Monologue

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing the right thing.

I have never imagined that I would be a banker. My first ever ambition, way back in standard one was to be a fireman. You know how it was, the teacher would ask all the kids in class what do they want to be when they grow up and you'll get mostly standard answers - doctors, teachers, soldiers, policemen, nurses, firemen etc. I was part of the norm, I wanted to be a fireman because I thought it would be cool to slide down the pole like on the telly. Seriously.

Then somehow I got interested in dinosaurs, so I wanted to be a paleontologist, a nightmare for my class teachers to pronounce and (no disrespect intended) much less know what it was. Realization (that there's no dinosaurs' remains to be found in Malaysia) hit me when I reached standard four, so I changed it to a archeologist instead. By standard six, I befriended an Indian boy named Bhuvan. He introduced me to the world of aviation. That boy was nuts about airplanes, I wonder if he did become a pilot like we always talked about in those days. I kept that dream all the way until SPM.

After SPM, mom dashed that dream when I told her about it. Tak payah la jadi pilot, nanti dah ada anak bini susah. I was disappointed, yet I understood her rationale. I was at a lost, don't know what I want to do. I decided upon pursuing economics, but dad talked me out of it. Finally we agreed on engineering. A decision that I would kick myself for the next five years for. Before graduation, I got the offer to join this bank and I took it with no reservations as I was not looking forward to become an engineer.

15 months on, here I am wondering if this is for me. I bet most people would experience this, that I gather from chats with friends. I wonder if it's just a temporary thing or it would grow like a tumor, eating at me until I had enough and leave it all behind to pursue something else altogether. Even then, what would I do?

Sorry, I'm not interested in existentialism at large, questioning my raison d'etre, my significance in the grand scale of things. Such things bores me. My questions of life are on a much more smaller scale, much less pomp and grandeur than Kierkegaard and Nietzsche would ever find interest in.

This is not a question that I can actually discuss with anyone for no one is better prepared to answer it than myself. I do talk about it with my girlfriend, with my close friends, yet no one had any absolute answer. No one had the cure, but they served as the painkillers. Their thoughts, suggestions and ideas are often well-meaning and proffered with care, they keep me going. Yet I still wonder.

And in this, perhaps I stand alone.