Choices

I often wonder about the choices I've made in my life, short though it has been. There are points where I could have chosen from a myriad of options - with no real compulsion to go in any direction. I've spoken to other people about their choices, or more specifically how they make them. The manner in which choices are made run the gamut from the slow, ponderous weigh-all-the-options-and-choose-the-best-one, to the split-second gut-reaction choice. I like to think I'm the kind of person who thinks things through, and indeed I do tend to do that more often than not. However, when I think back to the actual pivotal choices that have brought me to where I am today, I realize that I am more one for the instant brand.

For instance, in my eleventh year of school, I found myself floundering. Generally a 'good student' up to that point, my grades and interest in school activities took a dive. When I think back to that year, I really don't know what was going through my head. Occasionally I hear a song that I liked during that time and a subconscious link to a forgotten memory sparks the remembrance of a suppressed emotion. Definitely an adolescent emotion, because I cannot put a name to it any more. A cocktail of 1 part anger, 1 part shame and 3 parts confusion. With a twist. Now comes the choice - stick it out or quit while I'm (barely) ahead? I honestly don't even remember that choice ever concretizing in my head before becoming a fully vocalized plea to my parents to get me out. In retrospect I do believe that was the 'correct' option, if such a concept exists. Let me rather call it the best option for me to become the specific me I am today, out of the infinite pool of alternate possibilities.

Moving the reel ahead about a year we see a much better adjusted me. Sending out three University applications and receiving acceptance from them all. Here comes a critical choice. And one which I am still not sure I made 'correctly'. There were so many variables that this choice came bundled with that there really could be no other way to make it than by instinct. Choice A was closer to home, but B was reportedly the better Department. B and C had good international recognition, but A was in a city with less crime. Pros and cons balancing out. Eenie meenie miney moe...

Jump ahead a year and a half and an older, but not really wiser me is writing a set of exams which I might as well have not. Second year, first semester. The wave I rode all through my first year of University has finally hit the rocky shore it was inevitably headed towards. As the surf crashes against and swirls between the dark rocks, I grab anything that might get me out safely. Once again I was faced with a familiar choice - fight or flight. Stick to my chosen degree or transfer to another. And this time I can remember clearly the exact moment I decided to stick it out. In my head I have a fully 3D frozen image of that very second. I have only to close my eyes and I can swoop down from the blue sky with patchy clouds, blown by the brisk breeze to my disillusioned self walking out of a very brief meeting with a 'career counselor'. The sun had just gone behind a cloud and there was just one other student heading towards the stairs. I am frozen in mid-step and mid-curse. With eyes dilated and adrenaline pumping, I choose to fight. With this decision I am satisfied.

Now we get to the present. Or at least the choice that is currently to be made. If all things go according to schedule, I should be finishing my degree soon. Right now, beyond that all things fade into a thick impenetrable fog. I can see small pinpoints of light, but they lie along two diverging paths. Work now or study further. Am I ready for the 'real-world'? Do I have the will to tackle the masters course? Doubts plague the fog in my mind like ghosts. I have to hope that when the time comes to choose, I choose 'correctly'...

In two minds,
Arjun