Choice vs Chance

“I am here by chance not by choice” sounds familiar? Many of us might have experienced this at some point in our life. Both of them are good and situational, but we have to be mindful about subtle differences and opt one as situation demands. As they say choices are what we make and chances are what we take. Choices are usually thought through evaluating options or guided by elders or by expert opinion. On the other hand, chances are navigating through unknown territories that involves an amount of uncertainty. Sometimes chances are taken when there are no choices left or when we are not prepared ourselves well enough on what we wanted to be. 

As kids we are guided by the choices of our parents or elders, but as we mature we make our own choices. Depending on environment in which we grow, we may not have got any occasions to take chances. However it is very important to experience both at early age as they nurture different qualities and characteristics. Choices improve qualities like preparedness, planning, rationale thinking and structured approach etc. Whereas chances develop characteristics like boldness, risk taking, adaptability and instinctiveness etc.  We need to strike balance between both to imbibe wide variety of traits either by ourselves or otherwise our elders should let us explore both. When I was in my 9^th grade at the age of 14, I was certain and made a choice to pursue diploma after my 10^th grade. Subsequently I further made a choice to do engineering at the age of 18. As with the choices, I had developed very detailed planning with structured approach and prepared for what is expected and experienced certainty. Up until 21 years of age, I was not presented with any situation to take chances and experience uncertainty & navigating through ambiguity. When it finally appeared as an option to either attend direct interview for Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) or for master’s degree at the age of 21, I was unprepared to take a chance. Well I don’t know if that’s a right choice for me, but I did not develop boldness perhaps to take a jab at ISRO interview rather opted to pursue masters. 

When we are very clear on our choices with right level of preparedness we develop a quality called first time right. As it happened to me everything at first time up until my master degree and that mind set may even made me to select my thesis in “Lean Six Sigma” first time right, zero defect high quality concept. On the other hand while we are developing the habit of taking chances, we should experience a quality called fail fast or fail early, a design thinking concept. Although we are not afraid of taking risks, we fail early to learn quicker and adapt when we take chances. After studying 8 years of mechanical and production engineering from a very certain and well prepared environment, I landed in unprepared and uncertain environment when I started my career in IT industry. As it so happened, after 23 years of successful education and gold medals in engineering and masters, I failed first time in my Initial Learning Program (ILP) during first few months of training at job. I welcomed the uncertainty and embraced fail fast or fail early. After that I started taking chances to move roles and technologies pretty quickly from Microsoft technologies to CRM to Data and management roles. Although I had ambiguity, confusion when I joined IT industry, I of course experienced certainty and now experiencing energy with TCS.

When I look back and ask “am I here by chance not by choice?” well I had taken a chance for sure to join IT industry but along the way I found what my choices are. Not all of us have a perfect choice of what we want to be, we either take chances to make them one of our choices later (As Ratan Tata says "I don't believe in taking right decisions. I take decisions and then make them right.") Or find those passions which may not be our Moneymaker but keeps us enthused at work. Learning and sharing is what I am passionate about, which keeps me going and do better at my work, every one of us should find out what’s motivating us.  My father had a choice to join engineering but being elder son in family, he took a chance to join a job at early age as situation demanded. He later made it his own choice and gave life to 100s of his students with his teachings in mathematics. Whether we are taking a chance or making a choice we need to find purpose in whatever we do to make it more meaningful and joyful!