pursuit for happiness

It takes time to know what you really want to do in life. When you are in school all you know of the future is to get into an IIT and life sure must be a sunny day from thereon. Until then all you worry of are the problems in the books, problems of life don’t appear until later. So once you are inside the IIT and have earned the security of a secure job you begin to think beyond.

New dreams shape themselves in the form of a white collared job, moving around with a laptop, a 20k cell phone, a car. I wonder how many of us really dream about the professional future. Well I guess being young we know the truth of life, the happiness comes from little things. We dare not burden ourselves with the big dreams of heading a multinational company, being a millionaire. So we welcome what life offers us.

Then we get into the job. For parents, the dreams have been realized. Upon us, a strange truth descends. Life doesn’t turn out to be a cakewalk. As I brooded more upon the subject of happiness and meaning of life, I realized that our worth is nothing more than a 2BHK flat, and may be a car. Here’s how:

The annual income of middle class engineer in a big city is around 7-8 lakhs per annum, averaging for entire life. And in the same city a good, decent, and affordable 2 bedrooms hall kitchen flat costs around 50 lakhs. People begin earning from age of 25. Till 55 or 60 serving 30 years on an average. A 2BHK flat if booked, including interest will amount to 65-70 lacks. So one needs to save 3 lacks per annum to pay the installments. Early years are fine but by the time you are thirty, you are married and have a child. By thirty five another.

The wife spends a fortune on shopping and makeup shopping. Out of his 50k salary after he spends 25k on the monthly installments of the flat, he is left with 25k from which he needs to cater for his family of four. Nutrition needs for infants now a day wonderfully surpasses that of an adult. Besides when the children are no more infant he is burdened with the schooling costs. Later on coaching, summer courses and finally a bike and the petrol, this sure isn’t going to cheapen up.

He gets a hike that closely compromises with the inflation, and the middle age engineer wonders, where the hell is the money gone. He is still paying the installments for that 2BHK flat, when the children are married and gone.

So young guys and girls this is a strange truth that shall one day become a painful reality. Isn’t it better to plan for the professional life you are headed to? If you get involved with the basic necessities of life and look for the basic happiness, you will end up with nothing but a 2 BHK flat. Being content now doesn’t seems so right to me. Not when one day I shall have a family I am responsible for.

May be I am wrong, but in the country I am living in, being a dreamer. I look upon myself a misfit.