There is no EASY in Adult Life

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Story 1

I have a friend, sometimes, when he reached home, he will sit in the car for a while before entering the house.

I asked him why he do this, he answered,

Many times I do not want to get off the car because that is a division point of line. After you walk down from your car, you are a mundane, a father, a son, a husband, and you are not yourself. In the car, I like the quiet, smoke a cigarette, at that moment, the body belongs to myself.

There’s a girl who told me, whenever she had a fight with her boyfriend, she will cry and drive around without thinking the destination. After finish crying, she will then go back and put on makeup, continue her life like nothing happened.

Yes, it is a tired life, every day we need to play a variety of roles and endure the temper of facing all kinds of people, constantly feeds your mind with "mature" and "high emotional intelligence" code of conduct.

For a man, he could be a father, a husband, a son, a successful people in the eyes of his friends. However, only when in the car, he belong to himself. In a dark small space, a flickering cigarette with night radio, will make you aware of the existence of "self", that feeling is really good.

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Story 2

When I was young, our city had its very first KFC.

My dad took me there to try it out. He bought me a hamburger, french fries and orange juice. As a child, this is the happiest moment in my life.

At that time, our family is not that rich, only able to afford 1 set of hamburger, so my dad didn’t order anything. He just looked at me and said:. "I'm not hungry, enjoy your food" But when we got home, he heated up last night's leftovers and eat.

I know he was hungry. Because as a father, there is no way for him to let me hungry and eat leftover food.

Story 3

I have a friend called Amy, is particularly a happy virus. If a person has a keyword, the keyword for her is laugh. She likes to recommend us comedy movies. Even if she encounter problem in her work life, she is particularly optimistic, resulting everyone who was pessimistic like to talk with her.

One night, around 11 o'clock, she came to me carrying large baggage, looked tired. She came home late after working overtime and was driven out by the landlord. She said the lease is up and she's not renting anymore.

I've never seen her look so unhappy before, so I do not know how to comfort her. Her phone suddenly rang. She said: "I’m fine.... ...... quite happy with my new work….rented a house close to my the company... just ten minutes to reach company...... Don’t you worry about me, I'm an adult now, I can take care of myself.

After the phone call, I said: "It’s a tired day, get some rest". She still laughs and said: "You can sleep first, I still have some work left to do." It’s around 1 o'clock at that time.

In the middle of the night, I woke up and would like to have some water and found Amy on the couch, there is no light, only light from her laptop and her face with tears.

I do not know how long has she cried. I looked at her face, I think she might not even know she cried.

One of the most complete breakdown, is quietly, silently cry.

It makes me think of a post I saw before: "A modern collapse is a silent collapse. It might looks normal, joke around and looks calm, but in fact, the breakdown has accumulated to a certain extent.

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Story 4

I have a friend, who works as employee for almost 10 years and feel ready to start own business. He find a few friends and start up a advertising company.

After spending the first three months of the honeymoon period, one of his friends, said that they have different concepts, and decided to split up. They were best friends for a long time, just because of different concepts, they no longer be able to be friends. Not only his friend left, his clients and his team also taken away from him.

He has no time to be sad, because he still need to pay his employees salaries, pay the suppliers, find new customers, investors and comfort his employees from panicking.

He wanted to cry, wanted to roar, and even wanted to fight with his friends, but he couldn’t do anything. All he can do is, after work every day, he went to a park near his house, sit down and look at the elderly exercising. After adjusting his emotion, he went back home with a smile on the face.

He later said to me, when he saw the elderly exercising, he cried because he's envy when he looked at their happy face.

In the eyes of others, he is a father, a husband, a dutiful son and a rich boss. But deep down it his heart, he knows, he soon to be drained, a man who facing midlife crisis.

There is never easy in our life. The part where is not easy, is that you know the true you, which has long been abandoned to social identity package, or even got buried. But you can’t give up, no other choice, you can only continue with those identities because those identities are hopes given by others.

But no matter how difficult to manage those identities, deep down, there will be a weak voice, constantly asking yourself: What is the meaning of life? What’s is on the other side of the hill? We only know after we climb the hill.

I like the song "What'up", in the lyrics: “Twenty-five years and my life is still, trying to get up that great big hill of hope for a destination”.

Life is really like climbing a mountain. We at the foothill, is when we were young, innocent, and know nothing. When we climbed halfway up the mountain,  we had spent our energy, no energy to walk back down, and did not dare to look back because fear of height. All we can do is keep climbing. As long as we can climb thru our past, that is, those who can hold on in their life.

Hold on, means everything.