7 day weeks, 18 hour days
- By: Qwaider
- On:Friday, November 09, 2007 5:39:06 AM
- In:Thoughts
- Viewed: (5967) times
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Rated 4.5/5 stars (110 votes cast) Thanks for your vote!
It's that crunch time again. Long hours at work, less time to sleep, relax, shower or even eat. And certainly less time for this blog!
And people are dying to just jump ship back in their home countries and come to the glorious land of the free!
If you think for a single second that life in "exile" as I like to call it, is easier or more rewarding. Then you're crazy.
A while ago I read a novel about this man who left his home and wife to go looking for diamonds. He travels all over the world pursuing his dream. Many years later he returns having achieved some of his ambitions. He goes back home to discover his wife who has remarried is rich and living way better than him. Diamonds were right in front of him. In his home, right below his nose and he just didn't know it. In fact, he wasted his life searching for it elsewhere.
So what the hell am I doing here? Away from home, working like a ehm, horse!? Is it the money? Is it the fame? Is it the chance to make a difference?
I really don't know. What I do know is that I have a specific goal to achieve. And I will be getting there in the next 3 years. If I don't get sucked in even more into this non-existence. I might be able to break my chains, pack up my things and go home.
You don't need to travel to the other side of the world to be happy, or save, or get rich or any of that crap! People can succeed where they are!
I hardly know anyone in the US who is not up to their neck in debt. In fact, most are in debt for the next 30 years if not longer, that's how bad it is for 99% of the expats in the US. Yes they do have a positive cash flow and for the most part, they end up above water, but barely.
So what difference does it make if you're barely making ends meet back home. Among your family. Or a million miles away? Yes, true, the quality of life is not the same. But if you weigh in all the variables. You will notice that it really does not make any difference. You have more things to buy here and do. While people back home can visit each other and socialize. The cost of ANYTHING is a fraction of what you will pay in the US.
There are moment. Many moments where I manage to get my mind out of the grinding gears of the work machine to look around for things and issues that matter. And you know what! From a distance it doesn't look that important anymore!
I'm keeping my head in the grinder for 3 more years....
But if you want my advice, stay home! Or get what you need from this exile, and go home!
Memories....
sorry 3ala el el salbeyeh, but you really opened an unhealed wound in my heart! :(
allah ytoob 3aleana 1ool Ameen!
Nashmi!
If you don't have the money to get what you want why put it on your card?
I just I don't get. It's not worth it to live with your heart torn to a million little pieces 11 months and even when you go back home for one month, your expenses would be charged again on that stupid card.
And later on you'll find your self imprisoned to your debt, it's too late to fix your financial status, and too late to go back home and start a new life.
Anyways All y2aweek qwaider and best of luck!
When I read your article, I was going to cry. I wish I did not leave my village because I could have had house, wife, kids, and a car. Now i am in debt and working like a machine from 2 am to 5 pm and no guarantee for good future.i am m fed up of frozen food or KFS, MacDonald, kebab, chine’s food r eating alone.
i miss home i want to go home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain;
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gayly, that came at my call
Give me them-and the peace of mind, dearer than all!
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
I gaze on the moon as I tread the drear wild,
And feel that my mother now thinks of her child,
As she looks on that moon from our own cottage door
the woodbine, whose fragrance shall cheer me no more.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile!
Let others delight 'mid new pleasure to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home,
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
To thee I'll return, overburdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home
http://www.seiyaku.com/hymns/en/148.html
man, my parents were so right. every second in jordan I was working to get out of there, bs they told me I would regret it, they told me I would one day be dying to come back :( they knew what it was like, bs I didnt believe them, I figured, hey, I'll come back every year and visit you guys, twice a year if I have the time, shu y3ni??
bs life gets busy and internships and summer projects and exams husbands moving and fastforward to 3 yrs later and I've never gone back ONCE. when i finally do go back, it will be 4 yrs .. and every single day, it makes me wonder... what the HELL am I doing here???????????????????
Maybe for inexpensive items that don't make much difference, but for cars, appliances, electronics, nearly anything expensive, the price here is overwhelmingly higher. I'm sure you know the 1USD = 1JD rule.