Make affordable choices and live the life you want

While I was in bed, I accidentally came across the United Nations recruitment information pushed by a public account I followed. I thought it was very suitable for a good friend around me, so I forwarded it to her. In my opinion, she has the talents required for this job, and she also has a lively and cheerful personality. What's more, I have always thought that she is the kind of person who likes to venture into the world.

Unexpectedly, she was not interested. I was surprised. But after thinking about it, she also figured out the reason. This seemingly high-end job requires stationing abroad. It is said that she will have to change places in a few years, and her boyfriend is still in Beijing. She does not want to live in a different place, let alone wander.

This reminds me of another friend. She rejected an offer with a high annual salary just because the job was in Shenzhen, a city she didn’t want to go to, a city too far away from her parents, and that job A high-paying job means working overtime day and night. She doesn't want to be exhausted every day without someone by her side, and she doesn't want to have to go home so far.

I felt sorry for her when I first heard about it, but then I understood her. Because I am a wandering person, and I have many friends who are wandering like me. For example, my roommate works in an accounting firm. During the busy season, she comes back every day when I go to bed. I have no chance to meet her. When it comes to her, she said, she takes a taxi to the alley late at night and sprints home at a speed of 100 meters. She is scared to death. Sometimes she encounters an uncle and his big dog who are walking their dogs at night. I said, it's really weird, but I have never experienced it, so I think I still can't understand her fear.

As a bystander, what you think is suitable for others is always just a reference. Therefore, I admire the sobriety of my friends. They think carefully when making choices, and there is always a reason to persist or give up. Yes, choose what you can afford and what you really want. Looking back at myself, I feel so reckless and hasty. It seems that I have always made hasty choices. From which major to study, where to work, what kind of job to do, and when to fall in love, it is all my own decision. , and looking back on the past, I feel some regrets and regrets, so much so that I often sigh, "It would have been better if I had done it before."

It is written in "The Girl Who Killed Quail", "When you are old and look back on your life, you will realize when you went abroad to study, when you decided to have your first career, when you chose a partner and fell in love. , when you get married, it is actually a huge change in your destiny. It's just that when you stood at the crossroads and saw the storm, the day you made the choice was quite boring and ordinary in your diary. At that time, you thought it was an ordinary day in life. One day. But now, I understand that no matter how unscrupulously I live this life, I can never feel guilty about all this when I am gray-haired. Even if it seems to be an ordinary day but I make a major decision, at the end of the story. I will still regret it. This is the real life, worth remembering, and I am grateful to have experienced it."

Indeed. I remember it was one afternoon after the college entrance examination. I went alone to a hotel in the city where my high school was located and met with the teacher from the admissions office. I was timid and lacked confidence. I hadn’t even thought about what major I wanted to study in the future, because I felt that as long as I could have It would be nice to have the opportunity to attend that school, even if the options are so limited. Later, faced with not many options, I hastily applied for the English major. At that time, I left the hotel and walked alone on the sunny street. I can't describe the feeling, how relieved? Looking forward to it? I just feel that everything has settled. In August, I will go to Beijing to start a new university life. What will it be like?

In fact, I called my parents before making the decision, but they didn’t understand very well and asked me to make my own decision. And I didn’t even know to choose what I really like, not what others think. Pretty good one. Besides, how much did the 18-year-old me know about the outside world at that time? In this way, I decided what I learned in just a few hours, which affected me for many years until now.

Sometimes, I often think, if I didn’t have a complex about famous schools, didn’t take the exam to be one of the lucky ones, and still got such a score in the college entrance examination, maybe I would be the same as my classmates who got the same score as me. If you go to study Chinese in Nanjing University, where will you be now? Hypotheses are just hypotheses, and maybe they won’t be much better than they are now. Such assumptions are sometimes like an injection to numb oneself, so as not to face the current situation and just work hard.

The same is true for the love that started later. When I graduated, everyone else was about to break up, but I started falling in love in a hurry, without any hesitation, as if I had missed that person and would never meet again, knowing that we knew each other. We have to go to different places, one is in the same place, and the other is going south. We are thousands of kilometers apart, but we still start.

Romantically speaking, you can define it as the madness of youth. To put it bluntly, it is a wrong decision. Later, many people told me so unceremoniously, but I didn't want to admit that I was betting on an uncertain future, and I never thought about the worst outcome I would face. So when the worst came, I was at a loss.

One recent night, I went for a run. The sky was clear and the air was clear. My friends and I were running on the playground. We complained in the cold wind, how unfair it was. In the end, I was the only one injured. The roommate said that there is no fairness in the world of love and he is willing to admit defeat. From the beginning, I should have thought of such a possibility, but in my naivety, I never understood that feelings will fade, people's hearts will change, and everyone's life trajectory will give rise to countless possibilities. I was too naive.

Yes, what kind of assumptions and considerations do I have about what kind of life I want? Someone once asked me this question seriously. One bright spring afternoon, I was speechless for a moment. Only then did I realize that I had been living in a confused state. Like the 20-year-old Lu Xiaolu in "Young Babylon", he doesn't know where to go. Sometimes he is dissatisfied with the current situation, but he doesn't know how to change it. But at that time, I had another person, and because I liked him so much, I always wanted to consider the future of the two of them together, just like the friend I mentioned at the beginning. I understand her. It’s too hard to be in a different place. I don’t want it to happen day and night, but I want it to be there when you need a hug, not just the expressions of three little people on WeChat. Therefore, even though I knew that if I wanted to stay with him, I would have to give up a little bit of what I had gained in the past few years, I told myself that I was willing. After all, he once said, "Let me turn into water and wander around in a small bottle all my life." In fact, I know that I will be a little bit willing at that time.

What kind of life do we want? Before I graduated, I heard that such a very capable senior sister went to Tsinghua University High School to become a high school teacher after graduation. I felt it was a pity. Later, a senior fellow student who graduated from graduate school also made the same choice. Now I often see him posting in WeChat Moments. English composition for students. Last October, I saw an outstanding counselor give up his job as a civil servant in a national ministry and follow his soldier boyfriend to Qingdao. However, they looked so happy in their wedding photos, which proved that everything was worth it. This year is just the time when my classmates are graduating from graduate school. Seeing them going through the hard work and running of finding jobs two years ago, nothing is easy. Watching them struggle, choose, and wait, it seems that this era is not any better.

But it is always good to be true to your heart, whether it is for freedom, love, career, ideals, or anything else. I know that this world can be cruel sometimes. We swear and are full of confidence, but when we encounter reality, all our hopes are shattered.

I will never forget him calling me and telling me that we might not be able to go on. That was his rare cowardice and sadness. After all, he has always been so optimistic and enthusiastic, he said He tried so hard, but still couldn't get what he wanted. I dare not say that everything that happened later proved that it was a joke, but I know that the disappointment at that moment was real. A few days ago, I also learned about his final whereabouts. No matter how he concealed it, I knew that he was not satisfied with the reality of where he came from and where he returned.

It seems that sometimes we want very little. Yesterday when we were rushing home carrying heavy things, we stumbled. When we stopped and changed hands, we carelessly dropped a bag. I threw it away, and the kind-hearted uncle who was sitting by the window of the restaurant knocking on the glass made me look back and pick it up. They collectively put down their chopsticks and looked at me, a girl, laughing. I was so embarrassed. At that moment, I wished that someone could help me. When we got home and chatted with friends, the wardrobe in the school dormitory couldn't hold her clothes. At that time, our wish was so simple, that is, we wanted a big wardrobe, a house of our own, and a home.

The world is so big and I want to see it. This sentence is so poetic. I always thought that we were all free, but later I discovered that many people actually don’t like wandering. Even in my eyes, those people are so suitable for wandering. They have the ability to wander, but for the people they love, , for the sake of family and more small blessings, I still gave up those things that sounded very glamorous.

Now I am free and at ease, but I also long for someone to belong to. If wandering is my destiny, I will not resist, but if there is a harbor where I can rest, I may not refuse. In "Qiyue and Ansheng", Qiyue's mother told her that no matter which path a girl takes, it will be hard. At the birthday party that day, the senior who was already married and had children came to have a memory kill. They were once the darlings of the family, and even dared not strike a match. They said that they were forced to become "feminine men." They relaxedly recounted the hardships they experienced behind the scenes. I can only experience it. I was thinking, I will be with them. Are they the same? When I reach their age, what kind of life will I live?

In the near future, my roommates will go abroad to study, and the jobs of my good friends will also be settled. They paid for their choice and received it without any regrets. Life is never over. Tomorrow may not be better than today, and yesterday is not better than today. All we can do is make the choice we can afford and slowly get closer to the life we ??want.

Finally, I was reminded of the scene in the film "Young Babylon" in which the large chimney and reactor tank exploded and collapsed in the factory. The director said that he liked this scene very much, and I also liked it very much. The era of a factory has passed away like this. . And many, many years later, when I look back at the age I am now and the road I have traveled, I will probably feel the same sense of black and white emptiness that everything has fallen away and gone away.

Life is one thing, just go through it.