I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
That was what Robert Frost said. Though it is a commonly quoted line, I wonder how many people seriously think about the meaning of it. We have seen from childhood the urge to build a career and the concept that engineering and medicals are the main two ways to go about it. I have grown up with a bit more liberal environment, which very graciously even accepted some of the courses as worth graduating in, like math, physics, economics, English. But that is mostly the extent of the less traveled roads that students try taking. In some other places, there’s no life outside medical or engineering. Any other profession is not worth a career.
There are a lot of reasons for this mindset, one of the greatest ones being the fact that the population and the competition faced due to that population is too much to take anything lightly. Anything which is not the most common path, have some risks involved with worthwhile returns. When people are fighting for daily food, how can someone ask them to take risks? They know some paths have guaranteed income, and its safe to follow those.
But again, by doing this, people lose out on their dreams, their wishes. And after that is over, life is a mechanical way to exist. It’s not living. I have seen students being forced to study engineering, when they are extremely talented in say art, or music. How many people can you find who will encourage something apart from studies to form a career in? Just keep the talents and things you most like to do for a hobby and work on something you have medium interest in. Here you need to compete with people who are really interested in the topic which you care nothing about. So of course you are at a losing end, because your strengths are not being utilized to the utmost and you are spending all energy on something else.
What is the way around it? We should learn to widen our vision, to feel that not getting into medical or engineering is not the end of the world. And not pressurize everyone into following the same streams. We should learn to appreciate the different careers possible in today’s world. Money is not everything is it? Money will come after success and satisfaction. But we need to look for those first in paths less travelled. Else how will there be a “difference” in the way Robert Frost had felt?The world is beautiful, go out and explore... :)
