Are you secretly proud of not listening to your parents?
This is more of a rhetorical question. I remember having a discussion about the same in Twitter a few months back and some of the other millenials echoed the same thoughts. I am about to reach mid 30s and I know it is still early to claim that I have made it in my life by not listening to my parents. I have learned to take full responsibility for my life from a young age. May be it is because I am the eldest one in the family. For many of my friends this doesn't come naturally and they want somebody else to be accountable for their life. This has led many of them to live a life of lie - from choosing wrong profession to marrying the wrong partner. The list is endless.
In a lower middle class family, getting a government job is like winning a lottery. So imagine the horror of my parents when I turned down such an offer! I didn't even have a stable job at that time. I remember my father begging me to join the job. It was a difficult time. But it was clear to me that I would never thrive in such an atmosphere and it can eventually led to a permanent state of depression. I have worked in a typical government office for almost an year and I was disgusted by the attitude of the employees there. Also I realised quite early in my life that the people we work with have a direct impact on our personality even if we don't really admire their qualities. None of my parents were concerned about such an aspect. But it was an important one for me. When looking back after a decade, I am glad that I was able to turn down that opportunity even though I ended up hurting my parents.
In an Indian family, there is a strict cycle of life that you are expected to follow. This includes studies, job, marriage, kids, house etc. It is never easy to break the cycle. Even when all my cousins and friends mooned over weddings, I was repelled by the very idea of marriage. Equal marriage is still a sham. So my decision of staying unmarried gets questioned every once in a while. But I am yet to regret that decision. I would rather stay single and die alone than to spend my life trapped in a marriage so that I get accepted by the society.
When it was clear that I will never be going in the way my parents choose for me, they wanted me to secure my life with a house. I have had enough financial burden already and never wanted to take a housing loan even if I had to spend the rest of my life in a rented house. I had enough stress induced health issues and I straight away said no to buying a house with a loan. My parents are still not convinced about living in a rented house for the entire life. May be I will rethink about it at a later point. As of now I am happy that there is no housing loan in my name considering the situation we are in.
I might have oversimplified these decisions. But these decisions can make or break you in the longer run. I see many of my friends not living upto their potential just because they want to follow the path their parents chose. It makes me sad. In the end it is our life and I feel we should be happy with the decisions we take.
