What motivates one for a corporate job? I asked myself introspecting over my years passed in engineering college. Lucrative job, attractive salary, luxurious life and the respect in the society and among the peers are some to count. Perhaps these are the parameters deemed to lead a happy life. But the question is if happiness is mere a function of these factors. Let’s analyze the degree of veracity it holds.
One works hard to get admission in an elite college. One works even harder to get creditable grades in the college. This is not enough. One has to struggle hard to get a job. Provided one is fortunate enough and gets a commendable job, the arduous journey through corporate illusions starts here. One ventures on a journey that lures him or her to have a taste of most tantalizing and swanky life that later presents itself as merely an ostentatious one that lacks the most essential part of happiness, which is mental peace. The more one is subjected to peer expectations and ambitiousness the more one alienates oneself. One also tears the social ties and immures oneself in the bars of solitude. Our path may be paved with success as we advances but the contentment is still sought after.
What results in such an arid life that makes one reluctant to find the reason for existence? The obsession with fat paychecks, exacting fidelity to corporate microcosm, and self commitment are some factors that dominate one and render one incapable to look for other facets of life. I am surely not attacking philosophy of work (the so called “work is worship”) but condemning the corporate sticklers or ego maniacs, who possess too much obsession to accolades that tempt them to stick to the fabric of the corporate world to such an extent that it drives them to jadedness. Vexation emanates from this foolhardy obsession with work, which shuns one of the other dimensions of life.
Work is important but not to an all-encompassing degree. Life has an aesthetic value and this should be given its due. The world is not merely a place to peregrinate but to be explored in its beauty. This will make life worth living and will instill a sense of contentment. This is the only key to escape the illusion of corporate life that promises fake glory.