it like it had possessed the souls of all students and teachers around me ( or that's how it seemed to me!)
It was all about how this course you do , that skill you learn would look good on your resume, how your highschool marks will decide your destiny and be the key to a good college, how you must study voraciously,exhaustively, endlessly and without questioning the course, the academic cirriculum so you may make something of your life, be someone great someday,become well known or get to be ahead of the race.You bet to be successful! Aha! Race, that's what it was then, that's what it is now and that's what it alway felt like. If you're a part of it and are acing your game, you're looked at it in awe or applauded but the flip side is you feel suffocated especially if you gradually gain awareness that this race is keeping you from truly knowing yourself and your potential, it is trying to label you as 'normal'.

Aye, this one fits, this one obeys, this one submits, this one doesn't make us look awkward by trying to question us and therefore threaten our position. Accepted

!

What? that one is trying to break away from the 'norm' , doesn't wish to follow the rules, how dare he/she call this a race -- this is Life!, lazy bunch of people...don't wanna do anything and so they go about tagging our way of living as a race..how do you think that makes 'us' look? ,I tell ya this one so doesn't care about a decent living, he'd mess up his life I bet, he's already made nothing of it --> Rebel --> Rejected!Outcast!Ugly duckling

I wish I could explain to the people worried about my reistance/hesitation over pursuing my graduation or doing an MA in the future ( I was, as per them, destined for a phd!) that I don't enjoy being clouded with doubts or not knowing what I really wish to do. It bothers me way more them it can ever bother them which is I know out of concern for me. And I appreciate all the concern but what i need is support and faith, not warning or caution boards/signals, understanding, not worry, a willingness to look at things from a different perspective!But well, I have to admit my conviction powers seemed to have dipped somewhat. You know how when you're convinced about something, it's like others pick up on that conviction, they sense it and can't bring themselves to raise a finger at you or question you. They too after a point affirm that you'd find your way. Try it sometime and you'd know what I mean. But when you are in doubt , when you yourself aren't pretty sure of your actions, well then the world mirrors you. It mirrors your self doubt and loss of confidence via people who'd not invest much faith in you or through situations where you'd end up cutting a sorry figure for yourself. Why do think I'm facing this situation with my family. Why do you think my brother said that to me?

I have tried to fit in and yet I know not why I always falter. No matter what the situation, I find it extremely hard to not follow the musings of my heart. It's not like I haven't tried to ignore the whispers or that I haven't tried being more rational. But to do that has often felt like an act of self destruction, its as if I was trying to withhold love from my own self, like i was trying to kill the sensitivity I was gifted with. Nopes, I ain't no psychic and yet I don't know why I feel like I've been brought to this scary stage in life because of that sensitive nature, that it has happened because I wasn't numb enough. You'd probably thing why am I in a tough situation when I already am following the call of my heart. Well, that's because while my inner voice does tell me what it doesn't want, I know not why it won't really tell me what it "does" want or maybe i just have to fine tune myself a bit to hear it! ! So it's like you’re hungry and you know don't want to have a chicken, pizza or burger but there are a hell lot of options and you aren't sure as to which dish out of the 100’s available on the menu would you like to order! Does that mean I’m doomed? Well, I hope not.I think I have something promise coming up for me tonight. Let's see how that'd go and I'd be happy to share more about it with you later.
(26th may, thursday, 8pm)