Keyword of the week: I was leading the expedition, the expedition of defiance

Your parents don’t tell you why one has to choose between having a career in your future life, but they insist on high professional courses as they wish to fulfil their own dreams through you.

  
But that’s the instruction I heard from my father decades ago as a young high school student, and that was not the first time I wanted to rebel. But that was the limit. I wanted to play games, take photographs, and be a traveler.

But I was a seventeen-year-old and had no choice, so after completing high school with the P.C.M. group, I joined college, but was that easy? I kept playing against the will of my father and kept getting thrashed when he found out I was playing games.

During a routine thrashing, my father told me that playing academic games was a financial drain on the parents. I was listening and protesting in my room, but no one said anything.

I was sent out for two years, and then I felt like forever when that child in me was dead. I felt as if a new me was born. Two years later, I was in a job which I didn't like a bit. But I had a plan in mind, so I approached my HR.

May I join the sales force?

He looked at me and asked, Why do you want to spoil your career? You are doing well in manufacturing and have a smooth 9–5 routine.

I had a second plan, and my answer surprised him. I said I wanted to see the world, so I am eager to join the sales force.

He said, "You must have a degree or PG diploma in management, which is one of the requirements to join the sales force in this company."

I was worried that if I took the leave, it would sink my career. But I pressed on, and he agreed. "If you complete this diploma, we can give you leave without pay."

I said yes without even blinking my eyes. In the beginning, it felt like an impossible choice to be a bad engineer in the manufacturing department or fulfil my dream as a traveler in marketing. But as a born rebel, I chose the difficult one.

But was that easy?

However, I did that and came back to be sent abroad for further onsite training. That year also went by and now I was ready to travel the world.

Source

I was worried about how I would address my financial problems. But you know, when you adopt a form of rebellion that is available to people like me not just in the employment field but also in other disciplines that require a lot of courage and work, you do something you do only once in a lifetime. I opted for the rough life, but I am glad I did.

It started for me as a simple necessity. When my daughter was under two, I took them to a distant city to join a new company closer to the base of the great Himalayas. Luck was on my side as an old friend who was serving in the government department as an engineer offered me to share his house which was too big for his small family so we took the opportunity and shared the house and the rent.

As time went on, I began to feel embarrassed in that job, so I hated my decision to bring my family with me to my new job, not as an exigency of a professional but as my wrong decision to take that job for extra money.

When meeting other higher professionals in that company, their reaction was typically the same. They assumed all of us made a mistake, and some of them even decided to go back to their former companies, but how they persuaded their former employers was a mystery to me. In my case, that was out of the question so I had to start all over again. I was leading the expedition, the expedition of a defiance.

Looking back at those times now, I feel the rebellion in me was not ready to compromise, which I could do easily here in this company but that would require killing my self-respect. I had the courage to go to far-flung areas around the globe but making a compromise with my own set of professional ethics was not for me. I understand that bringing them into the field was more than a rebellion, I was ready for that.

I started looking for a job when I received a message from the chief chemist of the company I had just left and who had joined his former company. Let me admit that many of those new friends have led me to new success that I otherwise would never have reached. My naïve mind routinely forced me not to rethink, and I joined his company. From there, a new journey started.

Now I have a question for you: do you think you can taste the rainbow by asking questions that are simultaneously absurd and profound old assumptions? Can you dream big if you don't want to come out of the well? How loud is our voice if we are not calling ourselves to stand in front of a mountain?

Now I feel that an inconvenience is often a blessing in disguise; at least this was true in my case. As the days ticked by, I began to feel more confident, thinking of the future that was waiting for me.

I felt like my life is a bundle of uncertain glories as well as full of hiking across the high mountains, and I should give it to my family, who never said no to any of my plans, however difficult they sounded in the initial stages.

I know any deviation from that standard is often considered wrong, and I have made several such decisions in my life. But they came good in the end, and I could safely finish all my plans for my career, and it is still a point of controversy even a few decades later.

What does my family make of all this? My wife and daughter both loved and hated my expeditions. Maybe they were frustrated by my long tours and grueling days of fieldwork. My daughter always thought I loved my job more than I loved her, but she was wrong. It was the other way round.

I felt embarrassed in those moments when she cried and asked me to reconsider my decision, but by taking her in confidence, I was relentlessly affirming that I wouldn’t make that choice. My family never pressed me too hard either.

We are taught that a good marketing person requires detachment from the family, and I was away from them for a long time in the beginning, but as time passed, my fieldwork reduced and I was working more from the office.

But I know being a rebel—with all the attachments that entail it— allows you to explore different but equally hard decisions.

I would like to offer further advice and throw a challenge at all the parents. Perhaps we cannot change the system by forcing our vulnerabilities, such as the children we are raising. You are not raising good future civilians but a force of rebellions.

Under my "Newbie Help Program"

The eligibility qualification

Rank under 50.
Verified in the newcomers' community
(not mandatory if we find them within the rules)

Thank you all.

CC
@goodybest
@ripon0630
@heriadi
@wilmer1988

Kind Attn:
@weisser-rabe

The beneficiaries for the week @ashley-p, hive-107855 and burnsteem25

Post link