An inspiring rendezvous

Recently I happened to meet a set of people whose nature of work is diametrically opposite to mine. They were professionals in the field of fine-arts. I met them in a mega event which served as an art symposium. It was a pompous gathering with a potpurri of shows. The participants were an intermixture of the "who's who" of that industry, students, interns, freelancers and professionals of that field. Among them, it was the freelancers who particularly interested me.

I got acquainted with a freelancer of the same age as me. Over a casual talk, I came to know she was as well qualified in her form as I was in mine. What puzzled me was, regardless of the fact that she was a freelancer without a fixed pay and a secure job, she had an air of placidity flowing around her. She was incredibly happy to be in the rat race in a tough place where creativity scored. In the conversation which followed between us sounded quite sensible.

When I asked her "Isnt it tough to be a freelancer?", this is what she had to say.
When she was out of school and on the thresholds of choosing the right career naturally she was confused. Weighing her likes and dislikes, she gave in to follow her heart. She decided to pursue arts as a career much to her parents surprise. In the art field, there is either a hit or a miss but no intermediate state of sustainment. And if anyone is here to stay, the unwritten rule is they have to be the best. Her parents doubted her calibre but they were supportive though. With her graduation done, it was the time to enter the professional world of arts. But unlike other conventional fields she did not find any company which induces her into the practical world and hence she took to freelancing looking for oppurtunities and grabbing them when the best came in. Freelancing gave her the time and the freedom to learn new things practically and also improvise them theoretically back home. This made her strengthen her fundamentals and constantly update herself. Most important it gave her the much needed time (which is a priced possession in a full-time job) to think at a relaxed pace. She felt freelancing gave her the time to learn, think and rectify.

Ok, Keeping aside her passion for learning, I asked her about the vital- monetary gains. She said she earned enough to make herself financially independent. Being a freelancer was just an initial struggle in her path to making arts her full time profession. She believed if she turned out to be good professionally, money would find its way automatically and then she could thinking of saving. Freelancing laid the base for this. And she also mentioned that she would indulge herself in liabilites only when she was in a position to cover it up. I was awed by her confidence in managing her life. Inevitably I compared my software life with her life. Sadly I found such startling dissimilarities.

Survey reveals that staff working for a multi-national companies earn the highest average pay among the middle class Indian population. Software crowd being a part of this population has a completely different perspective towards work and money than what the lady above has.
After graduation, indecisively we enter the big world of software as freshers, where we are trained and moulded the way the company wants. We get a good job with good money and we are happy. It presents a rosy picture right?, Wrong ! Now, this good amount of money gets into savings, assets and liabilites at a very early stage in our career. So to cover up these liabilites, we yearn for more money resulting in a switch to a higher paying job. And the story goes so on and so forth.

When I mentioned these facts to my friend, she simply brushed it apart saying "You software folks are simply overpriced! I accuse you of an imbalance in the economic status among the Indian youth!". My first reaction for her outspoken remark was that she was jealous but when I thought with an open mind, I'd to agree with her. Accepted that we techies do slog but people in every other profession work as hard as we do or even more at times, correct? It is an injustice that their compensation is not on par with us.

My friend did not like the idea of a mechanical and monotonous job, so what if it was high paying, it was not her cup of tea. Instead she loved the freelancing where she was expected to come up with creative and innovative ideas. She would be openly appraised in public for her efforts. You need guts to face such kind of criticism on a regular basis. She was truly an inspiration!