Recently, I stumbled across a recent video of a mystic from India who traveled to the United States and gave a talk at Google.
At the conference, he told the Googlers that there is an old tradition in India of the process in seeding the identity of the very young children up all the way to the 12 years of age. It was a mantra that they must learned and recited on a religious basis –
The rationale behind the established practice was to make sure the children to grow up with an inclusive mindset, invest, love and protect his/her identity – cosmically infinite!
The world will finally can focus on peace and prosperity instead of hatred and destructions resulted from warring conflicts – if only we can incorporate the strategy into the modern educational system worldwide.
I recalled the years in the elementary school when the teachers asked the question –
I don’t recalled an instance where someone replied – I want to be a drug dealer…I want to be a homeless person…I want to be a murderer.
Yet, we have all these casted characters in the theater of life everywhere in all societies around the world – where do they come from?
Alright, these are extreme examples of the tiny segment of the population. But, what happened to rest of you – the doctors, the lawyers, the engineers, the astronauts and of course – the president of the United States of America.
In some measurable way – we all have taken a different life path than that of our childhood dreams and aspirations.
I dreamed of becoming an astronaut as far as I remembered!
The inspiration was not from within. The dream was accidentally sowed in me from my father – it was an accident because he did not realize that children listened and looked up to their parents.
My father loved the Apollo program. Looking back, I do not understand the enthusiasm he had for the mission. He did not graduate from high school. Enlisted into the army at 18, met my mom at 24 and had me at 25
As a blue collar in his entire life, the space program and his way of life had little or no commonality.
He always carried his favorite tuner and the dial will stopped at any talk segments related to the program. Most of the time, I could not sit still with him through these talks. After few minutes, I ran off to find something more exciting.
It was the hours that I spent perused through the illustrations of the books related to the Apollo program that sparked the early dream of becoming an astronaut.
Sixteen years later, I received my Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and the trajectory of my career did not fully line up with the space program endeavor.
Somewhere along the 16 years, the path to the dream of becoming an astronaut did not materialized.
What had happened?
Before I present the forensic evidence for the mismatch of the dream and the reality – I wanted to make it clear that I was ecstatic with the Electrical Engineering degree and became the first person to graduate from college in my family.
Fact 1 – there is not an astronaut gene. I was not biologically wired to become an astronaut. As stated earlier, it was an external inspiration I picked up from watching my father enthusiastic attitude toward the Apollo program.
Other than day dreaming about the fantasy of spacewalk, I did not have put in any real effort nor have any real follow up opportunities to solidify the aspiration – meeting a real astronaut, visiting the NASA Space Center.
I did not have an opportunity to visit the NASA Space Center until I was in my mid 30’s and an established family of my own.
Interestingly, my first year roommate was a botanist – a PHD in botany. He came to the program when he was 15, got the PHD at 19 and was doing his post doctorate work.
He knew very early on he wanted to be a botanist and he became a botanist – a genius!
Fact 2 – puberty erased all traces of the astronaut endeavor and replaced the content of the day dreams with girls. This time, the inspiration came from within – I was biologically wired to find a mate and start a family.
The inspiration to be an astronaut was critical level setting endeavor. Working toward a college degree was not an option – it was an ambition.
More specifically, it was a technical ambition – not finance, not liberal arts, not laws or nor medicines. It was engineering.
The next 10 years following puberty, I put all my efforts into finding the one mate and hone in the necessary skill to support a family – I put all my bet on the electrical engineering path without much thought on astronaut as a specialized option.
Fact 3 – with the exception of the genius population, the vast majority of us will not have a stable and narrower identity until the later in life – late 30’s to early 50’s.
There are two rites of passages every one of us will wade through as defined by our biological processes and the reality at those moments – puberty and midlife.
With the exception of the geniuses, most of us will take on a more generalized identity right after puberty – whereas the geniuses embraced their fixed identities in the 10 to 15 years of age.
The generalized identity will continue to evolve and for most people it will be fixed or become more rigid soon after midlife.
Success or failures, happy or sad, content or unfulfilled are irrelevant perceptions or emotions for most you at this stage of the game – this will be the identity you will take on to the last moment of your existence!
I dreamed of becoming an astronaut and ended up with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a M.S. in Computer Science.
From time to time I wonder, had my first external identity sowed as “Cosmic” as opposed to “Astronaut” – what will be my final identity?
If we all have been conditioned to look up to the stars and chanted –
Our final identity will have an opportunity to evolve to become nothing short of extraordinary.
So aim high into the sky – if you dream fell short and landed on the surface of the earth, your final identity possibly will be the next Einstein.
Let’s play the game of life!
