Life After Peace Corps

Life is what you make of it

February 6, 2012

A friend from CMCNY asked me a question which I think requires an honest answer. Over the years, she saw me achieve many personal goals, make many of my adventure dreams come true, later joined the Peace Corps, now come back, find a good job with a good organization, move to DC and start a new life. To her, everything that I did so far appears to be unproblematic, effortless, logical, and requires no serious struggle or complication. Life should not be that easy, she implied. Did I plan for them to happen or they just happened? The answer is simple but yet complex:

Everything happened in my life, I made it happen. *

*(The answer is nearly 100% correct but with one exception: I cannot make people love me. it is a complicated subject, perhaps I can explore it some later days)

I am one of those few lucky individuals who were born with a very strict self-discipline. I demand for perfection, set up exceptional high standard for myself, believe in working hard, never give up easily, and recognize that there is truly no short cut in life. Most importantly, I never lose sight of my dreams.

Each goal I set, I pursuit it wholeheartedly. It takes an inflexible will, intense patience, a massive dedication of time and a superb plan to keep every dream alive. Of course I worked hard, of course I struggled, of course I failed, of course I scarified, of course I was misunderstood, and of course, I was lonely……but I always followed through my dreams.

So my friend, everything happened in my life so far, I planned for it, I worked hard towards it and I used tremendously strength and determination to accomplish it. Through life's difficulties and challenges it is easy for us to lose sight of our hopes and dreams, but I am smart enough not to let that happen to me.