Hey there,

 

This one is about the man without a plan.

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I remember the first day I arrived in Dubai a year back. I was in Sydney for two years before that, completing my education. The plan was to come back from Australia to my family and start some kind of work there. The ideal route, right?

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The day I landed, however, there was a bombardment of emotions - I was happy that I was meeting my family after so long, nervous about what the future held, sad that I had left my friends behind and hopeful that the next step in my journey would be a fruitful one.

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We went out for dinner that day. After we placed our order, my dad turned to me and asked, “So, what’s the plan for the future?”

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I had always thought about it… my future… but never came to any conclusion. And all the talks I had were in my head, this would have been the first time I would be saying stuff related to my future out loud.

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But at that very moment, my heart began racing. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like someone had put a heavy rock on my chest. What was supposed to be a chill dinner turned into a stressful event. The reason - I genuinely didn’t know. What am I doing? What will I do? What is my expertise? Have I found the one thing I am good at and if I have, do I want to pursue that? I was all over the place. I was evidently flustered. I didn’t have to have the answer immediately - I know this now but then… not a clue.

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All I wanted was for a hand to reach out to me and show me the way. The way to what I am meant to be doing in this world. But as good as that sounds, it definitely was not going to happen.

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The feeling of being lost is not necessarily the best. Overcoming it is even more difficult. But what worked for me is the simple use of trial and error.

Yeah, it definitely works. Internships are a great opportunity to test whether a particular job, field, industry is for you or not. I didn’t do one but I understood the importance of internships at that very moment at the dinner table - the hard way.

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I joined a company which didn’t work out quite well. I started a company after that. That was doing well, still is, but it wasn’t meant for me. So I left everything and started something that wasn’t going to fetch me anything remotely close to what I was earning at the company I joined or the company I started but I knew… if I continued with it, I will reach somewhere… a place beyond my wildest imagination.

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And when I do, I will make sure I look back and treasure the feeling of being lost. Because the only way I could go from there was up.

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