I feel like a failure

Yesterday, a young lady, the daughter of a family friend, had visited us. She is in her second year of B.Sc (Hons) Biotech in a PTU college. When I asked 'what next?', she said 'A M.Sc. from Amity.' 'Why Amity?' I asked. She said, 'Because it offers Masters in Nanotech'. I (i think successfully) dissuaded her from Amity and encouraged her to think of good schools in both India and abroad.

In those moments, I was totally awed by the scope that education offers for improving one's life. I was an outsider to that girl's life. So, I could see it clearly how different her life would be if

1. She does no M.Sc. at all
2. She does it from Amity
3. She does it from a US univ

And, I felt that I do not want to deprive myself of a similar opportunity. Two years from now, with the same girl sitting in my drawing room, I should not look at her and feel like someone who also could have done things but did not do them then and regrets that now.

Around two weeks back, a doubt had hit me with force- "Do I really want to do an MBA? Am I not doing it just in order to escape from the insecurities of being a full time writer?"

For that whole week, I could not prepare for CAT. There was an utter lack of motivation. I went back to my book. Then, on a Sunday, I went for a walk with a friend who is in the first semester of her MBA. We asked each other about what was new in life and she told me about her idea of starting a college mag. She told me how she envisaged it, and I found myself ideating with her about what else could be done, and what would work and what not. I was in the middle of the discussion when I thought, "Hello, it is her college!" I just loved being that passionate ideator for those few minutes. It was a glimpse of the girl I used to be during the Magboard meetings in UIET. To think ideas with a purpose, ideas that would be executed, ideas that would make a difference. I wanted to do more of that! That was the moment when my ambiguity about taking the CAT ended.

There is a 'Me' who wants to do nothing but write. That is the 'me' who worked full-time on my first book for the past one year. But there is another 'me' who craves action, who craves ideation and wants to be on the run all the time, starting a company, bringing out a magazine or a book, being 'in charge'. Both these 'me's are creative. But they seek to create different things. The 'writer me' wants a sedentary, uncluttered lifestyle, which is totally opposite to what lights the eyes of the 'aspiring entrepreneur me.'

The reason behind my yo-yoing between the CAT and the Book in the last one month is that I feel that I have to choose between the two of them. I am unable to make them coexist. I feel helpless in the hands of my unruly mind. I try to discipline it, to make it stick to time schedules which accomodate both the things, but I don't think there's been a single day in the thirty gone, when I succeeded in doing that. People do so many things simultaneously, they do a hundred things in one day, and I am unable to do just two.

Externally, everything is perfect. My family, my friends believe in me, support me. But internally, I am making a mess of my life. There is a countdown to CAT. The exam is not going to wait for me to sort myself out. It's there, the date fixed. And days are passing by, untouched by me. If this continues (and of course it will, like it has for all the October till now), I will not do as well in CAT as I KNOW I can. And then, I will feel miserable. I know that also. I am setting myself up for misery. I realize that and yet fail each day to get myself out of the rut.

Time Management. I've never been good at it. Except in classes seventh, eighth and ninth. Till date, I cherish the extreme focus with which I studied in those years. I would have a proper timetable, accomodating each subject, in capsules of 15 or 20 minutes each, learning things in advance, doing homework the day it was given, not one night before it had to be submitted as I used to do earlier. I still remember how good, how much of an achiever I used to feel then.

I've tried to replicate that ever since, on and off. But that phase never really came back. And in coll, I even stopped trying, because I had discovered passion. I ate, drank and slept Magboard for three years. The whole experience was 'magical.' That made me believe that Passion was a worthier goal than Discipline. With Discipline, you can make yourself enjoy anything, but with Passion, the enjoyment comes naturally. I believed now that one should be doing things that they really wanted to do, because then one does them automatically. You do not even have to tell yourself to do them.

Whenever anybody asks me why I did not go for a Masters in Biotech, I say that during the four years of college, I was doing both Biotech and the Magboard. I did the Biotech related things only when I had to, but Magboard came naturally to me. That made me decide Magboard-like activities as a career goal over Biotechnology.

I still think that Passion is a stronger driver than Discipline. But, I have now come to believe that the best state to be in is: Passion+Discipline. Passion alone did not make me efficient.

I worked on an autopilot for a whole year on a book. That motivation to work just came out of me. I did not even have to make conscious efforts. I worked whole days or nights (depending on whether I was being a day person or a night person at the moment), my work dominated all my thoughts, I even dreamed of words and possible links between them, or the improvements I could do to a particular sentence. My work was all I did for the past one year. Yet, I cannot claim to have had fifteen hour weekdays.

Because, I was not very efficient in my work. For one, I would waste at least an hour each day on TV. Mindlessly. But while doing something better, like reading newspapers, inner voices would make me restless. "You are wasting time," they would exhort, "get back to work!" If anybody asked me to do anything, I would immediately start making mental calculations of how much time it would cost me and would grimace inwardly. And yet, when I was working, I would automatically check my mail and orkut accounts every few hours. I am a part of a mail group of friends. I realized that I was often the most active participant, the one who replied to every mail, almost as soon as it came. I did not like that thought. It made me feel too vella compared to others.

Whenever I would feel too guilty about my time wastage, I would read interviews of writers. "See, that guy worked on his book for ten hours each day. You work more than that. So, you are doing all right."

But, twelve hours of pure, unadulterated work give you a joy, a satisfaction that is almost divine. Tweleve hours interspersed with distractions and time-wasters feel cluttered, unclean. They leave you unsatisfied.

I will not downplay my effort on the book. I did work on my book with full dedication. I felt proud that I could actually execute a whole book! But what I realize now is that I could have done it better. I was not efficient. Had I been, perhaps the work would have been finished by now. Or perhaps, I could have done some other interesting things alongside (learning French, Urdu, swimming and car driving were on my seriously-want-to-do list).

For so many months this year, I did not even take my evening walks. I would feel restless if I took them, would feel that I was wasting time and that I ought to be sitting at the computer at that moment, working on the book. I was obsessed with the book. I was passionate about the book. But I did not do it in the best possible way (I now think in retrospect) because I lacked the discipline.

September came and I started feeling restless for another reason. The book wasn't finished yet and CAT was approaching. I had always told myself that I would give myself three months of CAT prep. So, I ought to open my CAT books in September.

That is when the dilemmas began. The 'writer me' resented the fact that it was being asked to give the book's time to CAT. The 'MBA aspirant me' felt anxious if I spent too much time on the book.

I have wasted almost the whole of September. I didn't do much, either on the CAT front or on the book.

October too has gone similarly till now. And, I am feeling 'Yuck!' I am feeling these days like a good-for-nothing time waster, who will end up disappointing her parents and will be a nobody, who will just tell the girls sitting in her drawing room about what courses to opt for and where, feeling hollow meanwhile because she did not herself do what she now advises them to do and knowing that her advice would mean nothing to anybody, because failures like her were not really qualified to tell others about what to do.

Yes. A failure is what I feel like today. Because I have failed to make the best use of the opportunities I have. I have all the time in the world, I have all the support, all the resources, yet I cannot do two simple things. I started writing this post because I felt like crying. I had woken up after sleeping for three hours, feeling guilty and hollow. Have wasted yet another day. I feel so helpless before my own unruly mind! And yet, this is a mind that I am so proud of. If only I could discipline it! I am making this post public because...well, this angry, helpless, frustrated girl is also me.