Introduction – The Bliss!

Joseph Campbell - one of the world’s most well respected mythologists gave us a simple yet profound message for our life:

“Follow Your Bliss.”

He said,

“bliss is how you feel when you do something you absolutely love to do, and it is a thread that’s connected to your dreams. So, when you follow your bliss, you also find your dreams, and fulfil your reason for being here." (I will write more on this in later blogs).

I first came to know about this popular western catchphrase in one of my all-time favourite books, The Secret - Hero which made me believe that Bliss Leads to Bliss. Rhonda Byrne writes,

“there’s an irresistible and powerful quality that radiates from you when you’re in bliss and doing what you love, and that powerful quality draws more bliss to you. No matter how insignificant or small it might seem, each day you make sure to do something that is your idea of bliss. And before you know it, you will be inspired with other blissful things you can do and from just doing that one thing, you will soon have a hold of a thread that’s going to take you to your dreams and to a far better life.”

But, it often takes courage to do the thing you love and go against the majority. It takes courage to resist the temptation to try and please anyone, and be true to yourself.

We often lose ourselves when we walk on stereotypical paths. Be it respect, status, etc., we always give excuses to not follow our dreams and go straying away from who we really are just to fit in a bunch of people who are doing nothing but the same thing.?

I found my bliss in Cybersecurity and Ethical Hacking when I was about to complete my graduation in Commerce and Chartered Accountancy which was a completely different field. Being first generation graduate in my family, I was just a few miles away, on the wrong path of-course. The catchphrase, “Follow Your Bliss.” stuck with me and kept repeating in my heart and mind. That was it. The inner-voice most of us spend a lifetime running away from.

All I had to do was just to follow my bliss. I embarked on a way to study Cybersecurity in Chartered Accountancy where my voyage towards the bliss began. The journey was full of astonishing experiences be it working with the India’s top Cybersecurity consultancy firms or India’s most advanced Cybersecurity department – Maharashtra Cyber where my projects were launched by the Chief Minister of State or working with Asia’s largest civic body as their cybersecurity coordinator. One of my investigations is being adopted into a mega budget web series which will be aired on world’s largest OTT platform, Netflix.

I always wanted to pursue higher education in cybersecurity, get some technical validation of what I am good at. However, even with all this experience I was not able to secure a place in any Masters Program in Cybersecurity in India due to my non-technical educational background.?

I tried to apply for such courses in other countries, where rather than a degree, your experience matters. To my fortune, I became a recipient of the prestigious GOI IES award to pursue masters in Cybersecurity from Ireland, fully sponsored by Irish Government. The above para looks like a three-line story, but behind those three lines, there are numerous rejections, sleepless nights, moments of despair, but one most important thing – the path of my bliss.

Currently I am pursuing this master’s program in Ireland and I will be sharing the stories of my bliss in upcoming blog series “52 Weeks of Bliss.”

I do not have any inspirational stories to tell but just experiences of how I followed my bliss and somehow, I met people who were in the field of my bliss, and how they opened doors for me. I believe that if you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.

Follow your bliss and don't be afraid. The doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. Wherever you are?– if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

"No heart has ever suffered when it goes in the search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with GOD and with eternity." -Paulo Coelho

Here I am, losing myself into my bliss and contributing to my field and trying to make this world, a better place.

See you in my weekly stories, where I will share my journey of living in a foreign land connecting to my bliss stories that I have been living my life. Cheers!!!