Are we behind “Money”??

For international graduate students in the US!!

Right from the moment we made the decision (!) of studying abroad and making a decent (which is mostly defined on a monetary basis) living for ourselves, the numero-uno motivation factor was "Money”. The question to be answered now is: Are we going too much behind it? The life that most of us lead now is like an arranged marriage, where you accept what you have (or going to have) before knowing or getting what you like or want. Shouldn’t we be motivated by factors like peace, love etc instead of Money? Is it too matured a thought or is it just another issue that we fear to explore? In the past years of accomplishments in academics, career and in telephone bills, almost none of us are exploring the fact that we are object oriented? Or Money based? Higher education and self-realization have honed the reasoning skills of every graduate student. We are now perfectly learning and reasoning the life backward but forgetting to live it forward. Of course one such vision of learning it backward gave birth to this thought.

A typical international graduate student's (exceptions are not examples) target is to finish his/her grad school, find a job, bring his/her parents, get married, stay healthy and of course diversify their career options (which most of them don’t see now). If this is something that one wants to do, it is definitely not driven by their very own thoughts alone, the influences of the people around them is almost 90% (says god-knows-what journal). Just because an Indian looks happy with all these doesn’t mean that it’s the best algorithm. Of course this is sufficient to lead an ordinary life with less satisfaction and mediocre money. Is this what you really want? Most of us are motivated towards that point without knowing what we will and will not achieve by doing so.

We have heard about people who are working in places, which are associated with danger both legally as well as physically. Is this the reason for their existence here? A graduate student who makes more money working in a gas station will obviously be motivated to own one in days to come! Rather than following the heart that brought him/her in! In this process the student would lose his/her pride, brain, passion as a researcher, desire and finally end up making money and losing peace. Is this what you call reinvention? For some reason some of us have found peace in money. We work so hard in making money that we don’t have time to spend it. Some of us work hard (before and after we graduate) and send a meager percentage of that money to parents and people back home. What’s the point if we are not there to share the happiness? And if you do some math, you will know that the same support could have been extended right from there. As a matter of fact, you would have possibly done it with better credit history and more happiness!

There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else we have master card! Of course we do, sometimes we use that dangerous card to buy something and fail to realize what we are supposed to earn with it. What you earn from those small gifts that you send home is the happiness in their faces and lives. And the best part is that you can’t be enjoying it with them, because you are too busy paying the card bills or making money for it here!
Why are we doing this? Cant we just stay there and be with them and realize the happiness instead of finding out a reason for our existence here! Yes! Some of us are still attempting to find a reason for our very existence here. Why are we here? Are we justifying our stay-away from the people we love the most?

There is certainly an exponential increase in our reasoning skills and exposure by staying here. But how does it matter if you are not thinking bigger than the box. Great personalities in this world have sacrificed one thing or the other in their life to reach that level. Are we sacrificing family and peace to achieve something really huge in life? If so what is that? Have you ever asked this question to yourself?