The Decision Dilemma

It’s funny how our career takes different and totally ‘unthought-of ’directions. Six years ago when I was in 12th, I had hardly pictured myself in a career I am in today. It does not mean I am unhappy where I am now but definitely it was not actually planned.I am definitely not the person who can answer ‘where do you see yourself 6 years from now?’ question confidently, because yes it depends on our decisions but according to me there are a lot of other factors involved which are not under our control.
As I look back now, there had been many compromises and surprises which changed the track of my career. Initially I had decided to go into medicines. I had to appear for an entrance exam for the same. Unfortunately on my score I did not get admission for MBBS into a government college, and I didn’t feel quite excited about getting into dentistry so I rather settled up for engineering. I think it was my first compromise, I could have waited taken a drop and reappeared for the exam and finally got into medicines. I don’t know what made me change my mind and take up engineering instead. I did my engineering in Instrumentation and like other college Kids, I thoroughly enjoyed my college life without a trace of guilt for not pursuing my career in medicines.
While in college I had never really given a thought to what I was going to do after graduation until the time for campus recruitment came. I got into Wipro and that changed everything again. I was definitely not from software background and to be honest I was utterly surprised when placement results were announced. That time I was feeling euphoric about getting placed in a good company and didn’t think twice whether I should have rather waited and got into a core company which would have justified my 3 years of studying Instrumentation! It was the second time when I missed opportunity of shaping my career in my own way and happily left everything to destiny. I worked on my programming skills while waiting for joining date. And when I got the mail regarding my joining date… I learned that I was put into testing services and I must accept that again changed the picture which I had initially thought of. I don’t say I was totally helpless but it was a time when I was ready to take the experience, it was my decision to go ahead and I was the one responsible for whatever way things might have turned out. I joined testing, worked in Insurance domain for more than a year, learned new things, all in all it was a nice experience.
I feel sometimes, now that IT has got into so much trouble, may be if at all I was in a core company and not in IT; I would have been in a better situation. But who knows, every decision has a different future associated with it. The most difficult part is there is no way to know how things would have turned out if decisions were taken otherwise. We make hundreds of decisions everyday and however small they are, they do affect our future. The decision we take changes the course of our life and it is not always possible to go back and make a fresh start. It is an everyday gamble and definitely luck has its significant role in it. The only thing in our hand is to learn to cope up with the unpredictability of life and make the best of what we have.