Typically there are two schools of thought that are prevalent when youngsters are planning their careers.

One is to follow the bandwagon: Enroll in the course which is most happening (read - which most people follow), be it Engineering in Computers/Electronics, MBA, MCA or whatever and get into the best companies (read, Infosys, TCS, and Wipro if you are in software or the likes in Banking, Electronics or FMCG). This is what is typically also called as the Rat Race.

The other school of thought is to follow your dreams. But hardly anybody takes this route. It’s not the typical reasons like parental or societal pressures that completely explain why. The main reason why people take the beaten path is because they do not have a dream to follow. The educational and societal system we have, hardly allows students to have a dream, let alone follow it. Right from school one thing that is forced into every student is compliance. Follow what the teacher has to say, follow the school/class curriculum, follow the tuitions like everybody else does, follow the coaching classes for entrance exam and the list is endless. This hardly leaves any mind space for youngsters to identify their potential and have a dream.

When I was in my school, I was of the kind, who wanted to follow his dreams. However, the biggest challenge for me was to figure out what my dream was. I could never really figure that out.

And before I could, I was already in the rat race. I joined engineering in electronics and communication since my father wanted me to.
However being of the dreamer kind, I asked myself, now that I am here, where would I like to go from here? This question led me to have a dream: to get a job in research and development in India. I had it clear that I would not follow my friends, most of whom were planning to go for MBA. I wanted to be part of a research and development organisation and that too in India.

In mid 90’s this was a very big dream to have, since there was hardly any research and development happening in India, let alone in the field of electronics. However, I was keen to pursue my dream. This meant I had to be without a job for a few months after college. It also meant that I had to let go of lucrative jobs in big companies like Wipro, from which I had a job in a support function.
One attitude that helped me pass through that time was to be positive, hopeful and not to get trapped in anxieties that all my friends have a job and I don’t.

After waiting for a few months, I finally got a job in an organisation to work in advanced research and development in microelectronics, an absolutely unchartered field in India at that time.

I worked in research and development department for 12 years at various positions – including being a design engineer, a design lead, a team lead and finally a group manager.

By this time, I had fully lived my dream and I was getting anxious to do something different. What I was doing no longer looked like “the dream” to follow.  It probably was the time for a new dream.

In my role as a design manager, people management was a big part. I got involved in many intricacies of managing the relationship with my team members as well as relationships amongst them. I found out how aspects like openness and trust played a significant role in how the team operated and in turn on the success of the project. I started developing a lot of interest in the behavioral aspects of managing people. I also worked very closely with our HR department to develop new trainings and interventions for my team. I found that this process of co-designing the workshops with HR was very rewarding. And this made me wonder, should I start pursuing this domain.

I found my interest growing in this aspect and I started to contemplate a change in my role on these lines. This, however, meant that I had to give up my established role and move to a completely new field.

However, it was not easy to come out of the comfort zones to pursue a new dream – the comfort zone of a well settled job which I knew how best to do and the comfort zone of a settled family life . I could perceive the risk involved in leaving these comfort zones.

After about one difficult year of thinking and contemplation, and going against suggestions of friends and well wishers, I was ready with another dream. I wanted to move to behavioral sciences and work in the field of organisation development.

Thanks to my organisation, which was kind enough to be flexible and courageous enough to experiment, they offered me the position of organisation development consultant - without me having any formal education or experience in Human Resource.

The only human resource development experience I had was through my role as a manager of a design team.

Since almost last 3 years now, I have been responsible for the Organisation Development function of my department – which is close to 500 people. In these three years, I got my Certification as an Organisation Development Consultant from Indian Society of Applied Behavioral Sciences (ISABS), allowing me to have academic background in organisation development as well as a lot of experiential learning through the many human process labs (T-Group) that I attended.

When I look back now, I think I have been able to live my dream all over again and establish myself in this role. I have started to live and enjoy my dream. God only knows how long it will be before I start thinking about yet another dream.
I would like to summarize by saying two things:

One, I believe that it is never too late to have a dream.  At any point in our career, we can develop a dream. We need to be sensitive to identify our likings, potential and preferences and have the passion to follow them. And it is possible to do so, if we don’t get trapped in the anxieties of reaching somewhere quickly or comparing ourselves with others or only aiming for social compliance.

Two, I believe that a dream need not necessarily last a lifetime. Whenever we think that our dream job is no more exciting and does not give us thrills anymore, it is time to read the signs and look out for a new dream to follow.

If we don’t do that, we would be living somebody else’s life. And if we choose to continue to run the rat race, even if we win the race, we would still end up being a rat –a rat that has lived someone else’s life.