Doing what you love, loving what you do

The other day, my mother and grandmother all but cornered me asking me what I was doing with life.
The fact that I was earning an average salary in a job I loved didn't seem to be a titular achievement for them. All their friends had children who were either going abroad for studying or for work.
Sure! They were using up their folks' funds like no tomorrow. But, that was immaterial! They wanted to know why I had settled for a seemingly simpler life as mine.

And I can assure you, dear readers... I was a bit disappointed. In them.... and in me.

Don't get me wrong! I love my job! I sincerely feel that every little thing in my life had been for preparing me for this job. Call it destiny, if you will? And furthermore, certain incidents have made sure that I completely re-think the way I lived life. I was very much a "people-pleaser" before. And now, I see that standing up for myself is what I should've been doing all along. Anyway, that's all water under the bridge.

But this... these accusations that somehow, I had failed in life if I did not earn more than the people around me... it fell upon me like the metaphorical 'sucker-punch'. And when I was reeling from its effects (read shed a few private tears), I realized something.

I am me. Yes, it ought to have been obvious by now! I have been going about, telling people to be happy for who they were while in private, I was still worried what my parents would think of me. I was still a closet people-pleaser. Sure, I had started to think for myself and take steps to make myself the most important person in my life (and my companion dog shares that place!). But it was such a radical change from the way I thought of myself from before! I felt guilty every time I did something good for myself, thinking how others were going to perceive it! Oh, heaven forbid! Will they think me selfish and self-centered? Will I not be the same kind and selfless person everybody loved me for!?

You know what? It doesn't matter! Sure, there were so many people who thought I'd changed and they were unhappy with what they saw. And ironically, they were the same people who would always expect me to be there for them, even when I couldn't possibly be! But in the end, I was happy! Truly happy!

I didn't feel wretched every time I did something for myself! I felt loved... and I realized that this is me. This person filled with all these funny quirks and weirdness! This unique work of God or Nature or whatever! This soul who lives and feels the same way as anybody else! Yep... this is me!

I walked back to my mother and gave her a piece of my mind. Sure, she knew it by then that the words she had used weren't exactly kind ones. So, we met each other half-way. We're back to a seemingly normal life now. But I know they will always be them and that's something I need to live with!

And now, my father wants me to look into some job prospect that promises me the Heaven and the Earth.
Like I said, they will always be them. And I will always be me.