I apologize for spending so much of our time together talking about this, I realize I do have other important issues to address, but I feel that I must continue to discuss this.

Let me start from the beginning. When I was a young man, before I had been introduced to the workings of the world, I wanted to lead the glamorous life of the scientist – you know, inventing killer robots, exploring the amazon, curing polio. Of course, in time I learned that in the real world, discoveries don’t happen on a daily basis, most animals already have names and polio already had a cure. So I reorganized my life, fleeing to the relative safety of the arts. Even if I never managed to get to the moon,  I could always right a fictitious account of such a journey and reap obscene profits. Of course, that was some years ago. I’ve changed a great deal since then and the reaping of obscene profits is no longer much of a life goal.  Now  I just want to be moderately well off.

So I’ve spent the past few years half-heartedly reaching for a respectable liberal arts based career. People say than in the Ceylonese community there are only 3 respectable carreer options – Lawyer, Doctor or Civil Servant. It’s generally believed that a failure to get into one of these areas means that YOU FAIL AT LIFE.

But now I realize that even though Law is a respectable and well-paying option it may not be what I want to do with my life.

Now the obvious choice is to simply do what I want to do and be happy, since money isn’t everything. Unfortunately, now that I think about it, it’s hard to really decide what I want to do the most. I mean, take journalism or stand-up comedy or working for a network like Nickelodeon . These are romantic ideas, and this makes them foolish ideas. It would work if I was living in a film, living in a dream, but the real world doesn’t work like that. Around here, passion tends to fade and dreams tend to get muddled up in the smothering sea of reality.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent to me that all jobs are terrible – the real happiness one gets arises from the money. A rich man can retire young, and live happily. A poor man’s choices are more limited.

Still, it’s scary to try and let go of the ideal, to wake up from the dream. I mean, don’t my dreams define who I am? By giving them up, will I be losing part of myself.  The prospect of degenerating into the some sort of generic, shallow money-hungry pencil-pusher is an unnerving one.