20 years back, at the age of 24, I got my first ever job.
It paid me Rs. 14,746 per month in hand.
In 2 years, at 26, I was earning 12L per annum.
Another 3 years, it reached 33L per annum.
Here is how it happened...
In Mar '04, at the age of 24, I dropped out of my PhD program at Michigan State University and came back to India.
What made the decision easy was the 100% scholarship I was on.
There was no tangible loss of money.
Just the intangible burden of letting down everyone in my world.
With no goals, no plans and no visibility over my future, the first thing I needed was financial independence and stability.
I had to get a job.
Any job.
I tapped into my (limited) network, spoke to my friends, applied through newspaper adverts, went for walk-in interviews.
Do you know which animal kills most humans every year?
If you are thinking wild animals — lions, elephants, tigers — no.
If you are thinking snakes — good guess, but not the right one.
If you are thinking mosquitos — great guess. That's #2.
Do you know what's #1?
Humans :)
WE kill more humans than any other animal every year.
War, violence, fights, terrorism.
We somehow believe that the world is split into us and them.
And we feel that for someone to win, someone else has to lose.
That's what we have been fed every day.
That the world is finite — its wealth, growth, and opportunities.
And the only way one gets wealth, growth or opportunity is to snatch it away from someone else.
2/ God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning
I don't even know how I landed up with this book - but it was clearly the surprise of this year.
Fascinating take on how technology and consciousness are (?) overlapping.