Freedom

Yesterday, I asked Dennis, "What's the opposite of obligatory?"
and he replied with a big, bold, "FREEDOM"

And as I read that, it was as if a grand Steinway & Sons concert piano lifted off my shoulders. I realized after that particular phone call with my mum, I felt much better being a lost sheep.

Before, the only problem I had with trying to guide my inner black lost sheep was expectation. For 19 years, my mum expected me to come out with an awe-inspiring degree. Family friends, just even last week, can call me up to 3 times a day to try convince me to accept my medicine offer (I faint at blood). Friends tell me to do the optometry course in my hometown as its an opportunity to open your own clinic and then be able to start a family. But they all know I'm not happy with those options so in the end, they wryly smile and encourage me to push on with engineering.

Everyone says those words, "I'm proud," "take care of your family," "your mum deserves the best from you."

So how am I meant to stop, think, and know what my passions are?

I unconditionally understand their perspectives. My mum suffered an arduous journey, to get us all here and together. And as the eldest, it is my unmistaken duty to provide her with a life pivot.

Hence, my dispassionate pursuit for a reputable profession and the decay of self preservation, ambition.

So to get the call from mummy yesterday, to hear for the first time in 19 years, from the person I care for the most - "Don't do engineering if its making you depressed, go paint and draw (she thinks that's what I want to do). We don't know, maybe you will become an expert (her words) in that but if not, you just pay the consequences. As long as you're happy."

I know she would've had to bite her lip to say that to me for the first time.

Now that I've got expectation (well, from the main person I listen to) out of the way I've gotta go scouting for my zeal.

I'll show her right? I'll make her proud!



...wish me luck?