 Uncertain Future
Dear Ronbee,
I have another assignment. Kindly correct it
Thanks,
RAM
Uncertain Future
One day, my teacher asked us about what we would like to be in the future. It was a common enough exercise, I thought. The teachers had been asking this question for years! I hastily grabbed my pen and started scribbling….”I want to be a…
But wait! How can I be certain that I would be what I would like to be, in the future? These are hard times! Our money continues to plummet downwards while our neighboring countries are experiencing “sudden growths”. A few weeks ago, I saw an article in the newspaper, reporting that we are in fiscal crisis. I asked my Pa about it and he explained that it means that the country is spending more than it is earning! If this is true, what will happen to our future? “Well, he said, this is not new. Our country had been buried in debts decades before you and I were born.” Then how come, we are still alive and not in jail? My father just chuckled and told me to study well so that one day I will be able to go to USA, the land of milk and honey.
So that is the solution?, I asked him. But I don’t want to leave my country even it its “buried in debts”! I want to live here and be happy here. I want my children to grow up and absorb our culture, our ways. I want to live in this country where I will feel at home and not be treated like a visitor, wanted or otherwise. I want to stay here and start changes when the time comes. I want to stay here and help reverse our country’s future!
My father just looked at me, now with sadness in his eyes. “Once,” he said, “ I thought just like you. Look where it landed me? us? We cant even offer you a more decent education. Maybe, if your mother and I accepted the offers abroad, our lives would have been better.” Then he patted my head and left for work.
For sometime, I remembered, I just stood there, shocked and bewildered. I have always thought that my parents were happy and contented. I never thought otherwise.
Now, what would I like to be? Would I like to be a doctor, and serve our small town like my parents? Or would I like to be nurse, who is in demand abroad and would earn precious dollars or euros? The former would surely have an uncertain future while the latter seems brighter?
I had already wasted precious minutes deciding over these when I saw my seatmates first sentence…..”I would like to be a social worker so that I can help the typhoon victims…” Ha! What a waste of time, I thought. I knew deep in me, the answer all the while.  | 
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