Currently scrolling through the blog of an ex-senior I had, and I'm feeling envious. She's gone overseas for her university education, she's done some traveling and plans to do more, she's meeting new people and taking in all the amazing sights the world has to offer...
Reading her blog just reawakened that part of me that has always wanted to leave the country. Like I said in my previous post, for too long now I think I've pandered my thinking so much to the way others wanted me to think. Whenever I said I looked towards an overseas education as a way out of this country, a lot of people wanted me to shut up and they thought I was being naive and stupid. Slowly I stopped thinking about leaving, because it was so tiring to keep trying to defend myself. It was so much easier to think about just remaining here. I didn't need to think about the money I needed, or the things I needed to live a life overseas. So I succumbed to everything and made myself content by trying to apply to the local universities.
Maybe it's a case of sour grapes, or maybe it's fate. But I couldn't get into any of the local universities, so I'm looking towards an overseas university again. And all I need right now is the money, but if there's a will there's always a way.
People have told me, you don't know how good you've got it living here. It's safe, your family is here, everything that you've ever known is here. Why the hell would you want to leave?
To that, all I can say is, why the hell would you want to stay in this tiny island when there's a whole world out there for you to explore? Isn't it a prime example of the frog in the well?
If you don't know the back story behind the Chinese idiom, it's about a frog who has always lived its life in a well. One day, he was visited by a turtle and he started boasting about how great it was to live in the well. However, he was humbled when the turtle told him about the sea.
I just can't stop ignoring this part of me that is so desperate to leave. Think of me as stupid, naive, foolish, etc. I'm just glad I've decided to stop trying to deceive myself into thinking I'll be happy doing something just because everyone else tells me to do so.
I'm not an amazing person or someone with a talent that is so indispensable that people would want to hire me for it, but one day, just one day, I'll finally get to leave this cage that feels so suffocating.
