50 and counting

Was 50 and counting the last time I checked, and yet, here I find myself after close to a week and still jobless. Funny. Would have thought that after close to two years of working in the largest private company in the country it would have been a cake walk. Turns out that I'm wrong. And how!!!!

Easy for me to criticize the process....the system......the companies.....

Easier still to simply get disappointed and lower my standards and goals......

But the fact remains....this is where the world is headed.......

The neo-achievers:

I am the best of the best. I cannot accept failure. I don't like to daydream. I don't like to just chill. I hate stupid people. I hate wasting time. I hate coming second. I hate breathing fresh air. I hate being without a goal.

I hate being really me.

The system is equally to blame. It has created a generation of test-takers instead of learners. Students have actually mastered the art of acing an exam and regurgitating all the remaining learning simply to get the SCORE. Everything from what goes on your resume to what books you should read to what kind of activities corporates look for in a c.v., everything is thought through. The youth of my generation fears being a non-achiever. It has simply become taboo. The burgeoning number of MBA's and the similarly growing number of schools is testament to this fact.

The need to achieve. The need to be the best.

Whats really wrong is that the influence's give a damn about this.......everything is now business.

We still see MBA students fresh out of grad school. What the hell do they even know about the working environment. Give them some time to work at the lower level in an organization to understand the ground realities of the working world, then perhaps we will see them shine far beyond imagination.

Seems only right that the financial systems world over are in a crisis. When marketers do finance and financiers do operations and operations people do sales......what do you expect.

I fear India is headed down this same path.

CGPA's, extra-curriculars, social causes, all combine to form the perfect well rounded individual. Who is often burnt out by the time he/she is thirty. Even stress management is now a resume bullet point.

We Indians have lost the plot somewhere over the last 20 odd years. Close to 5 lakh Engineers graduate in India every year. 25,000 in Mumbai and Pune alone!

Yes the competition is stiff and extremely volatile.

But where are the parents? Where are the teachers? Where are the educators?

Where is wisdom?

The youth of my generation needs to be told it's OK to fail. We need to be told it's OK to waste time. We need to be told it's OK to just relax. We need to be told that life is not about building a resume. We need to be told that we are really appreciated. We need to be told the truth about the world.

We need to be told it's OK to be ourselves!