The first week of the first year of the first decade is soon coming to an end and I have no idea what the year or the decade holds for me. It is very very scary. The worst period for me prior to this in terms of uncertainity were (a) just before graduation when I could not land on a job until a month or two before the graduation date, and (b) when I had real trouble obtaining my first working visa. The first got resolved when I saw an ad from a local firm looking for an economist. The second got resolved when I fired an incompetent lawyer and hired a new one. Unlike this one, the previous two episodes were scarier in one way, in that I would have run out of visa if things had not worked out. But unlike them, in this case, I have a family to support and I was in the midst of a career.
I have been watching lot of documentaries on human history - from origin of human species to great events/wars of past 3,000 years. It has at least given me a prospective on life. In 50 year most my peers would be dead and that will be the end of our stories. We are all inevitably marching towards that fate and it will be so whether by natural or unnatural causes, and whether we are rich or poor, successful career-wise or not, happy or sad, in the US or elsewhere, educated or not and whether we have family or not. In 100 years, say after 3rd or 4th generation, we'll be all be completely forgotten.
The challenge is to find a proper way to spend the next 50 years, before our eventual death. Obviously, we do not want the remaining years of our life to be painful, physically or mentally. Also we do not want to feel the passage of time because that will be torturous too - like spending time in jail. So we want to find a vocation that excites us (prevents mental pain) and that pays bills (prevents physical pain). It is important to earn money, a good amount but that should not be the over-riding concern because we can always get most bang for a buck. The important concern is to find something that excites you and pays bills because the goal is to spend the next 50 years as painlessly as possible.
