For the past five years or so, I had a pretty good idea of where my life was heading towards, a picture in my head of what the future would look like. It felt nice, having a clear visualization of what I was working towards, knowing that in all the frivolity and chaos, there was a big picture to it all, a reason to persist.
Working in the corporate world, you learn to deal with things in a very goal oriented mind set, especially when working on a deal. Origination, screening, detailed analysis, due diligence, board approval, shareholders approval, execution, completion, settlement and transaction filing, there are very clear and defined work steps laid out for you to follow.
At the end of the year, you’re usually given an indication of how well you’re performing against your peer group, a sort of incentive to bring out the competitive corporate animal in you. If you’ve managed to perform the work steps admirably, please proceed to Go, and collect RM200k in bonus money.
It seems only natural to apply the same indicative measures to, well, life.
Life progression may not be as clear cut as career progression; there are no work steps devised by some overpaid consultant to follow, beautifully laid out before you on an A3 sheet with flow charts and diagrams. But when you benchmark yourself against your peers, you can get a pretty good idea of what is expected of you.
I take a look around me and I see most of my peers, slowly yet assiduously progressing their way through the suggested life work steps. School, university, internships, career, relationships, marriage, home ownership, children, retirement and death. If you managed to perform the life steps admirably you are well on your way on the path to fulfillment.
Of course, not everyone subscribes to this approach to life. You sometimes come across the brave, unconventional types who prefer taking the road less traveled. They are the ones I admire, the ones who aren’t confined by our very small societal expectations, who shun the prescribed work steps and make up their own rules as they go along. I admire them because I don’t think I have it in me to venture down the alternative road. I’ve learnt to deal with my inherent awkwardness in this world by subscribing to the conventional or any kind of philosophy that would allow me to fit in.
And so, in succumbing to my risk averse nature, I was very much prepared to sleepwalk my way through the prescribed work steps until a very loud and unexpected wake up call in May jolted me from my deep indifferent slumber. Now, that very clear picture I had in my head, that path I was happily trundling upon looks like an unfinished bridge heading to nowhere.
I guess that’s what sometimes happens when you bank your whole life’s happiness on the success of a relationship.
The bad news was that I spent the past few months mourning the collapse of my life’s framework, hence all the confusing and incoherent babble on this blog.
The good news is that I’ve had a few epiphanies along the way.
The question that I’ve been asking myself for the past few months is whether it’s even worth rebuilding the bridge to continue down that well thought out path. Or whether I should just cut my losses and dare to imagine that life could in fact look different
The thing with life, as it is with deals, the work steps are only there to serve as guidelines. Just because you follow the work steps doesn’t guarantee that the markets won’t collapse and that the deal won’t explode in your face. As it is in life, finding the perfect job, perfect spouse and perfect house does not guarantee a lifetime of happiness.
I take a closer look around me at my peers and I see that even after diligently following those prescribed work steps, life didn’t always turn out as they planned.
Life is already so precarious, and then you throw a spanner in the works - a heart attack, post partum depression, the inability to conceive, getting fired, a cheating spouse; incidents that are out of your control. You can plan everything down to a T, but when you reach a gap in the road, when something stops you from continuing down the prescribed path, sometimes you too have no other choice, but dare to imagine that life, could in fact, look different.
So here I am now, facing my bridge to nowhere with much trepidation, but still hopeful that life will indeed take me to a place that looks more fantastical, mind-bending and unexpected than any picture I could paint in my head.
