Being an adult is, perhaps, the hardest thing to do. Early days on, you are titled as the man who is going to eradicate the term “Poverty” from the family. From the day we are born, expectations are stacked on our shoulder. Mothers say, “He will be a doctor.” Fathers say, “He will be an engineer.” Before we even speak our first word, we are called by names like “junior engineer” or “doctor Dawa”, as my mother used to call me. Parents are the people who wants the absolute best for their children, irrespective of how poor they are. To have dreams and hopes, it doesn’t require a PhD. It is autonomous. But, sometimes, amidst all these expectations and dreams, we forget to live our lives with the aspiration we have of our own.
As soon as we start going to school, we are taught to excel and be highly regarded people like doctors or engineers. Back then, others would laugh at us if we shared an ambition beyond these two. The mockery would have come even from the academically inclined people like our own teachers if we were to say we wanted to become an artist or an entrepreneur. Government jobs were the only stature that was regarded as the god-level post back then.
Brainwashed, I looked forward to become either a doctor or an engineer. Despite lacking zeal in science or Mathematics, I forced myself to study Biology, Physics and Chemistry. Arithmetic, integration and Pythagorean Theorem were perplexing for me. I wanted to quit my studies. It didn’t matter how hard I tried. I could understand very little of what I was taught.
I always wanted to be an animation artist. I wanted to make aesthetic and conventional 3-D animations. Neither did we have such facilities nor the technical assets to create one back then. I thought my dreams were far fetched and gave up on it. I strove for the dreams which was never mine to begin with.
Between achieving the dreams our parents and society sets for us, we forget to venture for our own dreams. We rather become a coward. Our parents wants the best for us. That is undeniable. But, it is futile if we are striving for something we have no passion for. No one asks us what we want to become. They just assume it is best for us and we should pursue it. Be brave in the decisions you make. Your entire life could be something else if you just dare to take a different step.
The Dragon in Gho 