Side note: I am pretty sure I come off as bipolar due to the fluctuations in my mood (January: I’m so happy! March: No wait…am I happy? April: Wait…is this what happy is? April: How am I supposed to tell? May: This is what I don’t like doing, but who knows what I like doing….) But what can I say? I ask a lot of questions, and I don’t like keeping the status quo for extended periods of time (and by extended periods of time, I mean 9-10 months) That’s 1/24th (or 1/25th soon) of my life. That’s a significant chunk.
Anyway.
Because I find it hard to figure out the things that make me happy in India, I decided to start with things I don’t like. Contrary to popular belief, this was also really difficult. I have realized that I don’t have opinions on many things, which is great to some degree, but not so great if you’re trying to figure out about what makes you happy. (To be quite honest, I have random opinions about 2-3 very specific things that nobody cares about, and it’s mainly because I’m jealous so those don’t really count as legitimate opinions.)
In one of my initial posts I listed all the things I wanted to do. Well folks, I tried those things. Turns out most of it is the things I don’t like to do list. Go figure. Here is what the results were:
Learning how to ride a motorcycle: Did that, and really liked it. Can I ride on the road by myself on an Indian street? Probably not. But if you put a gun to my head and said ride, I could do it on an empty freeway. Better question: am I motivated enough to actually buy a bike and do it? The sad reality: probably not. I know it would be completely badass, but I don’t think I want it enough. Given that everyone and their father (literally) has one, I can just catch a ride with the billion (and a half) people that own (and operate) a motorcycle. Luckily, that includes every single male in my office.
Verdict: Done- not pursuing
Exploring India (preferably via bike): I think I was a little overambitious with this one, or I saw too many Bollywood movies/didn’t get a boyfriend with a bike to take me places I wanted to go (Ride Indian boyfriend- RIDE). Didn’t get around to actually wanting to ride myself, and I discovered the wonder which is the overnight bus. However, immediately after discovering overnight bus trips, I succeeded to binge on said bus rides. Thus, I don’t think I can do them anymore. They were so awesome! $20 USD for a round trip to Mumbai or Bangalore- you can’t beat that man. I think I averaged over 2 overnight bus trips per month (~18 so far). They sound innocent enough, but the problem is that if you leave Sunday night, and come back Monday morning, your whole Monday is shot. It’s like you’re hung over. I mean, not that I’ve been hung over, but I feel like this is right up there. Maybe if I didn’t have a job that didn’t require my full attention, it would be fine. But I really can’t half ass stuff on Monday, so I’ve ruled out overnight bus journeys. Which means I either travel on long weekends, or I fly. Option 1) not many anymore and Option 2) expensive. If you say train, it’s pretty much the same as the bus (in my book). Maybe I’ll try those, but I think it would still be hard to get a good nights rest on one.
Verdict: I will still explore India, but at a much more natural and not so frantic pace.
Reading lots of good books: This morphed into, lets read all the books I can about business. Which was actually a good idea. I can’t tell if I am compelled to read business books all the time for fun, or if I actually love it. I have managed to read fiction as well, but I love reading, always have, always will. And I think I do average about 2 books a month (or at least I start 2 books a month- who knows when I finish them).
Verdict: Continue
Speaking fluent Hindi: This one is tough because I started out trying to watch Hindi movies, but..man…Hindi movies are 3 HOURS! I usually try to watch it in parts, but then this cuts into my do nothing time, and usually in my do nothing time i want to watch trashy American TV. But honestly, I think it’s hard because I live in a place where they speak mostly Kannada, so…this isn’t really the place to practice Hindi. Also due to the fact that a lot of people speak English, coupled with the fact that my hindi will take a while to get to a really great level, I think I’ve chosen to just put this one on hold (i.e. wait until I live in a city where they only speak Hindi and then start trying to get really good at it).
Verdict: On Hold
Cooking: I think I was under this romantic notion that cooking would be awesome. And it was (the first couple weeks). But then by week 5, when you’re eating the SAME dish (Because you’re too lazy to learn anything new/don’t really want to chance making anything awful because then you’d have to trash the food and THEN go find other food after coming home from work…) it gets a little old. I also realize that on the weekends, I tend to go out to other cities, and if I’m home, I would rather be doing other things. Like..ANYTHING else. I have discovered that I just plain do not like cooking. Period.
Verdict: RIP cooking.
Meeting amazing people: I forgot about this one because I think the plan was to meet these people while I was riding my bike to all these cool places around India (which, as we all know, was one of my many ingenious plans that never really happened). I don’t want to write about it or anything, but that would still be cool. Problem is, it’s really vague, and when you have vague goals, they never get done. So I think I’m taking this one off the list and replacing it with other things. I also think that’s a given, in general (to meet cool people)
Verdict: Taken off the list (too vague/it’s already a given)
Learning how to surf: I actually did this one! I mean, I didn’t learn ALL the way but I took a lesson. The verdict is that i) I’m in India so the waves are not crashing all the time ii) if I was serious about this, I’d have to plan my life around when the waves come so I could surf iii) those don’t seem like great options to me. It was fun, and I think I know enough about it to…think about it? But I don’t think its really feasible to continue in India
Verdict: RIP Surfing
Taking Pictures of Every Day Events: This really did not take off. I don’t even think I like photography. I think the real reason I never owned a camera before was because I really didn’t care about taking pictures. I did an experiment, I hoped I was wrong, but no. I actually don’t think cameras/photography interests me (no matter how much I want it to). I still like that I have a cool camera. I plan to use it.
Verdict: RIP photography
I’ve thought about what new goals are, and at some point- but they’re still a little half baked
So I Quit My Job and Moved to India 