Deja Vu

It's a lovely morning, drizzling, cool and cloudy weather. Yesterday was UPSC preliminary examination. It was culmination point of weeks of prelims oriented preparation. The 48 hours period before, during and after the UPSC examination is an emotional journey which takes one to the totally unthinkable trajectory. 

The day before the exam is filled with uncertainty, anxiety, and fear. Somewhere it is interlaced with confidence and inner belief in success. Anxiety drives you to sleeplessness. People find it difficult to sleep on the night before. Despite months and years of preparation, no one can be sure about what kind of paper UPSC might set. 

The day of examination is generally dealt in preparing ourselves to deal with unpredictability which UPSC will throw predictably. As each second passes in the examination hall, one may wonder why did he leave one topic and chose other and how he could have done something more for the examination? But all of this comes with an advantage of hindsight. During the preparation, aspirants have so much to read and study that it is very difficult to pick and choose one thing over the others. And add UPSC's unpredictability to this entire scheme and it gets very difficult. 

As the exam gets over, everyone heads home. Some go to a friend's place or find avenues for releasing tension. Answer sheets flood the market. None of them is perfect but people use them for tallying their score. This is when another strange emotion occurs. For me, this year was a strange experience. Some sort of fear had gripped me and I was very reluctant in checking my total. Given this year was the last attempt so a negative result would have set the tone for the rest of the life. Checking the total was akin to a person uncovering a face of a covered dead body praying to the god internally that it does not turn out to be a known person. 

Overall, UPSC preparation is like living the life on the edge, in the realm of uncertainty and emotional turmoil. It is a very difficult journey and it requires a very strong balance of mind.  For that matter, it is a similar experience with any other dream in life. An experience worth experiencing and enjoying.

Quest for an identity

A scurry look at your surrounding and you will find everyone hurrying around, trying to catch up with time, doing multiple things simultaneously and running short of time. Why has this become a trend of the global work culture? Why are people so busy and so anxious all the time? Why can't we simply walk instead of racing or relax instead of being anxious? 

These conundrums do not have a simple straight answer. Oftentimes, it is fear. Fear of unknown. Fear of losing job or missing out on assignment or failing in the competition. But a deeper analysis shows that it is more than just the factor of fear. It is a compulsive craving to carve out an identity for yourself.  It is an issue of identity achievement or identity crisis whichever way one may like to call it.

The global work culture has created a norm system where individual identity is tied to his economic achievements. Economics is the hard reality of the modern era. Thus most of the struggle revolves around achieving an identity which can ensure good economic well-being. In this interrelationship of economics and identity, the job becomes a major fulcrum around which everything revolves. Therefore, most of the people run for such job which is high money paying. This will give better economic security and as a result better identity. Alternatively, people go for jobs which are more secure and cushy in nature. Here also the purpose remains the same. 

So what is the way out? The way out is to discard the quest for identity. Discard the quest for being well known or well recognized. Once one is able to do that then there is no compulsive need for economic security or high paying job. One can easily relax and have fun. But it is easier said than done. From one angle, this may indicate a defeatist attitude. From another angle, this shows avoidance attitude. 

Good Night.