Life

Life..what do I seek in life? Is mere existence enough? That I will anyway do, oneway or the other. What is it that I want to do in life..? Looking at things as of now, my plan's to get a doctoral degree, but what after that? May be a job in a company or a prof in some univ...What after that?..This question can be asked n number of times till I reach the time when I look back on all things I have done at my death-bed and maybe have one or two regrets about things I could have done, before passing away!...
My point is, is there any meaning to any of the choices we make in life ,or is it more meaningful to analyse what is it that we do once the choice is made.For example, I think it wouldn't matter to me whether I were to live a life as a farmer or a scientist, provided 'I like what I do and I do what I like'. I have always wanted be an astronomer, but having entered an engineering stream , it might be difficult now to revert back to my initial interest. Now, whether what I am doing right now interests me is the question to be asked and to that I answer a resounding yes.Why? - Why not? My other interest has been trains - Every year during summer vacations, we would travel from hyd to chennai to my uncle's place. I used to simply get awed looking at the train, the engine chugging in to the station, the sounds and ofcourse the sights from the "window seat".Though I never fancied being a train driver, I wanted my work to be associated someway to trains.
Coming back to the original question, even if I were to take up a career that were related to my interests, is that enough? Isn't what you do after having made that choice more important. Taking up work that I like will only help me get into the 'thick and thin' of things quicker, but to sustain it is an altogether another task, which I think is what is I should be aiming at.

Let's take an example: You have two tasks A and B. A is something which you like to work on based on your exposure to the field to which the task A belongs and on the other hand B is a task which is not to your liking.
Whereas you might get a good start on A and maynot even start B, the sustenance of the work towards the two tasks is altogether another issue. In a work environment, a tough supervisor might do the trick, but what if there were to be no one to monitor your work..how is it that you
ensure that you keep up the pace of your work and not end up in stagnation...? The only way I see this happening is through setting up goals...Not goals that are merely to be acheived as in a deadline, but goals which really serve to keep you motivated through your work...These goals boil down to the core things that we seek in life.They are mostly related to the improvement of self, either intellectually or spiritually or both.
Even the will to 'just do it' is a form of spiritual exercise, if the will is strong, you wouldn't have to look for motivation...you just do it, no matter what.It is interseting to note that people of great acheivements are people with great will power and this is something that is developed over a period of time, and the best time to start is when you are really young. Unfortunately, the current education system does not emphasise development of these core values and are rather career oriented and competition rules here.Instead of just mugging up facts in history, if opinions were to be asked of students as to the analysis of a particular event , thier critical thinking skills would be enhanced.Courses in logic and problem solving would do a world of good in paving the path for a better life. Though it can be argued that children aren't that mature enough to start thinking logically at an early stage, we haven't really experimented to see if that is true.It is an irony that the need for these things are felt later on in life and nothing is being done about it.