Insecurities of a Software Professional

The life of a software professional is full of insecurities.

When you start out with your career, it is all about getting into the most reputed MNC. If a college-mate with lesser academic credentials that you got into a better company, with a higher pay, you'll have sleepless nights. Insecurities.

A couple of years later, when you realize that academic credentials have very little to do with who ends up in which company and earns what salary, the angst at being underpaid subsides. The comfort of being part of "the" most famous IT company provides consolation for all the under-achievement.

The next goal is to go to the US, and live there for a few years. When you finally manage to do that, it gives you a new high in your career. You are sitting in the US, and sending mails to all your batch-mates, who had gone past you in terms of salaries and achievements.

"Sup guys, how is our India these days? I am missing it badly, although USA is a pretty neat place to live in".

And then, to your horror, within 5 minutes, you receive 10 replies.

"Hey dude, just arrived eh? Gimme ur number, and i'll call ya. Been in NJ for the past 2 years" types.

Such kill-joys these friends are.
And so your years in US are also spent sulking at how everybody else has already achieved everything that you are about to achieve. Insecurities loom large.

Finally, you decide you have had enough, and return to India.
Once back, you think of finally getting one up on all those US-based friends.

"Namaste friends, I am back in India now. All those months in Pardes taught me the importance of appreciating my own country. Now I have come back to my home, and am enjoying the warmth and joy that no amount of dollars can buy you in US. Jai Hind" You write.

Within 5 minutes, your mailbox is flooded again.

"Good you are back. Why don't we all meet up this weekend at Vidyarthi Bhavan for dosa?”

Just like that, your thunder is stolen. Yet again.
And you are back to your ways of wallowing in self-pity. And insecurities.

After a lot of pondering, you decide to completely severe your links with all your batch-mates from college, to avoid being reminded of your under-achievements. So you decide to hang around mostly with colleagues. Since these guys are in the same boat as you are, there is no fear of being upstaged. Or so you think.

Soon, however, most of the guys that you had branded as "hopeless" due to their fallibilities with the English Language, and had ridiculed as people who will remain "techies" all their lives, manage to find jobs as "Technical Architects", with salaries more than double of what you get. The rest, who you ridiculed for being total "no-brainers" when it came to technology, accept positions as Project Managers and go on to earn pay packets several times more than yours.

All of a sudden, you find yourself alone and left behind. Stuck in mediocrity, and complacency. As a jack of all, but master of none.
The only thing that stays with you loyally through all these times is your fear of under-achievement.
Insecurities.