What have I accomplished this past year? I don't have a straight answer for that.
We traveled a lot this year: Buenos Aires, New York, Miami, Beijing of course, Shanghai, Xiamen and Taipei. Opportunities we would not have if we did not decide to give this venture a try. We played host to a good amount of coworkers, friends and family who visited Beijing. This forced us to get to know Beijing a lot faster and created great memories in this city we now live in. We made a lot of new friends through work and frisbee. It's amazing how many nice people we meet and with great anticipation I wonder how our friendship will be. We kept in touch with old friends via Facebook and shared their news of engagement, marriage, birth and all the little things. It's nice to still be a part of their lives while being on the other side of the world. And because we still felt connected with them, we were able to share the most intimate parts of our lives with them. For all of the above, I am grateful.
Before this year, I don't think there was a time where I didn't know where my life was headed. I've always strived to achieve what I wanted in life. It used to be easy for me to decide what I should do. This year, not so much. I guess this has been my gap year even though I never seen it as such until it ended. Looking back now I concede that I could have used my time better. But even so, I'm not going to do things people think I should do... such as teach English in China or find a job working for a Chinese company or agency. Everyone thinks that I'd be great at it and it would be a great use of my time, but my heart's not in it so I'd rather do nothing. I'm stubborn like that. I want to use my time to do things that I want to do, but I guess I've spent the last year trying to figure that out and I'm no closer to the answer as I was beginning of this year. Sad.
I'm not sure if this has always been the case, but this year I've been wondering if there's something wrong with my brain. I think differently from a lot of people around me. It's like I'm doing things backwards or that I'm putting importance on something they feel is irrelevant. Is it because I'm not around engineers anymore? Why do I feel like such a freak? Why is my point of view so different from them? I think I've spent most of my time this year trying to understand how people do things and how they think. But even though I've come to understand them more and more, I find I cannot become like them. I find the people around me fascinating, but I can't be one of them. A clear example is drinking and smoking: I understand why they like it, I don't mind them doing it, I even get the rituals they have with it, I can quote their excuses for doing it... but that doesn't make me smoke or drink. People don't understand why I have no interest in smoking or drinking, it's not like I have a I'm holier than thou attitude and condemn it, and it's possible that I'd have a better time if I had a drink or smoke with them, yet I choose not to and haven't wavered in my choice. I guess I'm stubborn like that. My brain came to different conclusions and chose to do things differently.
Ask me why? I don't have a straight answer for that.
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2 comments:
You can say I am different or eccentric (fine, I admit it). I have gradually embraced who I am in good or bad ways. Moving to US helped the transitions. Americans really are more open to the diversity of people (not races, I mean personality), even in more social phobic Midwest. It’s a land of individualism that people respect or don’t care who you are. Yes, I have to say Taiwan or China people are critical to the individuals are “different”; but like Vince says all the time: so what? I really admire Vince can be himself (like wearing pink and purple outfits to steakhouse…). Be who you are if you are a firm believer and don’t sweat on small stuff!
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