The roller coaster ride

The year 2008 was a very eventful year. It was nothing short of a roller coaster ride for me. Found myself selected for longterm projects in the US and UK. Got my long term work permits for UK and H1B for US done. But then my search for the real meaning in life starts. In the month of April one of my close friends made a stark comment that would change the course of my life.

Do you care for short term gains(onsite trips) or long term profits(MBA) ?

This friend of mine eventually went on to do her MBA in Narsee Monjee, Bombay. However the question sparked a huge debate in my mind on whether money is important or power. I can go to my dreamland called the US for longterm and make big bucks there but what am I at the end of 3-4 years ? Just a simple programmer / developer and nothing more than a puppet in the hands of bigwigs. Or else I can do an MBA and move on to managerial or consulting roles within the same timeframe. Somehow I could never realize my true calling among the teeming mass of software engineers, and my fascination for power and positions of responsibility made me shirk all the money and I decided to call it quits in the later part of the year

My professional learning was over however the months that ensued were the best in terms of personal learning and analysing the truths of life. I would scalpel dissect each and every facet of life where I had gone wrong and what could I have done to make it right. All those truths of life would come later in some post or maybe in some other blog.

However all this caused my grey cells go on to the turbo mode and took a toll on me. Forget dreams, I could barely sleep in the nights. The subsequent economic recession ensured that I would not get a high profile job compared to the one I had, after the exam season and my career-break. This put a huge pressure on me to perform in the exams. Needless to say I scored less than the earlier year in all the exams.

So, I decided to put all vigour into GD/PIs of the institues that I got calls for. In the process I made some excellent friends most notable of whom I would call I(no its not me, its the name of my best friend in those times who shared a lot of common likes, tastes and aspirations with me and was one of the few girls who would connect with me on an intellectual level).