All my life, I have been fighting a lot of internal and external intellectual battles and other obstacles. My parents think that I always choose the difficult path and have to suffer more than other people. The thing is that I always set higher goals that are a little out of my reach. That's because I love the challenge and enjoy the path to reaching those goals and whole experience. So to me, it's not suffering at all as they see it.
I am also pretty obstinate. Once I find something I consider is the best for me, it is almost impossible for my parents to change my mind. I always argue with my dad giving a zillion reasons why I want to do this, why it is best for me, how it is going to be a loss for me if I do not do this etc. In a good sight, I'm pretty persuasive :) But to my parents, it's always frustrating to have this difficult child who is not quite fit into the dominant culture.
Recently there are two ongoing battles with my dad:
1. going back home for good after grad school vs living wherever I want to
2. marrying a Burmese man at age 30 vs. marrying the BEST man for me whenever I find one
So I just recently won #1. My argument in short version was that I love freedom and I don't feel free when I'm home. I feel that I do not have many choices for the life I want to live. Once I come back and find lost opportunities, I will resent and feel unhappy when I feel trapped and can't get out of the country. As a compromise, I promised him that I will visit home more frequently once I am more settled with my life.
Battle #2 will be very tough. Personally, I don't even care whether I get married or not. It is a BIG thing and my lifetime happiness is at stake. The whole family is pressuring me to start dating someone potential seriously. I told my dad that 'yes if I meet someone who is very intelligent, highly educated, open-minded, adventurous, very social and independent, he also appreciates my qualities and fall in love with me. He said "Your requirements are very very high. It's very difficult to meet your requirements. The only things I want is honest, hardworking and medium educated, patient Myanmar guy."
It upsets me. It almost sounds like "I don't want the best for you. I just want some average guy as long as he's Burmese."I know he is not like that. I know he wants the best for me. But still he wants me to settle for less than the best person for the racial issue.
For the time being, I just want to focus on school and developing my career. I don't want to think about this marriage issue. It's just a lot of pressure and my parents' constant nagging is hard to bear. But the same time, I love challenges and enjoy overcoming them. They keep me on my toes and don't get me bored....
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