Dream again.

My bags are packed, but I'm not so ready to go.

I once wrote that I wanted to travel. Yes, I so do want to travel, but I guess the innocence, and ignorance, of my daydreaming youth failed to include the hard work behind a jet-setting career.

That's why it's a dream. Reality smacks you in the face, and the dead weight pulls at your feet to bring you back to earth.

Once upon a time, when I was fourteen or fifteen, I once idealisitically and unrealistically said, "If my first job doesn't pay me at least 2.5 to 3K, I will never take that job." Ya right. The number that glared off my very first payslip was less than 2K.

I started that job without intending to stay, but I did. Why?

Three reasons:
1) I wanted to work with people.
2) I wanted to keep learning.
3) I wanted to do something still related to what I studied. (And once upon a time, when I was fifteen, I had wanted to do medicine.)

There's a 4th reason perhaps. I'm not ambitious, and just happy to do what I do.

Hang on, let me rephrase that. I'm not ambitious with titles and job progression, but I have to keep learning.

Maybe that is why I unintentionally repeated my quotable quote in mandarin, "这份工作不适合我." (This job is not suitable for me). And on some days when I'm down, I'd think, "I'm not suitable for this job."

(Side-note: I wanted very much to teach, but apparently that was not my calling. haha! If that was not the intended plan for you, you get a very firm NO.)

And so, I stuck to the same job for years. And my dear colleagues all thought that I would root there and become part of the furniture.

Don't get me wrong. I love my colleagues, and I like my job.

Then one day, a miracle happened. I was offered something else. I still get to work with people. I will definitely learn much more, and re-learn what I've lost. It's true that we lose what we don't use. I had missed being creative. I had missed writing. And I had dreamt about travelling.

Here I am. My bags are packed. Am I ready to go?

I miss my ex-colleagues, the teamwork, the camaraderie. Perhaps this is part of "the-grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side" syndrome. I'm sometimes bogged down by the harsh reality of work. No one would disagree that work can be a chore, and that's the nature of work ever since it has been cursed in the time of Adam and Eve.

But we were meant to work, and enjoy working! So, let me work, and dream again!