What do you want to become when you grow up?...The question fell on the ears of the students sitting in a classroom and eagerly waiting for the bell to ring. “Doctor, engineer, IPS officer, cricketer...”? Hands went up quickly. Some answers sounded rehearsed, as if they had been waiting inside schoolbags for years. The teacher kept looking at for good,genuine ones, but there were hardly any. The bell rang, the day moved on, but the question didn’t. It followed one student back home. He realised that folks at home, encouraging him to take up competitive examinations, pursue engineering, were trying to decide his life for him and ‘protect is future’. His grandparents had grown up in a world where having an opportunity was enough. His parents had learned that a good education meant a secure career. He was growing up in a world which has hundreds of careers, thousands of choices and an endless number of people claiming to have already figured it out.

 

That night when he opened his phone all he could see was a teenager talking about his startup, someone preparing for an entrance examination, someone elaborating on a perfect study routine, someone talking about studying abroad. The boy put the phone aside. His life wasn’t complicated but everyone else’s seemed strangely sorted. So he opened a notebook and began scribbling- doctor, engineer, army, business and so on. He crossed some out. Not because they were bad choices but because he couldn’t tell if they would be good for him. That was the part nobody had taught him. How do you know the difference between a dream you discovered and a future you simply inherited, he thought. Later that night, still wearing his school uniform, he sat at his study table in his bedroom and looked into the mirror. For the first time, the question changed. It wasn’t, “What am I going to become when I grow up?” It was, “Everyone wants something from me, but what do I want from myself?” There was no dramatic answer. No sudden dream. No perfect five-year plan. Just silence.

 

And perhaps, that silence was the beginning. Because being confused at 15 doesn’t necessarily mean you are lagging. Sometimes, the greater danger is being completely certain about a life that was never yours to begin with. The next morning, the teacher asked another question. He still didn’t have the answer. But in the corner of his notebook, he wrote: “Who do I want to become?” Below it he wrote, “I have to find the answer to thing for myself.” He closed the notebook. He still didn’t know where he was going. But for the first time, he knew that the question belonged to him. Maybe awakening isn’t finding all the answers. Maybe it is the moment you finally begin asking your own questions. From A for Apple he had reached the stage of A for Awakening in life- the moment you look into the mirror and realise that the life ahead of you is not an answer someone else can write. It is the answer you must find for yourself.