This is I think the most common question I am being asked whenever I find myself talking with a newly met stranger.

And trust me, it’s one of the hardest to answer without finding myself being bombarded with a string of follow up questions.

I came from a society where payrents constantly remind their children “to study hard so that they could get a good paying job where they could work until they retire and live happily ever after”. Sounds sweet and too utopian right? Yeah, it sure is.

So me telling people that I, technically, don’t have a job is a sure way to raise their eyebrows. They always expect that question to be responded with the standard spiel that is “I work at <insert Fortune 500 or NASDAQ listed company here> as a <insert job title here>”.

But I’m a hard headed, stubborn, wayward son who loves challenges and adventures that for once in my life, I decided not to heed to my payrent’s golden mantra with the heavenly wish of not putting into waste all the resources they pour in for my 15 years of formal education.

After more than a year of being confined on cubicle farms , I called it quits and decided to face the wild, wild real world armed with a pea sized brain, my dependable laptop, a not so reliable but expensive broadband connection, savings enough to put myself on a full course instant ramen meal for the next 3 months, and courage as expansive as the rapidly declining polar ice caps.

A year and a month fast forward after I made that nerve wrenching, heart thumping, and pee inducing decision, guess what, I am now happily blogging besides the fountain of life up here on heaven after a long bout of malnutrition and emotional depression down earth.

Kidding.

I’m still alive. Fortunately. Though I’m still a few lifetimes away from that ultimate goal of bringing Google down on its knees, I’m really happy that I survived my first year. Beginners luck I guess? I hope so not. But as Mr. Wise Man puts it, nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.

Though I really haven’t accomplished anything yet that would qualify me for a monument, nor even some cheap key chains, its nice to acknowledge the fact that I learned, and am still learning, a lot of priceless stuffs as I journey along this road less traveled. Stuffs which I wouldn’t have learned have I stayed sitting inside the cubicle farm. And its a fun experience actually.

So please people, no more raised eyebrows. This is 21st century. Gas costs an arm and a leg these days. And just because I stay inside the house all day long doesn’t mean I am constantly pigging out on box after box of choco, chips, and coke while channel surfing.

I’m on a full course instant ramen diet, remember? :p