Here or there?

So when I talk about a person who can’t decide, of course the first post comes aptly titled “Here or there”. But I assure you this means serious business.

I mean really serious.

For all my life, I have wanted to have a successful career and one where I’d be able to fulfill my dreams. This is the only thing that I have ever focused on. Have made a mess of my personal life many a times but haven’t really cared about it. I also did not care about how many people I have hurt in the way. I always put “following my dreams” over everything else and this has been my conviction for a long long time.

However, off late I have started wondering whether everything is really worth it. I mean you know, the late hours and the work-like-a-donkey and the living away from family and friends, generally 24 hours in the office kind of thing. I was wondering whether all you really need is a career and success or there are other important things in life as well, such as love, family, bonding, living close to loved ones (even if it means giving up some of your dreams).

So what is it?

I haven’t been able to decide what is more important but all I have come to know in so many days of pondering over is that there are some really hard choices you have to make in order to make a mark in this world (if making a mark fascinates you in any way, that is). You need to give up the cosy comforts of a home, the security of being with parents and the luxury of going to an office for only some fixed hours. And these hard choices, they are really worth it in life, if you choose to make them.

But again, I have also realised that you need to draw a line between your life and your work and give precedence to people who are close to you. Lets face it, no one can and wants to live alone. And if you don’t want to be alone you’d have to give what you want to receive. That do unto others, yeah, that kind of thing. You have to be as much at home as you have to be at work (perhaps a little here and there, but I am sure you get the point). You need to follow, what they say, is the middle path.

The middle path is where you don’t want to be on either sides. Where you don’t want to be religious but you don’t want to be an atheist either. The kind of thing that sometimes makes you an “eggetarian” (and this is really a bad example).

The thing about taking sides is that you never base it on facts or proper information but on a lot of emotional and social content. I have done and for many issues, I still do it now. There are things that I feel very strongly about and when they happen, I never bother to check what other aspects it might also have. In the past too, I have had strong opinions about a lot of things in society and media and the world. They did give me a sort of a comfort zone of very strong ideals but in reality they were always just blanket rejections or acceptances. And both are disastrous if you want to discover reality or most of the times, the semblance of it.

However, I just cannot quantify this middle path. For example, do I know how much work is too much work? No. Do I know how many people should be happy with me for me to know that I am balancing things well? No. Do I know how much fame is enough fame? No. So, as much as I want to follow the middle path, I don’t know where to locate it and to top it all, I don’t know if I am treading one right now.

Hence, the bigger, overarching question to the whole problem is, should one follow the middle path or should one take sides and be comfortable in following something completely?

As for me, I am neither here, nor there.