Hello. It's 2020. Can you believe it?

It's been 5.5 years since I last wrote anything on this blog. In all this time, I have:

1. Gained admission in a premier engineering institute of India (Currently still the most defining phase of my life)

2. Made some amazing friends, met beautiful, wonderful, awe-inspiring people

3. Joined the institute dance team (The most defining part of the most defining phase of my life) 

4. Entered a 4.5 year long relationship

5. Been through some drama I never thought I would be part of

6. Saw my sister get married 

7. Graduated from college 

8. Been recruited into a premier management consulting firm (something that gives me a lot of external validation)

9. Ended a 4.5 year long relationship

10. Colored my hair 3-4 different colors. 

11. Created an Instagram account

12. Still haven't figure out my true purpose and meaning of life. 

13. Still haven't fucking volunteered

I am in a phase of my life where everything is changing now. I have ended a 4.5 year long relationship, that in hindsight I feel like I should have ended a long time ago. Reading the post I had written way back in 2013 gives me chills, because deja-vu. This yearning for freedom, the dreaming about potentially ideal and non realistic romantic fantasies, the inability to face the truth for fear of hurting/ disappointing the other person. I never really changed, did I? Maybe I was just trying to prove to myself that I wasn't going to make the same mistake I did earlier. And I ended up making the exact same fucking mistake. This time though, it wasn't 4.5 months. It was 4.5 years. And the debris of this broken relationship goes far beyond broken hearts, to unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. 

Leaving this relationship feels like the right thing to do. Because the minute I felt free from its shackles, I felt free from carrying the responsibility of the other persons happiness, I feel like my mind is just running around in its new found freedom. Like a golden retriever having zoomies. I'm dreaming of N-number of possibilities and options. Things I never dared dream about before because I was scared of having sources of happiness in my life outside of the relationship. This would just expose how fragile that relationship was, and make me want to leave it. 

Anyway. I feel like I am poised at the edge of some big new discovery. Some discovery that will help me figure out life. I love that I am now taking out time to talk to people who are in different fields, apart from the set paths that we keep hearing about. (Consulting, then PE/VC) 

So, I recently have been having this big major epiphanies. 

1. We literally are the authors of our own lives. I know life isn't all that black and white, but I feel like we can choose between either writing ourselves a good resume, or writing ourselves a good life story

2. I owe it to myself to find out more about the paths less taken - I never in my life thought I would become a consultant. It definitely wasn't easy to get through the process, but I do feel like it was the most convenient option at the time. If I could get persuaded into a career option that NEVER featured ever in my "I wish to do this" list only because I had a lot of visibility on it, then I owe it to myself to get visibility on that list of 10 other items that have seemed remotely appealing to me. I cant lose track of them only because I didn't venture to talk to people in the field.  

3. If McKinsey has got one thing right, it's that your values need to be your compass in life. You really need to figure out what truly matters to you, and use that to direct you life choices. If you don't lay it out in black and white, it's very easy to just keep moving in directions of the herd. To be swayed by the resume building aspect of life.