So what do you do?
(I'm studying/I'm working)
This type of answer is offered as an incomplete and more people should refrain from this limited answer because you know what follows right?
So what are you studying/where do you work?
This is then followed by either a pre-amble about why you are not where you think you are supposed to be or an epilogue about the realities of the harshness of life.
At this point you are reluctant to ask what the person does because the answer that would make you feel better is unlikely or merely improbable, like
(“I’m a serial killer/a stripper/a loser in general”)
Instead you get the normal answers that are either too vague or will let you be the judge of what is that they are doing, like
(“I’m working at the foundation for …. /I’m working on a…/I’m interning at….”)
Of course then there are the friends that do not have to go through this tedious process, offering a response to the first, “So what do you do”
("I'm studying Accounts, Law, Medicine, Finance, Engineering OR I'm a lawyer/CA/Doctor/Banker/Engineer")
This list is what decides the confidence levels of the participants in the conversation that follows.
This is the moment where you show that either life has happened to you, is happening to you or you darn happened to life and are still at it. The analogies here are endless. The crux of this is that this is your own version of yourself; it is a crucial point of departure in any conversation, interview or discussion. It is where the world gets a glimpse into the man or woman you are. It separates the Harvey’s from the Louis. The hard facts are there, even though your teacher repeatedly told you to compare yourself against your own achievements or failures, you can't help but wonder about the better position of the person (insert better profession) with whom you are conversing. The biggest and scariest decisions you made are either reflections that you look back on and smile with pride or for some, these decisions are the source of deep seated regret.
The idea of living for the moment differs fundamentally from experiencing the moment. It the former you are a slave for it and you let life happen to you whereas in the latter you are present in your own life. So living each day as if it were the last is only afforded to the guy who desires no more from their tomorrow than what is their today.
The realisations that are afforded by growth are experienced incrementally. In Pre-School for example, the techniques you used to join the dots or colour in the teddy bear seemed no different to your peers. In Primary school you began to notice a separation between those who were more "gifted" academically or those who held prowess on the sports field. This is when the world seemed different and when you did/did not make the first team that you realised playing against yourself was impossible and thus the revision of your teacher’s notion of self-comparison; obliterated and replaced by a (Cinderella vs Snow White/Hercules vs Alladin/Chuck Norris vs No-one in the world ever) comparison. This is the crucial point at which your environment gives impetus to the realisation that "someone is better than you" / “you are better than someone”/”you are Chuck Norris”.
The years spent in high school then become a wave of either proving how much better you are or a general acceptance of your inabilities to be better than someone. The distinct difference in the developments your life are not determined but directed here, it is only the post-high school phase of your life that arranges the answer to that very deterministic question "So what do you do?"
It is here that one realises that they're friends, mates, chomee's, "girl's", buddy's may hold the more/less confident position in a conversation, the "someone who is better than you" or the “someone you are better than” is suddenly the same person who you swapped crayons with in primary school or the one you played with in the same team in high school.
So what? So you go back to the words of your teacher and realise how fortunate you are in your own situation. You compare yourself against your own achievements or failures, this is when you begin to realise that there are significant moments in which your self-pride could not be shaken or taken away regardless of coming third- you had done your absolute best, you look at how far you have come from whatever situation that got you down- the steps you take away from your failures, you realise that the quotes you read are seldom able to manifest themselves as actions in your life but that there are one's that are sober realisations in parts of your life. That no matter how better than someone you are in one part of life, there will always be someone better than you in another.
This is when you once again realise, that the YOU plays a vital part in your journey and you play an active role in your life by taking hold of your mind, looking at the past as the reason why you are where you are but not the decider of where you are going and using the present as an instrument to get closer to the You that you will be able to love whole heartedly and thus allow you to look at your friends not as the someone’s but as the ones with whom you share your presumptions, pride, pain, potential and perpetual bliss.
