DON'T Be What You DON'T Want to Be

DON'T Be What You DON'T Want to Be

How often have we heard highly conflicting stories that end up squeezing a person between an immovable influence in his/her life and a wall at that ? Who has not heard of spine-tingling stories that a parent kept insisting that his/her child should pursue this calling or that vocation ?  Or parents [unwittingly] pushing his/her child against the wall because they want him/her to be what their eldest sibling ended up with ?  And what's the failure rate for people pushed against the wall ?  Quite high, to be honest.  Such failures even exceed the 80% threshold.  Why do we think all these keep hounding us over and over again ?  It's because we are unable to realize that all we need to do and to be is DON'T Be What You DON'T Want to Be.

I have seen families where one sibling was etching his mark in his career, and finally realizing the typical success milestones, a home, a car and a budding career at that.  Then you would hear the parents pushing the younger brood to follow the footsteps of the eldest.  But hey, we are unique from each other.  Not even the Siamese Twins can be almost identical inside out.  But as the stereo typed story goes, the younger siblings literally toe the line, in their earnest desire to appease the parents, they pour it out but frequently, they fall short of the expectations.

Let us not be a square peg in a round hole, much the way the seaman was left high and dry because he pursued things not his liking but more because he was stepping into the shoes of someone who is NOT him.  And even if we fret, we will always end up with that miserable ending of a story unless and until we embrace this mantra: DON'T Be What You DON'T Want to Be.  I even had cousins before who's only option is to pursue the vocation their mother dictated ever since their eldest brother was ordained a priest.  Net result, out of four brothers, only the eldest became a priest.

Remember, if by blood we may be cut from the same cloth, it doesn't follow that our future will be identical enough as dictated upon by the influencers in our life.  That runway of life, ours remains unique from each other.  Even prior to our takeoff,  how high and far can we go can only be shaped by us.

Let's swing into real-life scenarios.  More often, we seem attracted by the role or position in the organization because we see someone successful enough.  But hey, it's grossly unfair if you will succumb to that ambition to be a manager because that successful manager has definitely unique capabilities, quite apart from yours.  You might be a dyed-in-the-wool techie so, please pursue that track instead of envisioning to be manager sans the skills/capabilities required from a manager.  Just DON'T Be What You DON'T Want to Be.   ✅✅✅