Are you a seeker or a sellout in life?
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It’s a regular morning, and a young lady awakens to the morning chorus. She attends her regular gym session and on her return home, is greeted with a clean apartment plus a warm Indian breakfast by her long time maid and cook. After a pleasant conversation with them about the chores of the day, she showers and gets ready for work in a crisply ironed set of clothes. When she returns from the office, she revises for the admission exams to the USA while in the background, her evening meal is prepared.
You might be mistaken that this is about someone from a privileged background, you also might agree with me that this sounds like a pretty good life. She’s living the dream! However little do we realise, in her eyes, she’s still on the bottom rung of the ladder that is infinitely tall.
Reality is not what it seems.
While in India, many individuals that I have spoken to, have resided overseas at some point in their lives. Others have even given up their Indian passports to become citizens of another country! Does it mean that they are sell-outs? Or are these individuals just wanting something more than what their country of birth has to offer them? Maybe there is something deeper at play!
The misconception that people like this and many others are just chasing the money is untrue, in my view, they are seekers or modern-day explorers, it’s inherent in their culture. In the case of our young lady, she is willing to take a leap of faith, by moving to a country where the native language is not her own, the customs are completely different and attempt to build a life. To see if the opportunities elsewhere outweigh the ones closer to home.
As a young adult, exposed to this from living on-and-off in Spain for several years and now in India. I have realised the benefits of building more cultural empathy through immersion to different types of people and lifestyles. This can lead to developing relationships with new friends, potential business partners and possibly a companion!. Alongside this, the opportunity to see the contrasts in the world leads to an open-mindedness that has been hugely beneficial in dealing with the more complex questions I have regarding life.
You have to realise that your world is broader than just the country you live in, you are not confined to its borders, and there are opportunities in faraway lands! The best way to do this is to approach life as a seeker of knowledge and opportunity, beyond the modern societal life script that you may have been following unknowingly:
Study at University → Find a job → Get Married → Start, a Family. Etc ….
Henry Ford once said
“Anyone who stops learning is old. Whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
I would tend to agree with him and would suggest:
You can seek out the best life possible for yourself, not be just another number in a system. No one said it will be easy, you will have to put in the hard work to achieve what you desire. Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter. However, when the opportunity arises, you can smile and take that leap of faith, knowing that you can push forward to carve out the life that you want.