We are always told that we must 'try, try again, until you succeed'. I am yet to find a more inane and specious exhortation. What I have learnt is this - try once, or maybe twice, then forget it. Don't waste your time and energy on what is not meant to be.
Life is not easy, it is not predictable, it is not manageable. Sometimes, or maybe I should say - most times - success lies in adjusting our hopes to designs that are much greater than ours. Whether one considers such designs divinely ordained, or just the inexorable march of circumstances, one cannot deny that man is infinitesimally small compared to the goings-on of the universe. A single person's ambition is not something that matters at all.
Let us face an unambiguous truth - it is not possible to be anything you want. I want to sprout wings and be a fairy. Certainly not possible! But even in the general banal sense, it is not natural to get WHATEVER you want. Second truth - it is also perfectly all right not to get what you want. In fact, it truly is a necessity that one does not get all what one wants. Or else where is the scope for character to develop? We need strife in our souls to sharpen it, we need disappointment to soften us, we need despair to elevate us.
I am sure all of us would want to be the rich heir, or the Nobel laureate for Physics (or in my case - J.K Rowling!!). But what a boring world it would be if there were only one kind of people: the uber successful . That is why the world is full of different people with different occupations, different needs and different competencies.
I find it a trifle annoying when people say 'I want my child to know he or she can be whatever he wants'. Are you telling a child that he can be President just because he wants to? Uhuh. No way. There is a lot you need to be, to learn and to earn, to stand in that elite group of those who even tried! And so much rests on chance. Obama might never have had a chance if we did not have the past spectre of Bush, and the future fright of Palin. Right person, right time.
There are professions that catch our fancy. Try once. Leave it if it does not work out. If you really love the work involved, you will find a way to get back to it later (even if it does not pay - like my writing!). But do not put life on hold for it. There is a cornucopia of experiences waiting to be explored. Don't bind your self to one path that you simply decide to pick for yourself - especially if it is a struggle to stay on it.
