As I was walking home today, I had the unfortunate pleasure of coming across an old classmate of mine. He saw and greeted me with the usual local handshake that I find extremely infantile. Anyway, he asked me what I was currently doing and I told him that I was pursuing my undergraduate degree. He was shocked, saying that I "wasted" 2 to 3 years of my life doing nothing.
Typical.
And here I thought he might have actually matured a bit - although the handshake should have provided more than sufficient evidence otherwise. I told him very calmly that I was not in fact, doing nothing. I was working as a Freelance writer, writing technology report abstracts, spinning articles and gathering contact data for multiple international clients. If the guy had any clue about business, he would have understood that experience meant everything in the industry. If you simply graduate without any experience, your pay will be shit. It's only after you have gained sufficient experience that people in the industry will actually begin noticing you.
Regarding the wasting 2 to 3 years of my life - sure you could see it that way, if you held outdated concepts of how a person is supposed to spending his or her time. I have matured a lot in the past 3 years and in the process, discovered what I truly wanted out of life. I came to realize myself more fully, and that is something academics alone could never do to you. It is something you have to figure out on your own, and yes, it does take quite a bit of time for most people. It disheartens me to notice how many young people here are wasting their life away burying their noses in text books that they don't even have the slightest interest in. If your heart is not in it, you will not succeed at it. Hence why the majority of people in Shillong end up living a destitute life where they wander blindly, knowing very little about the world and even less about themselves. Now if you want to talk about wasting lives away, that is where you need to look.
He told me he was looking for a job at some local bank. Good for him. Banking jobs in Shillong are dead-end jobs though. You can say goodbye to happiness and personal growth.
I, on the other hand, am going to proceed through the next 3 years with the intention of maintaining high grades, pursuing a Masters Degree after that and finding a job that pays well whilst allowing me to explore what the world has to offer. I may have been away from academics for a mere 3 years, but the years to come will be more fruitful and satisfying for me than for those who graduated too early because unlike them, I had the luxury of reflecting back and rectifying everything in the past before moving forward in life as an entirely new person.
