If you hail from Bangladesh, living your own life is easier said than done. Your life might be like a box of chocolates, sure, but it’s a box that’s been prepackaged and picked by society long before you were born. And thus, every time you step outside of that box, you stand out, simply by virtue of exploring other things.
Institutions, peers, colleagues try to box you into easily-labeled territories all the time. If you are a business graduate, for instance, you must be interested in money and the promise of promotion (and power). If you are a millennial, you are definitely an entitled brat who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. If you are a dark-skinned girl who is proud of her baby fat, you might find that others are perplexed why you are so uninterested in being a fairer, size zero individual. And so on and so forth.
While America is indeed the heart of capitalism, it doesn’t mass produce human beings at the rate that somewhere like Bangladesh or India does.
It’s as though you are a publicly listed company, and just about anyone you know is at least a minority shareholder of said corporation. Everyone has an opinion on what you should do- or what you are meant to do.
Whereas in America, children are encouraged to try things, even in the face of failure, Bangladeshis are taught to fear failure and avoid it like the plague. They are persuaded to choose the most safest, most obvious tracks and career fields. Why? Because your ‘investors’ only want the best for you, of course.
Perhaps, this is an after-effect of the Liberation War; our parents and grandparents lived in times where stability was a far-away dream, in a state where rampant chaos was the norm, regardless of which political party was in power. However, millennials- and Gen Zers- are coming of age in times of unprecedented prosperity. We have had an economic growth north of 6% for the last ten years. In such circumstances, people should not be ‘persuaded’ to choose known paths over those paths less traveled.
For instance, writing fulfills an intrinsic primal need for me: it’s an itch that just won’t go away. There are other things that I like too: visual design and sketching, for instance. But I have rarely loved something as consistently or for as long as I love writing. That’s why last year, I made a significant commitment to both blogging and writing fiction.
There are days when everything I write feels so-so, or ‘so close, yet so far’. But there are also moments where I fall in love with a new character, or when I have lots of fun brainstorming plot and worldbuilding. That’s why I feel completely comfortable doing this for free.
Sometimes, I wish it wasn’t this way. I wish that I were more materialistic, or that I at least loved doing something that was as sexy as playing guitar. I wish that I yearned for a simpler life, where I could recharge from months of near-meaningless grinding by taking a vacation or two. I wish that I could do writing full time and not worry about supporting myself or, eventually, a family.
The thing is, just because I love writing doesn’t mean that it’s easy. But this is my truth, and it’s better to live my truth than living a lie.
Here’s the thing: you don’t have to ‘succeed’ in life. You don’t have to a well-paid job, a great relationship or a car of your own. You don’t have to have a big fat wedding.
You are allowed to try and fail, as long as it’s on your own terms. After all, it’s better to be your own failure than someone else’s success.
I am going to end this with a quote from Steve Rogers himself, from an issue of Amazing Spider-Man written by J. Michael Straczynski. “When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — “No, YOU move.”
Everyone has their own river of truth. Give yourself the time and space to find your own, and once you do, lay down your roots despite what everyone else tells you.