lucky bastard

"You are really luck!" She said to me as she washed and massaged my head. She, a middle aged married Chinese woman who left her country and family to earn better money; but the lack of education has impeded her opportunity.

I have never thought of myself as lucky. Growing up in a middle class family with dotting parents and a rather normal life, albeit a bit boring and bland at times (now that I think about it, haha...). Of course, there were times that I wished I had a better (read: different) life. I grew up comparing... almost everything, parents, friends, statues, etc. I wished I was someone else, the handsome guy or the rich man's son in the movie I just saw, the brain of the family. I measured myself with the standard of the world and I didn't live up to it, not by miles.

Interestingly enough, it was in the Catholic church that I found refuge, in God's embrace that I found acceptance. I learnt to see who I am through a different set of eyes, I learnt to accept my gifts and my defects. I learnt to love myself. I crawled out of a shell into the blinding light of the sun and let my old self be washed away by the pouring of the monsoon. I became me.

But all these in the expense of education. I chose to serve the church right after my secondary education rather than followed the "normal" path of continuing my education. But thanks to the relentless persistence of my parents, I finally got myself an education. And thanks to the years working for the church; the detachment allowed me to look at myself and what I really want to study, a chance which not many people have.

And with this education, some doors were opened to me and had therefore given me a lot of opportunity. I have met lots of intelligent people who don't have a university qualification and therefore missed out in many chances. Education became such an important part of our survival, our being... since when did we start to measure a person's worth by their education?

With these events, and not being en-sync with the flow of the world, allowed me to know myself deeper and see things in a very different perspective. And I chose to go down a path of unknown, a path where I learn to discover myself, away from my culture, my family, familiar setting... We know that we are what our background, culture and family made us. And if we take away these equations, who are we? Does memory equal identity?

The last 4.5 years of life on the road helped me to discovery a lot about myself and surprisingly I am happy to be who I am today... without any dragging identity, irreconcilable differences between what you feel and what you know, past guilt, worrysome future... I may lead a very simple, "aimless" life, but it is this day to day, present living that gives meaning to me. And who I am today is the product of all my past so I have no regrets at all. I don't wish for things to be different anymore, I stop dreaming a different dream. I am content with myself.

So I guess I am a lucky bastard