I think this time it all started with a discussion on why you want kids. Hypotheses were proposed and discussed. Like always.
Such discussions have taken place on a lot of things I think matter in life. Why you want to be what you want to be ? Why you want to have that big a house ? And etc. etc..

Only this time I realised the common theme beneath these questions. All of them arise in first place because of what we have been trained to expect from our lives by the society.

And I think that’s the crux of many frustrations and problems of life.

We should think and dream of what we want and strive hard to achieve it. That is what has been taught to us right ? To dream big and to work hard and we’ll one day achieve them.

But seldom do we take a moment to question why do we actually have that dream in first place ? Is it really what I want and if yes, then why do I even want it ? Is it something which ‘I’ would like to have or is it something years of co-inhabiting this society has implanted in me ?

The other day a colleague put forward a thought I rather found amusing but was put forward in all seriousness, ‘we’ll all be married by the time we next meet.’ well, it may or may not happen but I begged to ask why do you feel like marriage is something so big that you need to talk about it ? Why do you feel like it’s a certainty of life we all need to go through ? Why isn’t it just another thing which we ‘can’ do if want to ?
I find it funny when I’m laughed at when I say I might never get married or have kids. That’s society’s conditioning in action. Indian one presents marriage as a norm so people find the idea of never getting married funny.

These conversations made me realise that the way we think has been in large parts conditioned by the society we live in.
Getting a job. Getting married and then having kids is a given. What we think our freedom, particularly in Indian Society, lies in getting to choose the chronology of these events. To choose when we want things to happen in life. It seems like we have forgotten that we can also question why do we even want these landmarks to take place in first place ?
And when I observe human nature, I find these preconceived notions rather funny.


And it’s not just about landmarks, somewhere down the lane we let society’s expectations of us creep into our lives and decide our dreams for us.

From childhood, what do our standards of achievement mean ? Getting 90% ? You want to tell me one who failed is actually not intelligent then ?

Growing up what do our standards of beauty mean ? Do you remember the words tall, fair, handsome man with 6 figure salary in matrimonial ads ?

Need something more personal ?
Our standard of getting into Medical College ? Getting MBBS is lucky but getting into Dentistry (BDS) is to be looked down upon ? Why ? Who decided for us what is better and what is worse ? Why is one thing better than the other ? Why did you let someone else decide what is it that would make you happy ?

And now I hear the same thing when talking about Post Graduation. You get dermatology then you’re lucky. You get Pathology, well, you didn’t work hard. The other day I was talking about USMLE and the first reply was, “You’re not getting Radiology there so what’s the point ?”
Well, I dare to ask why ? Why do you assume I want it ? Can I not do something because I love it instead of thinking about which is going to make me more moolahs ?


And this brings us to ‘what is success ?’ How do you define a man is successful ? From where he lives ? From how big a house he lives in ? From the number of digits in his salary ? From the car he drives ? From the brand he wears ? From the woman he gets married to ? From how many cosmetic treatments she can get ? From the number of dresses she can buy until the very last strand of your self esteem is destroyed ?
Really ? From what ?

Again, it’s not about career choices. It’s about everything you want in your life. Marriage, kids, what interests you apart from academics. Whether you like to travel ? Why do you want to travel to mountains ? Ever asked if it really gives you peace or have you let yourself believe it does ? What’s your source ? That Instagram page ? His life ? Her photographs ?

From all these thoughts over the years I’ve gathered one thing. It’s important to take a deep look and reassess what your dreams really are and if they are really yours or you’ve just let yourself believe you think that way because somewhere down the lane, your parents, your teachers, your dear friends, your relatives, the senior who doesn’t know your name, the junior who coudln’t care less have made you believe in something which you aren’t really passionate about.

And that is hard to do in a life where you are constantly bombarded by information from all sides. You hardly give yourself a minute before you pick up your phone and start scrolling again.
What this amount of connectivity and social life does is that it doesn’t let you have a moment to think. It is constantly telling you what you need today. And before you take time to mull over one thing, here comes the next thing. What this does is that it conditions you to believe in certain things a certain way. This constant inflow of information is also what has uprooted our healthy democracy but that’s a talk for some other day.


Your success is determined by how happy you are. How content you are in the moment you are living in. And that is a parameter you get to decide for yourself.
You might get 6-pack abs you sweated for, the ‘dream’ job you cried for, marry that ‘hot’ model you dreamed about, drive a Lamorghini with bazillion of dollars stashed in the trunk and still envy the 6 days a week, 9-5 lab worker with a beer belly who married his high school sweetheart 30 years ago and has 2 beautiful daughters he gets to spend 5-12 with.

You need to have your own definition of success for your life. You need to understand what makes you happy. And you really really need to understand whether you love something or you are in love with the idea of that thing.
And for that you need to give yourself time and reassess your life choices. You need to take a moment and ask yourself, ‘Are You Happy ?’