A luxurious choice

I have made a happy, relieving decision recently. Personal decisions to calm your mind and to choose your personal path are so important for your personal wellbeing. For a while I had been struggling with this decision in my mind; making one choice generally means to sacrifice the good stuff the other choice would bring. Although this is really a luxurious choice, it’s not an easy one. 

See, I  moved to South Africa when I  was 12 years old. A very influential age – your teenage years are upon you and life revolves around development. In this age group much more than any other, I will argue. I lived in South Africa till the age of almost 19, when I left SA for (temporary) good. This immigration influenced my way of thinking about this world in a massive way. My place to settle down ranges from East to West, North to South. My ‘the one’ could be anywhere on this planet, speaking any kind of language. But to be realistic, I will never live in all the countries this beautiful earth offers me. This means that I constantly question what I am missing out on, where next I will go or where next I will live a part of my life. I am very grateful for everything I am able to do, but at the same time it is quite a lonely existence. 

The man I love and I are not together, because we don’t know if we will ever be. My closest friends are spread over the globe, whom I can always call but hardly ever meet. A luxurious choice, I know. But nonetheless a hard one. My family is spread over 3 different countries, none of which I can be in at the same time, to see them all, at once. I love my family, I love my friends, so where do I choose to go? Even the answer to this question differs: choose yourself, choose your family, choose your friends. Depending on the person I talk to, and his or her culture and background. 

Life is beautiful, especially when one can make such luxurious choices. But wow, it is a difficult one. Confucius would tell me to choose my family. They are the reason I exist, and why my existence matters. Laozi would tell me to go with the flow, to evaluate each choice as it presents itself in terms of my life lived in contentment. 
Pretty much, the choice comes down to yourself. I often make choices based on my gut feeling, reasoning, but perhaps most importantly to me is that it is in accordance with how I want to live my life. In all honestly, life is so incredibly short for many of us. If you have to think about the bigger picture – what is the life you want to have lived when you are looking back on it? 

My actual decision

~~~~ coming back to my luxurious choice – I have decided to narrow down the countries in which my possible future lies. It might not even happen, I might end up somewhere 4000 km to the East. But at least for my mind and for my research, it makes things a lot more comfortable. They are:
– China
– Singapore
– Australia
– South Africa
– The Netherlands 

I might just see you there 😉