I don’t know about you, but I have always wondered how someone is able to have a crystal clear goal about their career. No, I’m not talking about the little kids who invariably shout out “Doctor”, “Teacher”, “Collector”, “Police” etc when asked about their ambition in life by adults, who themselves are confused about their careers. [Here again I'm not sure what the urban, gen-next kid has to say on Ambition. Probably she would like to become a Software engineer, Scientist, Fashion-model, Pilot, Prime Minister.] I’m talking about many of my colleagues, friends etc who often say their goal is to become – a successful and famous entrepreneur like NRN, the Chief Secretary of a state, the Managing Director of X company in Y years, the most popular doctor in the town, a millionaire before A age. I feel all these people are really lucky…they know where they need to go. They strive to reach their destination. They are busy in pursuit.
But some people like me are notorious for the wavering mind; the swinging career path. More than the euphemism of “Multi-talented” the straight, simple word “Confused” fits our category better. In fact one of my big bosses quipped “Would you be changing your wife too?” It was just his frustration that came out as I was overly concerned about the variety in my job, during a mid-year review many years back. Somehow this idea of a “specialist” does not go down very well with me. How can someone spend a lifetime doing just one thing? I wonder. So, sitting back and pondering, in a highly confused state, I was happy to get a call from a longtime friend. I would remember at least one line of the whole conversation for many months (at least) to come; she said “Life is not about reaching somewhere. It is about traveling happily”. Probably the original version was by Aristotle or Socrates or someone like that who had spent a lifetime giving out quotable quotes…but that does not matter now. I am taking those timely words anyway. I have already popularised this quote in my circle here; and everyone seems to be satisfied with it. They stop asking about my ambition, goal etc the moment I tell them life is an interesting journey that unfolds as we go. Probably they decide I’m too philosophical to give a direct answer; or they are trying to memorise it to pass on as free-advice to many others!
A few days back I got a mail from one of my earlier bosses (not the one who came for the mid year review!). He too helped me out of this confusion. His point was that we got to have a clear distinction between job and career. We often mix up these two and land up in a pretty job while the career chosen might not be to our liking. True. But please do not ask me more on that. Think for yourself – it will be much better than mine. For sure.
During our preparation for the campus interviews we were asked to be clear on the two main issues:
1)Why me for this job?
2)Why this job for me?
There was an enthu-pot in our gang and he used to say “I want a job that would either add value to me or a job to which I can add value”. That was his tagline immaterial of the company he was applying for. Based on the company his follow-up explanation would change course during the interview. He is with India’s most famous software company today. These days I’m highly inspired by his old words. But I have modified it to suit me; and shut mouths. It goes like this: “I don’t want a job that would bring me name; I’m looking for a job to give name”.
Have in mind I’m a hardcore Super Star fan.
Wondering what is that image of the hanging disco lights or aurora borealis or multi-coloured sperms doing here?
Osamu Shimomura, an assistant at Nagoya University, Japan, was put on a frustrating study of the glow on the remains of crushed molluscs, as his professor did not want to cripple the careers of his research students with this difficult, unrewarding task. It was 1955. That study lead Shimomura to the Friday Harbour, Washington where he collected about 50,000 jelly fish every summer and ended up accumulating 8,50,000 (!) jellyfish for his studies. Imagine waiting at a harbour, every summer, just to collect thousands of jellyfish! Heights of specialisation!
Today we all owe a lot to Shimomura for his discovery of GFP – Green Fluorescent Protein. He is one among the three who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year. To quote Frontline, “…GFP has become an extraordinary and widely used tagging tool in bioscience, using which scientists have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, such as the development of nerve cells in the brain or the spreading of cancer cells.”
These disco lights are my desktop wall paper now. They are the GFP planted inside a mouse’s brain!
When coming to talk of Shimomura’s drive to have shared a major part of his life entirely with thousands of dead jellyfish, he did not seem to have any great confusion or catchy quotations; he just got this to say – “…. The point is that… I don’t do my research for application or any benefit. I just do my research to understand why jellyfish luminesce and why that protein fluoresces. There are many, many [undiscovered molecules in nature that emit light]. Interesting at least to me.”
Wow!
