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Choices

Change is hard, all the more when one is very comfortable with the present. Family, friends, job, security and the time to pursue my hobbies, I had everything here with me. But I felt discomfort in the comfort, for comfort rarely taught a man anything. Going through 2 years in the army, spending extended time away from loved ones in Houston, the phases of my life I experienced the most pain, those were the experiences that shaped me and made me better.

So I decided to uproot myself, thousands of miles away for a couple of years, where I would be by myself and less protected, for the sake of putting myself through that discomfort. Something about it did not make much sense, Why volunteer to go through pain when you have happiness at your doorstep? Besides, what about the opportunity costs? 2 years of lost incomes, savings withdrawn to the point of exhaustion, a Masters that might not amount to anything. And so on and so forth.

Though it somehow occurred to me that my concerns were mostly financial. A lot of the worry was about keeping a healthy bank balance, not to lose ground with my peers in terms of career; concerns that were quite, Asian. I a not saying money is not important, but isn't money supposed to empower us? Isn't money supposed to be the means and not the goal? But when it comes to money it is hard to feel satisfied in this country. Pay rises, bonuses, promotions, BTO, the excess or lack of which I often see defines the happiness levels of the majority of my friends. Coming from a well to do family, I am not in the best position to comment on this. But something about this culture just does not feel right. Yes, it is where this world is heading to, but just because it will happen does not mean we have to accept it blindly.

Of course, I could be wrong. This whole migration could be a bad idea. Subconsciously I might be deceiving myself through justifying an action that is at its core an escape from the responsibility and grind of adult life to return to the freedom of a student's life. But you know, does it really matter when you see that rich or poor, famous or unknown, achiever or failure, we will all end up one day below the same ground?

And in this contemplation of my own mortality, I find comfort. 

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