How often has it been that, in search of something, we tend to neglect or lose a piece of ourselves which was one of the most important parts of us some time ago? It could be a few days or even years.
As a young student, defining success is the hardest task and, in the journey to reach the success destination, somewhere we do lose ourselves and evolve from the version we were when we started the process.
As a kid who grew up playing cricket and just had one aim of playing the sport for the nation one day, I could never dream of myself doing computer engineering, sitting in front of a laptop and asking my AI agent to write code and do the task for me. But maybe that’s what life is: a tale of unexpected twists and turns which takes us to places we never imagined ourselves to ever be in.
I was the boy who could never even miss a single ball of a cricket game, no matter whether the next day was a physics exam or someone’s birthday. Nothing could convince me to let go of the match or my aim to achieve it. But today, there are times I don’t even know that India had a cricket match. I don’t even know the IPL winners of the last two years.
For me, talking about and playing cricket was finding me, the moment when I was the real and best version of myself: happy, full of energy, aggressive on the field when needed, with presence of mind, and most importantly, I could feel myself alive. Just a few years have passed, and now we are in 2026. All of this is gone. Now even playing cricket does not give the same excitement it used to.
It’s not about cricket or any hobbies of ours, but it’s about the fact that, in search of a stable career or in search of something we don’t have, we often lose something which we valued the most. It could be friends, time with family, skills, or some part of our personality. It’s about the trade-off.
As engineering students, that’s something we are taught: to achieve something, or while designing a product, you do have to trade off something as well. But the question remains: is it worth it? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Running around, listening to our peers, watching YouTube videos for new skills, chasing internships, projects, trying to build a profile. But then we look back at some of our childhood photos or moments and say, “I miss my childhood days,” or “I wish I could do this again,” or “No more time to do this anymore. I wish…….” And this never ends. Is it really worth it if the satisfaction is not there? At the end of the day, is having a higher salary than my peers what matters?
It’s not just about the career journey. There can also be instances when there are changes in interests, or situations which force us humans to let go of things and take on new ventures we never expected. And in the end, we just accept it by saying, “It’s life.”
We keep evolving as individuals. There are changes in our friends list, interests, likes and dislikes, tastes, everything. And this constant trading of one thing for another, I guess, never allows us to pause and reflect: “Who am I?”
We assume that the current version of ourselves is the “real me”, but we forget that before this as well, there was a different “me” which was the “real me” then, and in the future, again, there will be a different version of “me”. So how do we know what’s the best? Yes, “best”, “good”, and “bad” are subjective and depend on the person, but if our opinions and interests only keep changing with time and situations, then how do we decide?
I don’t think there is one certain answer to these questions. But moving forward, I believe it’s important sometimes to slow down and look at ourselves. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? And is it worth it?
I know I won’t always be the person I am now. But as I change, what parts of myself do I want to hold on to?