The Death of Aspiration

Recently the company decided to give me a car.... and for some reason i had a problem with it... Somehow i felt it wasn't for me... it would be a problem to deal with... A problem to possess and not know how to get rid of.. how to deal with.. Then I realised what the problem was... Having a car... not owning it.... just having it itself meant that somehow i had grown up.... Hell at 30 i had realised i had grown up all right.. there was more to it... I realised i had never aspired to own a car... own a house... own anything... Owning anything solid, concrete would also mean some grounding, rooted to one place. And somehow I had never thought that in my head as possible. Bombay's always been home but not a place I thought I would stay in forever. Just someplace I lived in, probably for now. In a sort of continous directionless existence. The car had somehow triggered off something more then that. The idea that damn I am here for good. Atleast the forseeable good. Now I'll actually have to think of owning a home. Settling in! Settling down!! Emotionally I have been ready to settle with a someone for a while now. But not physically. I don't know they differ but they do. My life's flown from one point to another almost seamlessly. From school to college to engg to journalism to america to cnn to ndtv to here. My change of course has always had to do with something emotional or something that meant more to me in my immediate future. Whether that was moving careers or jobs. Like when I moved cities and jobs to get over a break-up. Or broke-up to return home to my dying mother. It was always led by my heart and an immediate need. Never by my head or my wallet.

In all of this I realised one very important thing. I had never ever aspired. Never aspired to own a car, a home, a life. Everything in my life has just happened. Never with a long term goal in sight. There are people who know where they want to go and what they want to do with their life. I'm not one of them. I never have been. And I've done well for myself. I am 30. Have lived my life on my terms. Came out to my family when I wanted to. Got accepted by my family and my friends. Got accepted at work by people I thought would have a problem with it. I have a great job. Lots of freedom and responsibility. Great pay packet. And now the car. The car that made me realise I had gone through everything without the one thing that often drives life: Aspiration.

Well still don't have it :-) ... But I have to figure it out I guess life ahead depends on it