Hi T2 friends,
How have you been doing? I hope this post finds you all well, and you’re very much enjoying your life, and of course, writing.
I’m really glad FWW is back. After enjoying the 1st and 2nd seasons, but still couldn’t keep my writing consistently when it finished, FWW S3 is such a reminder that I feel I really need right now. Hence, thank you so much T2 team for keeping your effort, and making S3 happen!
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It’s been a while since my last post here. I’ve finally made a move back to Vietnam, so it’s been a bit hectic, a bit crazy in the last 4 months, both for the transition as well as the adaptation to a new place. Yes, I have to say it’s ‘a new place’, even though I’m from Vietnam, because after 12 years living in the UK, it seems not an exaggeration to say I’m now like a foreigner in my home country.
Somewhat unexpectedly, the first thing I have to deal with is how to live with my parents again. Coming back home as a mature man of 34, I was startled to see that my parents still treat me like a 20-year-old boy, and they have a totally different perspective on how I should live my life. I can’t help but recall wise words of my favourite author – Seneca, in one of his letters to his friend Lucilius:
I am dissatisfied with you—at odds with you—angry at you. Do you still want the things your nursemaid wanted for you, or your tutor, or your mother? Do you still not understand how much of what they wanted for you is actually bad? O, how unfavorable to us are the prayers of our nearest and dearest! And all the more so when they turn out well. It’s no wonder to me now that all kinds of troubles beset us from earliest childhood: we grow up amid the imprecations of our parents. May the gods hear our prayer for ourselves as well, a prayer that costs nothing to fulfill.
To be honest, I don’t know, whether one day we (me and my parents) can live peacefully together. And I have to say I’m truly jealous with those of you who have full support from your parents without any demand, or, like my case, lots of instruction. But, the more I think about it, the more I see how wise Montaigne was, when he wrote that the best way to live and take care of one’s parents is to live close to them, but not in the same house.
So hopefully one of our neighbours will sell their house soon.
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Anyway, other than that, I’m really grateful to live close to the ocean again. My parents’ house is just 10-minute walk from the beach, hence, I could have a lovely walk in the early morning (which I do almost every single day, except when it’s really heavy rain outside). It’s so refreshing to have that wide view of the ocean, where there’s no boundary, where the ocean seems to meet up with the sky. Especially with that quietness of the early morning.
And then, of course, is to go swimming in the ocean every afternoon, enjoying the water to the upmost. Somewhat surprisingly, I’ve started to recognise a sense of meditation in the swimming – you know, each movement – one hand, and one leg, and the other hand, and the other leg - one after another. Then having a rest in the middle of the ocean, enjoying at the sunset, the line of trees along the beach, and the view of the mountain far away as well.
And sometimes, mostly in the weekend, I spend also the evening just sitting and listening to the waves, which makes me purely happy.
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With that routine, you might ask whether I’m retired already, right? Unfortunately, I still have to work. But instead of being a full-employed, now I’ve become a freelancer. As most of my customers are based in the UK, my main hours of working has changed to around 5 to 10 pm here (at first it’s quite hard to adapt, but, you know, we human beings can get familiar with everything, right?). Anyway, the money is quite good, especially due to the fact that I earn in British Sterling and pay everything in Vietnam currency (VND) here.
With that, you might think I’m living very comfortably, right?
But that’s actually not true. What really strikes me is that I actually worry much more about money. Only when I’ve done a bit of reflection (mainly through writing a journal) that I could realize how much that anxiety dominates my day and my psychological health. And that’s when I had to stop to think of its reason.
I suspect it’s mainly an influence from the surrounding society. You know, Vietnam is still a developing country, and our social support system is very little (if not nothing). Hence, there’s no hope in relying upon the government for your basics, and everyone has to find a way to literally put food into their mouth. This has created an urge to make money, no matter what. The level of competition between individuals is much higher here, they think more about money, talk more about money, and pay more attention to everything that resembles money (car, house, luxurious items, etc.)
As I’ve just moved back from the UK, where, at least, your monthly cost of living can be secured by the government (at least if you’re a UK citizens), I could really see how different it is. When money is not that important, when you don’t have that insecure feeling of being starved one day, maybe not next week, next month, but next year, the level of empathy can be higher, you can be more friendly, and it’s easier to co-operating instead of competing with others.
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So, it’s quite interesting to recognize this social influence, and I must say that it might be much stronger than what you can guess. But hopefully, this awareness will make me become more mindful, and make sure that I don’t let that money anxiety controls me, that I’ll still be able to find a balance between what I really love doing and what can make me some more money.
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Andy Luong
