What is the purpose?

I am writing this because I am self-absorbed and vain. The one thing that I have always been obsessed about is the purpose of my life on this earth. After thirty five years, I am still as confused as I was when I was seventeen; wait, I stand corrected – I am more confused now. It seems that the last decade of my life has passed in fast forward mode. As I write this, I find it hard to believe that
a) I am thirty five years old (that’s serious old)
b) I have been married 10 years (holy cow how did that work out?)
c) I have two kids (I am drowning in responsibility) and
d) My career is going nowhere (that’s huge if you know me)

Anyways, as life caught up with me, my obsession about the purpose of my life grew. You see, when I was in my teens, I thought I had it all figured out: I was going to pursue a career in Science. Science was a romantic idea I had in my head – I’d figure out how the Universe worked and be this respected academic. I would marry the perfect man who would love me unconditionally. And kids – what kids? Well, as it turned out, I did immerse myself in science – I went to graduate school for six years and unraveled the structures of some exotic molecules using complicated spectroscopic instruments. Many people could not fathom why I chose this line of work that seemed too complicated to warrant any attempt at understanding what my thesis was about. And truth be told, I didn’t either. Could not fathom why I chose this line of work that is. It must have had to do with my romantic notion of pursuing physics. At some point during my under graduate days, I found physics with its concepts of strings, quarks and the theory of relativity to be too bizarre for my overworked brain and decided to abandon it for its step sister Chemistry. I could not let go of my romance with Physics completely though (who can after you’ve read the likes of The Tao of Physics, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, etc.) and decided to get a Masters in Chemistry majoring in physical chemistry. Voila, I thought, now I can have the best of both worlds - understand the universe and get a lucrative job. Anyways, I digress. I immersed myself in the pursuit of Science even after I got my Ph. D. Yes. I did post-doctoral work studying the most complicated molecule – H2O – using even fancier spectroscopy. So there’s eight years of my life spent in research. I loved every minute of it (well almost). It was great character building. I believe I honed my skills in perseverance, nagging, and toughness by fighting daily battles with the spectroscopic instruments, interpreting the spectra, and my supervisor, and my lab mates from all around the world (some of whom were obnoxious and some others smelled bad).

In the middle of graduate school, I got married. My husband swept me off my feet and was a great cook to boot. Remember my goal of marrying the man who’d love me unconditionally? I got that at least – and many times I fear I don’t deserve it. Well, all the time, I was still aiming for that phenomenal career. You see, I always associated my identity with the person I would be career wise. I never once doubted that I would be anything less than a star. Now, at some point I realized that I was getting old and was yet to become that star. I had started graduate school at the tender age of 22. When I had the Ph. D. tag, I was 28. Yikes!!! Was I almost 30? At close to 30 I realized I had an income that was just above the poverty line (in the mid-west mind you) and the thought of having a baby started creeping in one too many times. I guess that’s typical of many women – as someone I know (a man who does not have kids) told me recently, kids are another item on the list that has to be stricken off. (Needless to say, I was horrified to hear him put it that way; insensitive, completely false, how can you even say such a thing?) But deep down, maybe, just maybe, there is a tiny grain of truth to what he said. It could just be the human instinct of propagating the species that causes women to start obsessing about having babies once they reach a certain age. Anyways, I digress again. I had a chat with husband and we decided to go for it. I remember having another conversation with my mom about when I would have a baby (my not having one was never an option). I had told her that I would have one by the time I was 30 (I think I was 25 when we had this conversation and 30 seemed way past the horizon). So here I was - meager income, no real job, and desire to have a baby. The baby came first and I was desperate for a real job. All my romance with science had gone flying out the door. I wanted a job that paid well for that tag I had after my name. As it turned out, I accepted a job offer in the semiconductor equipment industry at the ripe old age of 30 and a half. It was in sunny California and marked the beginning of my foray into the fascinating world of corporate America. More to follow...