Do you Follow your Dream?... Do you have One?

Recently I traveled to my home town & in return journey to Pune, I got a chance to meet a young lad who was sitting besides me in the bus. As I always look forward to meet and know new people, I started inquiring this lad about him. First I thought he is working professional in software or engineering domain (this is what 7 out of 10 middle class Indian parents dreams about their child), but to my surprise he was pursuing Diploma in Arts (drawing, painting etc) from one of the reputed institutes in Pune. 

My curiosity increased and I started digging out more about the course and how he got in to it. His answers were confident and very clear. From his early school days he knew that he is having passion about drawing, painting and this form of art. He knew what he wants from his life. He knew he is having a dream which he want to follow. While I was impressed with that, I also had few more question on his struggle on convincing his parents about what he liked to do. Like most of the middle class parents, his parents also were not very much convinced on choosing this career for him and they started inquiring people they knew in this field. The boy told me, my parents inquired some people who were not really successful in this filed (because they chose it accidentally) but they did not inquire those who are doing great in this filed. He had to make lot of efforts to convince his parents, but what made him convince his parents is, at first place, he was convinced and confident that he wants to do this only.

My purpose of sharing above incident is, Indian parents (typically economically Middle class ) go for traditional or "in boom" education like Medical /engineering (now a days Chartered Accountant is adding in this list). I do not want to blame parents but there are several reasons like, a) lack of awareness about the other careers available, b) lack of attention on what the kid really like to do or where his / her inclination is, while putting the kid in the so called "Rat Race". The other reason is that, not all the kids will show similar confidence while going against their parents or they might not realize what they like to do at the early stage as the above mentioned lad shown.  

Time has come in India now that parents needs to help their kids in understanding what they like and what are the paths available for their liking if they want to choose it as their career. Of course now a days we see more such examples where parents are supporting their kids liking but still there is significant improvement needed as I could observe in society.

To help our next generations there are several organizations already working and one out of them I know is Endorphin. If you know what you like, they will help you in giving right direction and if you don't know or did not realize yet what you like, they will help you doing that with scientific methods.

Lastly, if we really want to lead a successful, stress free  and satisfied life, we should follow our dreams.

P.S. : I am still learning how to do that for my self :).