Perception evolved over 5 years

We are often asked in interviews “Where do you see yourself in next 5 years”. We often have plans
of prospering in our personal and professional lives. But does it always turn out to be how we
imagine it? Although I don’t see many differences in my life, there are some major differences today
in comparison to how I was five years back.

For starters, five years ago, I was living in Chennai working in IT for Mindtree. I had no idea what to
do with my newly found independence. Coming from a defence background and spending most of
my life in care of my parents in secluded air force bases, I was a lost soul in an unknown city all by
myself, failing and learning through my mistakes. Learning to cope with long hours and working hard
to be considered for main stream project were my biggest worries at the time. If I think about it, I
didn’t have major goals in life back then. Due to my short tempered and impatient demeanour, I lost
of a lot of valuable relationships and often found myself alone. Living an unexamined life, I didn’t
have any major plans for my life ahead let alone coming to college again or pursuing MBA to get my
desired job and getting ahead in my careers.

Today, as I see my life over last 5 years, I see how I evolved through ups and downs and major
lessons learnt over the years. From failing to balance my work to learning valuable lessons by
handling critical situations with clients, working long hours, handling a team to finally deciding on
how I want my career to flourish, a lot happened in these 5 years. Ups and downs, failure and
success in various endeavour helped me to grow into a determined and patient person. learning to
nurture relationship in professional and personal lives, making life long friendships is my biggest
achievement today. Today I am in the sixth semester of my MBA at IIM Kozhikode, have a good job
offer reputed company, married to a wonderful person and have some of the best people as my
friends.

I am not saying that I am a perfect person. I have lot of scope to learn and grow in life. But over the
last five years, I have grown into a patient person and I do understand life will never turn out as I will
plan but one should always work toward their desired goal.