What I got

So, I had an interview with a great company this week. A question they asked me, just in the course of the conversation, was why I came here, to the great U.S. of A. And... I had nothing. I did have some very personal reasons to wish to leave my home country forever, but in all honesty, it is a shitload of drama I don't really want to go into. Other than that, any sort of drive in terms of career development (by getting a degree from UMaine, hah!), or economic hardship, or political oppression... No, nothing of the kind. I just... took the GMAT, applied for uni's, got accepted, and chose the best (financial) terms. I would like to call it adventurous spirit but that would be an outright lie. I don't really know... I just left. In the end, what I really think my deal was is that I just didn't know what next. I had spent most of my life in school, trying to experience both learning and life at the same time. Whatever we can say about school, there's one good thing about it, globally: it gives structure. Here is what you have to do, you have an objective at the end of each semester (term), and you can see the FINISH line right there, on that four-year turn. You know what's expected from you, you know what the bets are, and it all depends on you.

And then, you're on your own. Not only to support yourself financially (and, if you've been... "adventurous", somebody else), but also to decide what the hell it is that you want to do with your life. And then see if you're good at that. But... how many are the people amongst us that actually know what they want to do? My father was telling me about a problem in our family: that people have always had to choose between what they wanted to do and ... ummm... making money, I guess. But in all fairness, isn't that the problem everyone has? Because we do not become established professionals before we hit 40 or so. I mean, yeah, we have investment bankers, and Google's, and Stephen King's... But we also have statistics, to see what share of the young, striving writers become successful... Or what share of the finance grads become investment bankers in NYC... Or how many young entrepreneurs become billionaires... You get my drift.

So, um, my point was, after I graduated back home, I had no frigging idea what I wanted to do. So, what next? Well, go to grad school of course. And not in Bulgaria, because that really didn't make much sense for various reasons, but here. Luckily, I spoke the language and had managed to graduate first in my class (although it is a bit different back there, namely the rest of the class were morons), so I could swiftly sail away to a nice, third-grade school in the beautiful and welcoming state of Maine (of which all I knew was: STEPHEN KING).

So, school was easy; lots of studying, but I have proven that, if nothing else, I could definitely excel at school... Then work was... a fairy tale in a way. Working at a start-up company in Maine, with a bunch of dreamers, like yourself... All I can say is that... I spend two and a half years in Maine. Working. Then it all finally fell apart, like it was pre-determined in a way, and I spent more than a half of a year in thinking, volunteering, and loving. Which brings me to the present of freedom*.

Not that I can do anything I want. I did have to accept a job I don't care much about - because it pays (hopefully the fumes have not gotten into my system). But, if I do not allow myself to succumb to the routine, if I don't allow myself to become more lazy than I am, or intellectually lazy, I can actually do something that I want to do, something that is interesting and challenging. And hey! I even know what that something is. And then at some point, when I feel that my knowledge and experience have reached a degree that allows me to say, hell, there's an ocean I can launch my boat and sail in, I might even build that boat and launch it. It could be a kayak, a yacht, a schooner, or a motor boat. I'll make that decision, when I can. With a free mind.

Maybe that's my answer, maybe that's why I came here… They say, that's what America is about, it's about options. I say, generalization only reflects what sort of a person you are and what decisions you're prone to make. It reflects your view of the world.

Why I came here… I don't know, I just needed time and that was the easiest thing to do. Probably that's my answer. No good for job interviews, but really, there's nothing else. I needed time to see the ocean and dream of my boat.

Oh well...