Goals of Life

It is hard to know at best of times what should be the goal of life. It becomes worse as you age and have family of your own. In the initial half of my life, it was all about survival for me. Most of my youth and initial few years after marriage, my life was all about acquiring skills which have value in market thus ensuring a secure livelihood. I saw that engineering and computer science have value going forward, so I enrolled into one and started my career in IT industry. Few years into my career, I saw that management and leadership skill to lead a team of people to make a difference to business would be in good demand, so I did my MBA which taught me various skills to lead a business successfully. I enjoyed part of engineering and most of my MBA. Physics and Economics were my favorite subjects and had great joy learning both the subjects.

Once I was through the survival period and took care of the future needs of the family, question was suddenly in front of me on what to do with later half of my life. Suddenly it was an unfamiliar territory where I need to decide among different choices on some new criteria as opposed to going in the direction of maximizing returns in the market place to ensure survival. This dilemma is what I term as mid-life crisis. Probably crisis might be a strong word for the dilemma but lack of meaningful goals can be very unsettling.

I am sure all of us go through this dilemma at some point in life. Below are the choices always in front of me not in any order of priority. I always try to review and evaluate. I am always trying to balance between these choices over last 7 years.

1. Self-Realization: According to all Dharmic religions, purpose of the life is ought to be Self-Realization. Gita prescribes three ways namely Jnana Yoga, Bhakti yoga and Karma Yoga. An individual is advised to take the path which is aligned to his nature and temperament. Jnana Yoga and Karma Yoga seems to be the right paths for me and I have to choose one of them. Yoga is quest for ultimate truth (Not fact) and many fail in the endeavour. I read several books, deeply thought through this and believe this to be the right goal for the human being. India is one of the few countries which has an unbroken chain of Self Realized souls and hence probably I am in the best possible location to pursue the goal of Self Realization. Just the thought of being free from fear and temptation is itself a liberating force. All India based religions preach that God is within you and it is just that you are ignorant of it and associate yourself with body and mind and live in that ignorance. Association with body is what breeds fear and develops temptation and more importantly one suffers through cycle of birth and death. Realizing God within you is Self-Realization and more importantly knowing him is itself becoming him. Self-Realization requires discipline, determination and relentless pursuit for the ultimate truth. It would be waste of precious life not even to attempt this.
2. Corporate career: I work for United Health Group and have been working in the company for more than 4 years now. I feel most of the corporates are force for good. For example United Health Group helps people lead healthier lives and there cannot be a more loftier mission. UHG provides employment to several people and also enhances the shareholder value at the same time. Corporates pay tax and their employees pay tax too which lets government get more resources to do service to nation and public at large. Corporates are islands of efficiency and benefit the mankind. I am a corporate leader and proud of my work. One choice is to acquire skills and become a good corporate leader. India for one is generally short of leaders in the private domain and the nation is at the cusp of breaking into a developed country with a large youth population. I also enjoy leading a group of people to deliver value to customers. The sense of achievement we as a team had in the recent past has been awesome to say the least. Setting a vision, working towards it and then motivating employees to achieve the vision is something I thoroughly enjoy. There is a limited space at the top and just the prospect of getting to next level gets my competitive juices flowing. Aiming for CXO is a definite choice. I may or may not make it but feel strongly that I should go for it having invested so many years in a corporate career.
3. Love thy family: I have a wonderful family. God gave me great parents, spouse, children and extended family. I will extend further to say that unit of humankind is not an individual but a family. One of the choices is to invest as much time as one can for the family. Learn to see your happiness in their happiness and your success in their success. Invest time to work towards success of children. There are so many things one can do to ensure children reach to their potential. This is something my parents have done and choice would be to just simply follow their footsteps. A man should never be under an illusion that he can change the world. We are just a speck and world is fine with or without us. Sometimes a modest and realistic goal would be to have progeny who can carry forward your values once you are gone. Once you bring kids to the world, its your solemn duty to ensure that they grow up with skills and capabilities to thrive in the world. One choice is to maximize time and effort for welfare of the family.
4. Chasing knowledge: There are very few which delight me no end. It is indeed a magical feeling when the profundity of any concept or theorem dawns on me as I read any subject. Recent examples are Blockchain, Quantum Computing and Nash Equilibrium. I am introvert by nature and can spend hours alone reading books on my own. I always felt academic pursuits suit my temperament. Economics is my favorite subject and the subject will undergo sea change with the dawn of globalization, sharing economies and data explosion. One choice is to pursue PHD in economics in the area at the cusp of economics, data science and IT. I love teaching too and hence would be double delight. There is so much to know in this world and just the thought of immensity of what I don't know gets my heart racing towards academic pursuits.
5. Working for others: I am actively involved in running Shishu Mandir as a joint secretary and board member (formally called EC member). I have been involved with the Shishu Mandir for a decade now and the best event in my life is when Shishu Mandir opened a new home for destitute children and a new day care center for taking care of poor children when their parents go for their daily wage labor. I consider my work for Shishu Mandir as highlight of my life. I can get full time into running a NGO as a director. I feel I have the required qualification, empathy and experience to be one. One can have a decent life running NGO these days and can certainly make the ends meet. Satisfaction one gets when you make a meaningful difference to other's lives can never be explained and only has to be experienced. The kind of strides we made at Shishu Mandir with me spending only few hours per day makes me believe that we can make great difference if this is taken as full time responsibility and commit to it fully. NGOs is an area where there is no great talent these days especially at leadership level. It is also an area which is suffering from under investment and higher need for quality care. Hence one choice is to get into domain of social service.
6. Living Life to fullest: General advise I get from friends is Life is short and one should endeavor to live to its fullest. There are so many places to explore, thrills to be experienced and joy to be had. Plan the life to maximize the joy. One should not regret at a later date and hence experience things as and when possible. Learning accrued when visiting places and meeting different people cannot be underestimated. Hence one choice is pursuit of happiness and maximization of pleasure. Work just enough to earn yourself free time and money to pursue happiness.
7. Joy of Art: Literature and Music is something I thoroughly enjoy. I wrote a blog a while back on art here. Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" is my favorite book?and Sindhu Bhairavi Raaga is my favorite raaga. There is?so much to explore in art especially music and literature. The few works of art I experienced made me understand the depth of human emotion leaving me with cherished memories. I just feel I have not even skimmed the surface and I also feel that life is not complete without exploring depths of art. The choice here is to go deep to develop passion for art and pursue it seriously to get to next level of detail to unlock the treasures out there.
8. Sports and fitness: I greatly enjoyed all sports and especially cricket in my youth. It helped my fitness at that time, built my character and provided great joy. After college fitness was no longer priority. Fitness had to be priority. One cannot execute any plan if one is not healthy. One should not be under any delusion that one can be fit by luck. One should not tempt the fate by leading unhealthy physical life. There is a part of me which feels that I should try to train harder, participate in marathons, pick a sport like Tennis or Badminton, decrease my weight and get healthy.

I hope now you have a feel for my dilemma. Some of the above can and should be pursued in parallel. Having said that it is important to concentrate on critical few for best outcomes and hence ideally would want to reduce the above priorities to 3. Dilemma is which 3 it should be. I hope and wish I can be wiser. Life always presents itself with interesting possibilities.