Deep within me

The controversy of Amir Khan naming his dog as “Shahrukh” was splashed all over the internet, which incidentally led me to Amir’s (Amir Khan) blog. While I was going thru the blog, many things struck my mind. I’ll list down some prominent ones

• The blog was real nicely presented, obviously the work of some well paid web designer :)
• It was constantly updated and had links to some previous blogs of the author, which showed his interest in penning down his thoughts publicly.
• If you go to the comments section of the posts, for example the latest post on his blog, you can see a flood of comments posted by the users (6500+ in the last one). Though it is quite obvious that a popular actor like him will definitely attract such an attention, but what is noticeable here is, he is quite regular in replying to the comments. The content and the tone of the comments don’t seem to affect Amir’s responses at all. He replies to all of them in a pretty cool way. Given his tight schedule, I really wonder how he manages to regularly reply to all the comments.

Now coming to the real point, what the blog really sparked inside me was, if Amir Khan who has such a tight working schedule, can take out time to cater to his blogging needs, why a person like me, who is having a much less busy life than his, manages to post only 3-4 posts a month, keeping my writing and blogging passion in the background. Another very strange thing, which I think after seeing every successful person, I thought, was – will I be able to command so much popularity ever in my life?

Keeping Amir Khan aside, giving him the additional benefit of being in showbiz, there are thousands of other people I see and hear about, whose success story triggers a train of thoughts in my mind. I really wonder when I would be able to start one of my own. I remember one incident during my Hexaware corporate training in Pollachi, which I would like to mention here.
It was a soft skill session of “Goal setting”. The lady conducting the session put a question in front of everyone – “What is your goal in life?” Most of the people sitting in the class were quiet, not knowing what to say. A couple of them stood up and presented their dreams of owning a company one day or being a successful entrepreneur. I decided to declare mine. I stood up and told “I want to do something which will make people remember me for a lifetime & long after I am gone”. It sounded very bookish and sort of inspired from a politician’s speech, but believe me, I meant each and every word of it. She was quiet for a moment and then asked me to come to the front near the white board. She told me to write what I said on the board. The next question she asked me was, “How do you think you are going to achieve it?” That was the question I had no answer to. Then she explained how to achieve your goals by breaking them down into smaller ones, achieving whom will eventually lead to the ultimate aim of yours.

The problem in hand right now is, my goals and my course of action are diverging in two opposite directions. Appearing for Civil services and becoming an IAS will probably set me on a path towards what I really want. But abandoning my present job and loosing out on the big buck I am getting doesn’t seem to be a wise decision either. I know I need the money, but at the same time I know that there is much more than just money that I need.

Is it only me or do we all have this dilemma in our mind? Has anyone of you ever felt the same way? Had an urge to do something so big that the whole world knows you? To break away from the shackles of this silly “Groundhog Day” like life and do something to rock the whole world? At the same time not able to understand what exactly to do and from where to start with?

Sometimes I feel that maybe deep within me, I have the answers to these questions, but I just don’t have the courage to go ahead and do it. Anyone remembers those words from Chris Gardener in the movie Pursuit of HappYness?

Don't ever let somebody tell you.. You can't do something. Not even me. All right?
You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do something' themselves, they wanna tell you, you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it.