Running.

I was walking home from Friday prayers today when, upon reaching my street, I suddenly felt the urge to run the last fifty or so meters to my front door. It's actually quite normal for me to run home after my now-increasingly-less-frequent visits to the nearby playground to play football, so maybe that's where it came from. At that point in time, however, I decided against running. It seems the older you get, the more reluctant you are to sweat.

Sudden urges to run are nothing new for me. I recall going to the beach when I was younger and just running across the sand for no reason. I just felt like running, so I did. Those were simpler times.

Having said that, I actually don't really like running. Running as a form of exercise just isn't my thing, as I find it to be quite boring. I've tried running regularly for fitness purposes, but up until now I just can't commit to it. I'm a willing runner when I play sports, though, because at least then running serves more purpose than simply getting from Point A to Point B. Outside of sports, I never really run unless a sudden urge propels me to.

Doing things simply because I feel like doing them and for no other reason isn't something that occurs too often. I've always been more of a rational, analytical type who thinks before saying or doing anything. Heck, I even rehearse possible conversations in my head sometimes in my free time. Nevertheless, I find being spontaneous every now and then to be good for my sanity. Overthinking tends to happen when you try to think everything through; sometimes you just need to have a little faith that things will somehow work out, even if not in the way you think.

***

I had to make a big decision recently regarding my future. On one hand was the MPhil research work I mentioned in my last blog post. On the other was a job at a prominent Malaysian investment bank, for which I'd gotten past an interview a couple of days ago and had been invited to attend a second and final interview next week. Sure, simply getting called for a second interview is no guarantee that I was definitely getting the job, but at least there was a chance that it might happen.

It wasn't as easy a decision as I first thought it would be, but I ended up declining the interview invite in favor of focusing my attention on getting started with my MPhil. I'd only attended the first interview for the experience anyway, as I had already more or less made up my mind to further my studies, and I'm glad I did because it was a bit different from the one I attended for internship.

An additional effect from attending the interview is that the door to me working in the financial industry has remained open. In the first few days or so upon receiving the MPhil offer, my head was buzzing with the very real prospect of me finally finding my true calling as an academician. It seemed to make sense - I love learning and knowing about things, after all. It also seemed to be quite possible that I would go straight into an academic career right after completing my MPhil, which is something that made me feel a bit uneasy as I still felt that I should give working in finance a go. Thankfully, attending that interview reminded me why I even wanted to work in finance in the first place, and I guess I'll have another big decision to make in about two years' time.

I would like to go into academia someday, but I really feel like I should begin my working life with a career in the financial industry before doing anything else - it somehow feels irresponsible if I don't. My feelings on that could change after MPhil, but I guess we'll see in a couple of years.